"I'm going to be murdered."
        That thought keeps recurring throughout Tuesday, a busy day of telephone calls, e-mail messages and meetings, including a sit-down meeting with my bank manager and another face-to-face meeting with my lawyer, Mitodarni.
        My reaction to the thought varies. Sometimes it strikes me as absurd, like someone proclaiming that tomorrow the moon will turn to marmalade. At other times I'm simply irritated by the fact that I can't get this nonsense out of my head. But there are moments when the thought has a terrifying plausibility.
        If I am going to be murdered then I will be killed for money. And not by a stranger. No. I will be killed by a member of the Udamana clan. All going well, we will soon be awash with cash, and whoever kills me will enlarge his or her own share of the spoils.
        Logically, that's why someone set fire to Dolagataka Dignity Domiciles and caused Aunt Chariot's death. Logically, whoever killed Aunt Chariot would be as happy to eliminate me. The logic of that proposition, which I'd earlier resisted accepting, now seems crushingly obvious. Inescapable.
        "But why me?" I ask.
        Our shares will be equal, so why should I be singled out as the target? Well, maybe I'm not going to be singled out. Maybe there are going to be other victims.
        "After all," I say, "wasn't Atakana a target?"
        Yes. Someone pushed Atakana off the stairs, and he was lucky to survive with his life.
        Weary at the end of the day, but more or less ready for the rapidly approaching meeting with the Merlercians, I decide to head downstairs for a cup of coffee. Leaving my upstairs office, I walk down the corridor past the children's bedrooms and then past the bedroom I share with my wife, and start to descend the stairs.
        The incident happens when I reach the stairwell by the window overlooking the rear of the house. Something sways inside my head and I feel dizzy. I stop, and grab the banister, and hold tight. An earthquake can make you feel that way. Are we having an earthquake or am I having a stroke? Nothing in the surrounding world gives me a clue either way. I'm okay. I think. But I'll wait for a moment or two before continuing my descent.
        Winter has given way to spring, but the evenings are still getting dark fairly early, and it's already gloomy outside in the back yard, where Tanto is practicing with his metal baseball bat, swinging repetitively at an imaginary ball. From my vantage point by the window on the landing, I see this without really thinking about it. Then I notice that there's someone sitting on a chair in the Inner Garden, a woman, I think, and she's watching Tanto too.
        The woman who is watching is clearly visible to me, since my elevation permits me to look down into the Inner Garden. Tanto, however, could probably not see her through the trellis even if he was looking in that direction. And he's not. He's standing side-on to the Inner Garden, into which he never ventures because he's scared of it.
        Who is the woman? Because I'm tired (the pressure of the days leading up to the upcoming negotiations has really been grinding me down) it takes me far longer than it should to recognize who the woman is. It's Chelooza. Yes, Cousin Po's crazy nanny is sitting in one of my chairs with a lump of shadows on her lap (baby Huppy, I presume), and she's watching Tanto as he swings at an imaginary curve ball and then swings again, methodical as a robot. (I wish he could apply some of that same methodical energy to, say, his mathematics!)
        So much for telling Chelooza that she wasn't welcome. It's done no good at all. But then, what does she have to lose by disobeying my prohibitions?
        The oddest thought then occurs to me. What if Tanto is the murderer of Chelooza's imagination? After all, some actual male human being successfully impregnated Chelooza. If the culprit wasn't Cousin Po, could it perhaps have been Tanto? Is my son baby Huppy's father?
        If Tanto, at the age of fourteen, is baby Huppy's father, then that might explain why Chelooza gives the impression that she thinks she has a future in the Moss Mansion. It's all too easy to imagine Chelooza drawing Tanto into her fantasies and persuading him in the direction of murder.
        I have never thought of either of the twins as potential murderers. However, recently, in the news, we've had a number of disturbing stories about children killing their parents. One of the alarming things about these murders is how pointless, unrealistic and badly planned they have been. Each has been an exercise in adolescent error. And Tanto, bedeviled by genetic demons, cannot be altogether ruled out as a candidate for the greatest imaginable folly, that of gratuitously murdering your parents.
        As I am brooding about this, I see Helena enter, stage right. She walks past her brother without acknowledging him. Perhaps Tanto is so absorbed in the art of baseball that he fails to see his sister. Helena, who seems to be still wearing her school uniform, hesitates at the gateway which leads into the Inner Garden, then enters. Soon she is talking with Chelooza.
        This makes things worse. Each of the twins has demonstrated an individual capacity for misbehavior, but if you put them together then they're more than doubly volatile.
        The sound of someone coming up the stairs interrupts my chain of thought. Not wishing to be caught, not wishing to be thought of as a sneaking spy, I retreat to my office and wait, listening for the creak of someone walking down the corridor. I hear nothing. All innocence, I exit from my office. Anyone in the corridor? No. Nobody. I retrace my steps. Anyone on the stairs? I descend. Again, nobody.
        If you asked me if the Moss Mansion was haunted, then I would answer "No". But we do live in a perturbed zone, and it must be admitted that, at times, my senses bring me information which I cannot quite square with my understanding of the reality which surrounds me.
        On regaining my observation post, I see the three of them standing together in the back yard, talking. Helena, Tanto and Chelooza. At least, Chelooza seems to be talking. Tanto and Helena, as far as I can make out, are listening.
        We will have to have a chat. Me and Helena and Tanto. We will all have to have a little talk. I need to know how the twins are connected to Chelooza. And I need to know if they are planning something.
        "And why not now?" I say.
        Yes, now is as good a time as any. Soon, Kitty will be back in town, this time with her negotiating team. And, after the arrival of the Merlercians, I am unlikely to have much time for playing detective and hunting down my murderer. The time to have my confrontation with these three is now. So I go downstairs and go out through the back door.
        But the territory to the rear of the house is empty. There is no sign of anyone. Tanto's bat? It is lying discarded in the shrubbery. It is wet, as if rain has been falling on it. But perhaps Tanto has another bat. (As his father, I have the feeling I should know, but the fact is that I have very little idea of what he does and does not possess.)
        With the actors gone, it is hard to be certain of the validity of the drama. Did I really see Tanto, Helena and Chelooza out here? Or did I imagine the whole thing? Or were the images that I saw neither real nor imaginary but, rather, a transitory show of the kind that this perturbed area of ours sometimes puts on?
        "As far as I know, I am perfectly sane," I say to myself.
        And there is no strain of insanity in my family. Is there? Well, maybe there is. After all, I would not like to think that my Uncle Grendabous was entirely sane.
        Then I hear someone calling me. It is Iola. She has arranged an early dinner, the theory being that the whole household will have an early night, one of a sequence of early nights, I hope, so I will be properly rested when the Merlercians finally arrive.