My freckled fingers freeze, just as they did all those months ago when I feared that death might be waiting for me in the room I was about to enter.

This time it’s life that’s scaring the pants off me.

We’ll see which one of us lands him first.

Sylvia had won that contest hands down. But the night Ruth came back…

She hurries through the shop doorway and immediately feels her whole body go rigid. To her left, holding a bag of long-grain rice, stands an apparition who’d have been perfectly at home stalking the torchlit corridors of a Transilvanian castle...

It wasn’t going to be like playing one of the ugly sisters. Nobody would be in on the joke. There’d be no knowing winks to the audience, no muttered asides in a normal voice.

And no way of telling how long it might be before the curtain came down.

How long did Gillian hold out? Three days, did she say?

And I’ve been here nearly forty-eight hours already.

The clock is ticking down...

The door creaks open. My head snaps round, and I almost pass out at the sight of two living, breathing kuzkardesh gara.

It’s finally happened.

I stood on the shore of the mating game with Padraig and Gerald,
but did no more than poke a toe into the surf. Now I’ve waded in
with both feet, and I’m waiting for the first real wave to break.

Kerrie hands me a mug and sits at the kitchen table, gesturing for me to join her. As I arrange the folds of my skirt I sense the vexation she’s been holding in check since we waved the boys away break free from its restraints. I haven’t told her everything about my encounter with Susan Dwyer and she knows it.

Here we go again.

Your name?

Ruth Hansford-Jones.

And your chosen specialist subject is...?

The girl I never was.

I dole out snippets of my invented past, each sounding less fraudulent than the one before.

If you tell a lie often enough...

But the vicar has found the picture of Sorina. He moves it closer to his eyes, which are widening in disbelief and shock.

“By all the blessed saints...” he gasps.

“Not something you see every day, is it?” I venture. “She’d certainly stand out in a crowd.”

“Can’t you see?” he cries, jabbing a finger at the photograph. “It’s her. It’s Sarah-Jane.”

Kerrie’s hand has moved to cover mine. Her face is full of concern.

“Are you unwell, sweetheart? You’ve gone very pale.”

“You said three people died. Helen Sutton. Bob Hodgson.” And now my mouth’s so dry I can scarcely move my tongue. “Who…who was the third?”

I hang back a few feet, allowing Kerrie to pay her respects to a woman she never met by resting a simple spray of roses on the bare earth. Then I notice the headstone, no more than nine or ten inches high. An epitaph has been written on it, and in French.

The game is up...

The girl on the other side of the dressing-table mirror returns the world-weary smile I throw at her. We’ll see this out somehow.

If only I didn’t identify with her more and more completely with each day that goes by. How long do I have left before I’m unable to imagine any reflection but the one in front of me now?

Scary? I’ll say.

And there isn’t a thing I can do about it.

“A man is following you. He’s armed, and he may be under orders to kill you.”

I feel my whole body go rigid. I’ve heard that voice before, and not so very long ago...

Southern England, the late 1970s...

When my vision clears I’m alone.

And very much alive!

But my euphoria is throttled in its cradle. Something is wrong...