'So, tell me Albert . . . ' the words sprang from her as though spoken by someone else, which was just as well, since they were at once more calm than she herself could have willed, 'how did you get in here? You can't have climbed up. It's too high, and I didn't see any sign of a ladder. And how did you manage to overhear what Theo and I were saying? You could only have done that if you were inside the house.'
'All right,' he said, straightening up and appraising her speculatively, 'we'll play it your way for the moment.
'I've always been here, Pamela, right close at hand. I've watched you eat. I've watched you sleep. I was right there at your elbow as you sat upstairs with Theo each and every night. I even know what you were thinking, especially when you were alone.'
'That's it, isn't it,' Pamela said quietly. 'There are secret passages in this house. You somehow found them and managed to make use of them.'
He shook his head. 'Haven't you guessed the truth yet? There are no secret passages in this house. There aren't and there never were.' He smiled suddenly, but it was a smile that almost stopped her heart from beating. 'Haven't you wondered how it is that all those professional trackers were unable to find me, when I've never been more than a few hundred yards from this place? I let them know it, too, leaving them signs all over the place, so that they knew that I knew that they knew I was near to them . . . so near they could almost feel me breathing down their necks. So tell me, Pamela, how did I manage that?'
She waited, dreading what he would tell her.
'I was right in front of them all along. Haven't you heard the old saying? "A wise man always hides something in plain sight."'
Pamela shook her head. 'No. That isn't possible.'
'Isn't it?' he taunted. 'You know what the people in CID call me, don't you? Grendel. The elusive and indestructible monster who drinks blood and feeds on human flesh.'
'I suggest you tell that to Beowulf,' she rejoined meaningly.
'Hello, Albert.'
He wheeled around to face Theo, who watched him with eyes that were at once as dangerous and cold as his own.
Pamela scarcely recognised him. Theo? There was not a trace of the compassion she had seen in him, no caring in his eyes, no warmth in his soul, no . . . the thought sent shivers of terror through her . . . no soul at all.