Not with the knowledge I now had.

Not with the knowledge that I was James Ripley.

I tried to unravel the details. Ripley had disappeared immediately after the fire and his body was never found, but he was presumed dead - by his own hand, according to the more lurid but most persistent rumours. I pictured him - and with a start, I questioned whether this was conjecture or recall - struggling alone after the fire, riven by guilt, or fear of capture, or perhaps simply desperation, driven mad and finally killing himself in an attempt to break free from his memory. Except, of course, he couldn't break free: some memories can never be expunged. He must have died - killed himself, most likely - and his soul, restless like Jane's because of the violence involved in its death, could not settle and found instead another body to inhabit. That body was mine: I was the unfortunate wretch unlucky enough to be born in a place and a period where evil had caused a cancer in the tracks of time. I was born a few weeks after the fire, so he must have lived on for some time before taking his own life and in that time, that strange after-life, that limbo period, I was curious to know whether he was driven by anger or by guilt: although it altered nothing it seemed, somehow, to matter to me. Shaking my head, trying to deny what I knew to be true, I looked up and stared into Jane's eyes. Her face was a mask of sorrow, but there was a detachment in her expression I had not seen before and I knew instantly that she was breaking the bond between us: as - I realised, my spirits sinking ever lower - she must.

"You knew, didn't you? All along?" I said.

"Not all along. The last time, the last time we were here - I understood it then. I knew she was seeing him when she looked at you." We both turned to Mary Ripley - mother and, it now appeared, wife. She looked back helplessly, an onlooker in her own history, a bit-part reduced to shocked silence.

"Knew what?" asked Carlee. She was beside me, her hand rested on the back of my head, stroking my hair comfortingly. Poor Carlee, another outsider with no understanding of the hateful events unfolding around her.

I looked up at her. How could I explain? How could I begin? Let's be honest - how could I tell her I was a murderer? Carlee's face was drawn, the edges of her mouth raised in alarm, cheeks flushed. The concern - and the love - in her eyes filled me with a guilt I knew I could never escape. Our life together had been torn apart - as, of course, fate had dictated it would be since before we were even born. I began to speak, aware that the quiet evenness of my voice imparted a confidence I scarcely felt. "Carlee," I said, failing at the last moment to look her in the eye, "I'm Ripley."

"What?"

I struggled for the words with which to explain. "Mary is still in her time, still seeing life in 1966. She's seeing Jane as baby Aileen - her baby, her daughter." Carlee nodded uncertainly and glanced at Jane, who returned her look with an expression of such mournfulness it must have been ripped from the deepest depths of despair: oh woman, what had I done to you? Carlee was stroking my hair roughly, distractedly, as though impatient for the scene to be over, but I had to continue. It pained me beyond measure. "And she's seeing me as Ripley, her husband." I took a deep breath, ready for my confession. "Because I am. I am Ripley. I'm so sorry, Carlee, but I'm James Ripley." There was a second of dreadful silence, a silence of ignorance and doubt and denial and pain, as four women tried to give meaning to the chaos which had sundered the brittle lines of their existence.

"No," cried Jane, and we all turned to her. "Not quite, not exactly." She looked around helplessly, as though seeking the tools of enlightenment. "You're not Ripley - you're still you, still Harriet." She paused. "But he is inside you." I stared blankly. She saw that I didn't understand and stroked her cheek lightly as she sought the words which would allow her to explain. "I'm a ghost," she continued, "or something like it: I have a body, but not like yours: it's more like an overcoat, something I wear, not really part of me, not quite real. But you're real - you interact with the world, you went to school as a child, everything, everything I wanted to do, but couldn't - you have a life outside this place. D'you see?" She paused again, her eyebrow arched in query. "That means you must be real."

A momentary flood of relief washed over me, but even as it did I knew it was a false hope and as it evaporated I found my mood lower than ever. I felt utterly alone - bereft and beyond the reach of help. Jane smiled weakly and stretched her hand towards me, her fingers reaching and settling against mine. A symbol of forgivenness, it was the kindest, most beautiful gesture I had ever known. I squeezed her delicate palm, tears falling down my cheek. "Yes," I whispered, but in my confusion I no longer knew what I believed.

"Ripley is inside you, Harriet: he always has been, lurking in your brain. But he isn't you. You must understand that: you're still Harriet, and I love you as much as I ever did."

I was, at once, relieved and appalled by Jane's explanation. At least I knew who I was, but my flesh began to itch as I felt the horror of having been invaded, of having an alien presence living inside me. All of my life, I had had this evil man within me, watching me - possibly even guiding me: I couldn't be sure of anything any more. I shivered as a strong sense of violation swept through my body: my every thought, my every action, every instant of private pain and personal joy had been unwittingly shared with that thing inside me.

Never in my life had I been alone.

The appalling truth began to reveal itself, its magnitude breathtaking and terrifying. Retching, I vomited a pallid stream of bile onto the carpet, its acid remnants leaving my mouth sour and unclean. I had reached my nadir.

I rested on the carpet for some moments, too confused to move, but finally I rose to my feet. I was shaking uncontrollably. It was clear that I was at the core of this nightmare and I felt I owed it to everyone to explain, but I had no understanding of it myself. Words eluded me. It was like being faced with a devilish puzzle which afforded no means of entry, no chance of a solution. Carlee's face was contorted by doubt, her light hair rippling gently as she shook her head. Mary Ripley, a poor woman suddenly ripped from the predictability of her own existence into an alternative hell, stood in the doorway, knuckles white as she gripped the door handle distractedly. She was frozen to the spot, silently watching as a moment from another world segued into her own. And Jane, my sweet, dear Jane - the first woman I had ever loved and now, it seemed, the first I had betrayed - sobbed quietly as she observed me. What was she seeing? Who was she seeing? And what did she feel?

"Why didn't you say something?" I asked her. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"I didn't think it mattered."

"But you know who I am."

"No, you're not. Listen to me, Harriet. You're you."

"Okay, but you know who's inside me. And what he did to you. You should have told me."

"I didn't want to lose you."

I stopped short. 'I didn't want to lose you.' That was the most extraordinary statement I had ever heard: Jane had concealed the truth from me because she feared she might lose me. And yet, the cost to her was incalculable: throughout the last, difficult day she had known - every time she looked into my eyes, every time I spoke - what was inside me; she knew that her fate was gathered in mine, and yet she chose not to reveal such a climactic truth.

'I didn't want to lose you.'

It was the most profound proclamation of love one could ever hear.

"Oh Jane, my love," I replied, "you would never lose me." I folded my arms around her and kissed her cool lip.

She whispered in my ear. "Whatever happens, I love you."

Those words again, those words repeated. 'Whatever happens, I love you.' Three times, now, that entreaty had passed between us - uttered first by Jane, then by me that very afternoon, as we stood on the brink of the Ripley House, and now by Jane again; and each time the words scraped through another layer of doubt, revealed a new truth.

'Whatever happens... What did that mean? We were still some way from understanding this nightmare, it was clear. What could be so bad that Jane had to presage it with such a comment? A chill ran down my spine. I thought of everything which had passed between us in the previous days - the pain and the doubt, the hope and the terror - but above all I thought of love - the love of Carlee and the love of Jane, and I prayed to Janus that he might open a doorway to allow love to escape.

'Whatever happens...' Clearly, Jane was as uncertain as I was. She had no notion of what was happening or what might happen: or, come to that, what had already happened. And as that thought struck me, as the new truth was revealed, my essence froze.

I pulled away from her. "How did you know you could trust me? After you found out about Ripley?"

"I didn't. Actually, I don't. What will happen will happen. It is ordained." Jane's eyes were on mine, glimmering forgivenness and understanding. She was pure, an untainted spirit, and I felt dirty beside her. Her words hammered into my brain, a knife went through my heart. The will to live deserted me. Understanding finally fought through the fog of confusion: and it was obscene, and I didn't want to acknowledge it.

'Reveal your secret, swear parole.'

Once more I remembered my poem, that wretched poem which, line by line, was coming to life.

And, finally, the secrets were revealed; but who, amongst us, could swear parole? Not me, it seemed: not me.

"No!" I cried, burying my head in my hands.

"I'm sorry, Harriet."

"Please, no!"

"It's not your fault, it's not your fault." It was Jane's turn to succour me, grazing her knuckles down my chin, sliding her thumb across my mouth and on towards my nose, smoothing away the tears which fell from my eyes.

I broke away, repulsed by the intimacy of her gesture. Not now, I thought, not now that I know. I lumbered across the room, aware of the disjointedness of my actions but unable to stop myself.

"Harriet!" Jane made to follow, and Carlee, too, moved protectively towards me.

"Don't," I pleaded. I needed space, a moment to myself to try to reach some understanding. I had to follow the logic of what I had heard, although, in truth, I already knew. Why had I come here? Why had I come back? Why now? Even before, when Carlee had asked that, I had had no acceptable answer. To show you the sights of my childhood, I had replied. Now, I was being told it was ordained to happen: I had come here deliberately, eighteen years after my last visit, which was in turn eighteen years after the murder of Mary and Aileen Ripley. The answer was painfully obvious.

It was Ripley who was guiding me.

"No," I moaned, "don't let it be."

"It isn't your fault, Harriet."

"Oh God, it is my fault. What have I done? What have I done? Jane - what did I do to you?" I pulled at my hair, wailing in despair, trying to hide from the unpalatable truth. My heart was pounding, chest constricted, my breathing fast and shallow.

"Nothing. You never would."

"But I've let that bastard do it, haven't I?" Jane made no response. "Haven't I?" I screamed.

"You didn't know. You couldn't."

"What sort of excuse is that? I didn't know? So fucking what?"

Jane was watching me in alarm: I was losing control, the intensity of the moment feeding my reactions and unleashing a fearsome torrent of emotions. I began to see the world through a filter of remorse and temper, and everything seemed too large, too brash, too difficult to deal with; all around me whirled confrontation and dispute, any semblance of comfort and understanding lost in the depths of confusion. Jane's expression was one of concern, her eyes wide and mouth open, and it irritated me unaccountably. Carlee, too, was frozen in a cartoon gesture of disquiet and her obvious solicitude made me feel guilty and resentful in equal measure.

Not able to take their fretting any longer, I turned away, looking at the room around me. Suddenly it seemed claustrophobic, the proliferation of photographs on the walls cloying and suffocating. It was as though they were trying to instil a sense of warmth and homeliness where there was none: happiness comes from the soul, not from one's surroundings. It was a room in which the owner was trying too hard - and in my experience such efforts are generally made in order to conceal something different. Any notion I had had of the room being inviting was washed away by a sense of disgust.

Jane continued to try to pacify me. "But you couldn't have known, honestly. It doesn't matter..."

"Doesn't matter? How can you say that, for God's sake? Stop humouring me. I'm not a cretin, I'm not stupid: I know what I've done, and I don't need you and your fucking sympathy to make me feel better. Don't patronise me 3;"

"Harriet, please 3; Calm down, you're upset 3;"

"Of course I'm fucking upset. What d'you expect, for christ's sake?"

My initial sense of guilt had given way to fear, which in turn was quickly subsiding into anger. Before I knew what was happening, a blinding rage had stripped through my brain, a searing, pulsing scream of anger which shook me to the centre of my being. The room around me was shivering, pale and hollow, an insubstantial presence which I knew was hovering between worlds. The echoes of centuries whirled round my brain, flashes of colour and light and ferment and fury, and I felt myself slide from reality, groaning and crying, slipping through a vortex into an alien space. For the first time, I felt the essence of James Ripley inside me, a twisting, contorting presence in the depths of my brain, snarling and baying to be let free. Bursts of light seared in my head and the hammer-hammer-hammer of spiteful rage beat at my consciousness. Helpless, defenceless, I knew what was happening: I was hosting the anger of James Ripley - an anger which had killed, which had provoked him to murder his own family.

I turned and stared at Mary and she backed away nervously, eyes betraying her dreadful fear of her husband. I was appalled by the terror I had aroused in her, but despite myself, my pity was tempered by a dismissive sneer.

"James," she said, "what is it? What's wrong?" Her voice was a pitiable whine, high pitched and weak. She was an undoubtedly attractive woman, but she wore far too much make-up. Why did she need to paint herself like a cheap tart when she was supposedly at home, alone? Her dress, too - low cut and revealing too much of her bosom - was unsuitable for a common housewife.

I shook my head in despair. "Shut up woman! Keep out of it."

"Harriet!" Aileen screamed. I swivelled and looked at her - my darling daughter, so young and fresh and innocent. Not like that slut in the doorway - not like her mother, the whore who flashed her tits at the drop of a hat, the bitch who dropped her knickers for any passing trade. Beautiful little Aileen, so perfect and sweet. A little girl - my little girl - and if only she could stay that way for ever. Oh, when I held her in my arms and rocked her and kissed her, when I saw her little smile, those cheeks, chubby little cheeks, and the eyes which lit up when she saw me. So beautiful - a beautiful child, so perfect in every way. And how she held my finger, her little fist wrapped around it, clinging to it like it was her totem, her rock - oh yes, she needed her daddy, she loved her daddy. Daddy's little girl. And all daddy wanted was to look after her. If only she didn't need to change, to turn, the way they all do, all of them - whores and trollops, bitches sinking their claws into poor, unsuspecting men. All painted faces and false hearts, feigning interesting as they worm their wicked ways into their men's hearts. Oh, to spare her that, to save her from such a fate: I looked at her, at the beautiful, innocent, fresh young face. I couldn't inflict that on her, could I? I couldn't let that happen to her. I couldn't let her turn into a wizened, hard-hearted bitch-whore like her mother. I couldn't. I wouldn't. And I knew, then, that I had to do it again, before she turned eighteen, before she became a woman, before she, too, fell into depravity. I had to save her from that, for her own good. I owed her that, the perfect, innocent little mite. Just like the last time.

Just like the last time.

An image, a single image, a freeze frame, bleached cold and grey. An image of a girl, a child - no more than eighteen - beside a riverbank, standing on a curious, kinked outcrop, smiling and reaching out to me: trust and happiness, the tender and the naive. And a look of surprise on her face, giving way to shock - to fear - to outright terror. A simple push, nothing dramatic. And she's slipping, sliding backwards, and falling, falling into the river, floating away, floating to death, floating to safety, no more the Jezebel.

"Jezebel!" I bellowed. The past was crowding in on me, memories unfolding like a world in fast forward, and I felt I was turning, turning, twisting, falling. I was sliding in and out of control, barely conscious, not fully certain of where I was. I looked at Carlee, a thing of beauty, and at first I didn't recognise her - saw only a woman, another painted whore - but I was confused and upset by that reaction, and slowly I began to remember who she was; and in the act of doing so, I managed, despite myself, to remember who I was. "No! No!" I screamed. "Leave me alone! Bastard! Leave me alone!" Pulling at my hair, I shook my head violently, trying to rid myself of the presence of Ripley. He was taking me over, controlling my mind atom by atom, and I was meekly surrendering to the force of his personality: he was too strong and I was too weak. I turned to Jane, and the pity and love and fear in her expression hooked me for an instant, pulling me back into reality. I screamed again, a helpless wail against the unfairness of history.

"Harriet, what's happening to you?" Carlee yelled, gripping me by the shoulders and shaking me. She forced herself in front of me and grabbed my face, holding my cheeks in her palms, her eyes boring into mine. I was struck by the emotion in her face, the love in her expression. Something in her look managed to penetrate the mists of doubt which had descended on my judgement: galvanised, I gathered my strength and gradually began to take control again. 'Carlee,' I thought, 'Carlee, help me.' Silence boomed all around, an invisible barrier which entrapped me in my own despair, but slowly I felt a weight slide from my body, felt my head grow lighter as though breaking through the waves and into fresh air. The room grew solid once more as a frightened hush descended on it. My heart still clattered in my chest and my brain was fizzing with activity, but I knew, in the calmness which had fallen over us, that I was myself again: I had beaten him off - for now.

But I was sullied: sullied by knowledge, sullied by the realisation of everything I had done. I could barely bring myself to look at Jane: I knew that she knew, and her gentle compassion broke my heart. I turned to Carlee. "I'm okay," I panted. "I'm okay, it's okay."

It wasn't, of course: that was nothing more than wishful thinking. I had played this scene so many times - in reality and in my dreams - and I knew only too well what would happen next. My excursions into the history of the Ripley House had never passed smoothly and, I suspected, this version of reality might prove to be the most dramatic yet. I couldn't guarantee when it would happen, but I knew it must.

And the moment of destiny came sooner than I feared.

The front door slammed. I froze. Carlee yelped and grabbed my hand. Deep down, I wanted to escape, to evade the inevitable outcome of this encounter, but I knew I couldn't. I had come too far, had provoked the passage of time too much, and conflict was now inevitable. We had reached the climax of our adventure, and as I stood in the Ripley living room, trembling, I feared that none of us might emerge alive. The dull ache of nervous sickness returned to my body, inhabiting every pore, traducing every sinew of hope. I felt a suffocating sense of despair, a notion that - already - my fate had been sealed. After all, 'it was ordained.'

Signalling to Jane, I reached for her hand. She slid towards me apprehensively and slipped her hand into mine and finally the three of us, joined by love, turned towards the living room door. Mary Ripley, standing beside it, followed our gaze and screamed.

James Ripley, shotgun in his arms, loomed in the doorway.

On to part nineteen