Despite the cold, Nesta and Amy spent the morning in York, looking round the shops and buying things that were cheap and cheerful. Mainly, it was things to wear; but Nesta managed to find a copper pendant that looked worth far more than she paid for it, and Amy found a juggling clown to add to her collection.
‘It’s like being a tourist,’ she said. ‘I’m pretending that I don’t live here but have just come down from Scotland for a visit. You can be my American friend, come over from the States.’
‘I think I can manage that,’ said Nesta with a grin. ‘We Yanks do so love your historic city. What say we take a trip to the Jorvik Centre?’
‘No,’ said Amy. ‘That takes time and money. Let’s pretend we went there yesterday. Today we’re into buying souvenirs for the folks back home.’
‘Stop!’ said Nesta. ‘You have your “ain folk” and are “frae the Highlands”. The “folks back home” would definitely be mine.’
A few stray flakes of snow began to fall. The girls were in Piccadilly, not far from the bus terminus. The bus for home was standing there waiting.
‘Let’s pack in for the day,’ said Amy. ‘That’s our bus over there. Let’s go home and play Tombi. No sense in getting snowed on!’
The snow came to nothing, but the girls were still pleased to be sitting in the kitchen drinking the warm cup of soup that Alison had given them and getting on with the long-running game of Tombi. They took turns holding the controller, the one without it being an eager, and often mistaken, adviser.
The object of the game was to find the pig bags and capture all the pigs, culminating with the pig boss. In that way, the evil pig magic would be defeated and the game would be over.
Finding the pig bags was practically impossible! Nesta, who had never played on a PlayStation game before, soon began to think that the game-makers were cheating and that some pig bags simply did not exist.
‘Your brother should take it back to the shop,’ she said. ‘It doesn’t work properly.’
‘It does,’ said Amy. ‘It’s just very, very difficult. That’s why people go on playing it. Give me the controller now. You’ve had your ten minutes.’
There was a ring at the doorbell. The sound of it carried to the kitchen, but the girls did not even look up from their game. They had no curiosity at all as to who might be waiting on the doorstep.
It was freezing cold. A few flakes of snow had fallen half-heartedly but soon gave up their attempt to whiten the world. Steven and Jacob stood shivering on the doorstep of Number 8 Linden Drive. Steven rang the doorbell sharply. Then, after a couple of seconds, he lifted the rapper and brought it down hard twice or thrice.
‘Give them time. Dad,’ said Jacob between shivers. ‘Their car’s in the drive. They’re nearly sure to be home.’
‘Just our luck if they aren’t,’ said Steven sourly.
And at that moment the door opened and Alison stood looking out at them with a certain hostility in her gaze. She did not like the way they had rapped at the door. She had never seen them before and had no idea who they were. The man was probably in his late thirties, sallow-complexioned, with high cheekbones and very dark eyes. The boy, obviously his son, was a younger and slightly fairer version of his father.
‘Whatever you’re selling,’ said Alison, ‘we don’t want any.’
‘We aren’t selling anything, Athelerane,’ said Steven softly. ‘We have come to talk.’
Alison drew in her breath sharply, cold breath in the cold north air. The name that Steven had given her was all the identification she needed.
‘You are of us?’ she said tersely.
Steven nodded.
‘Come in,’ said Alison. ‘Let us talk inside.’
She took their coats and hung them in the hall. As she did so, her thoughts were in turmoil. She could not construe the meaning of this visit. And the man had brought his son.
‘Come into the front room,’ she said. ‘Matthew is there.’
She opened the door.
Matthew looked up from the desk where he had been writing. It was puzzling to see two strangers standing there, a man and a boy. Was there some connection with the university, with Alison’s work? The boy looked too young to be an undergraduate. And no one from the university had ever visited before.
‘We have visitors, Maffaylie,’ she said. Then he too knew who the visitors were.
‘Come in,’ he said. ‘Do come in and sit by the fire. It’s a horribly cold day.’
He ushered them to the sofa. Then he and Alison sat down in the armchairs to either side of them.
‘This has never happened before,’ said Matthew carefully. ‘It is strictly against the code for us to meet.’
‘Many things have never happened before,’ said Steven severely. ‘You and your family should by now be on the spaceship returning to Ormingat. Your breach of the code is by far the greater.’
Jacob gave his father a look of disbelief. Surely he wasn’t going to blame these people for doing something he had every intention of doing himself?
‘To come straight to the point,’ said Steven, ‘we need to know how much damage your defection might have caused.’
Matthew looked baffled. ‘The spaceship shattered the frog,’ he said weakly, ‘but there was no real harm done, and nobody any the wiser.’
‘That is not what I mean,’ said Steven. ‘Physical damage is irrelevant. We have to know whether other Earthlings have any clue as to what happened here three weeks ago. We also need to find out what Nesta has told to her friends and to anyone she might have encountered when she ran away. We need to know much more about her meeting with Stella Dalrymple.’
‘I can answer all of that,’ said Alison, ‘but you must not question my daughter. I don’t want her to be upset.’
‘Where is Nesta?’ said Steven.
‘She’s in the kitchen with her friend. They are playing on some sort of computer game.’
Steven considered carefully what to say next. It would perhaps be better to have Jacob out of the way. What Steven had in mind would come better from one person, speaking alone. He was also unsure of what his son’s reaction might be.
‘Jacob enjoys computer games,’ he said smoothly. ‘Would you mind very much letting him join your daughter and her friend in the kitchen? He will be discreet. He would never betray our secret.’
Jacob was in two minds whether to rebel at being sent out of the room, but his wish to see Nesta overruled whatever adolescent indignation he might have been feeling.