"Lovely lady," said the earl's son, appreciatively, as we passed the debacle. "How are you going yourself?"

"Not bad," I said. "How are you?"

We jumped the last of the seven far-side fences together and in front, and put all our energies into staying there round the long last bend and over the three last fences. I could hear horses thudding behind me and the mother's voice exhorting her slow coach Approaching the Pond fence, I could sense the earl's son's horse beginning to tire, I could see that precious winning post far ahead and the way to it clear, and for at least a few moments I thought I might win. But then the lieutenant-colonel reappeared fast at my elbow, still shouting for room, and between the last two fences, as I'd feared he would, the journalist materialised from the outback and made it look easy, and Young Higgins tired into Middle-Aged Higgins on the hill.

He and I finished third, which wasn't too bad, with the earl's son, persevering, not far away fourth.

"A nice afternoon out," he said happily as we trotted back together and I looked at the lights in his eyes and saw it was the same for him as for me, a high that one couldn't put into words, an adventure of body and spirit that made of dismounting and walking on the ground a literal coming down to earth.

Jo was pleased enough, patting Young Higgins hard. "Ran a great race, didn't you, old boy? jumped like a stag."

"You'd have been second," said George, who had good binoculars, "if you'd let the lieutenant-colonel fall off."

"Yeah, well," I said, unbuckling the girths, "there were a lot of hooves down there."

George smiled. "Don't forget to weigh in." (He said it every time.) "Come for a drink in the Owners' bar when you've changed."

I accepted. It was part of the ritual, part of the bargain. They liked to re-live Young Higgins' outing fence for fence in return for having given me the ride. They were still standing in the unsaddling enclosure talking to friends when I went out again in street clothes, and with welcoming smiles waved me into their group. None of my own family being in sight, I went with them without problems and, over glasses of Jo's favourite brandy and ginger ale, earned my afternoon's fun by describing it.

I returned to the weighing-room area afterwards and found that not only were all the same family members still on the racecourse, but that they had coalesced into an angry swarm and had been joined by one of the queen bees herself, my mother Joyce.

Joyce, in fur and a green hat, was a rinsed blonde with greenish eyes behind contact lenses which seldom missed a trick in life as in cards. Dismayed but blank-faced, I gave her a dutiful peck on her smooth cheek which, it seemed, she was in no mood to receive.

"Darling," she said, the syllables sizzling with displeasure, "did you or did you not send that weasel Norman West to check up on my whereabouts last Friday?"

"Er," I said.

"Did you or did you not send him sniffing round Vivien on the same errand?"

"Well," I said, half smiling, "I wouldn't have put it as crudely, but I suppose so, yes."

The battery of eyes from the others was as friendly as napalm.

Why? "Joyce snapped.

"Didn't Norman West tell you?"

She said impatiently, "He said something nonsensical about Malcolm being attacked. I told him if Malcolm had been attacked, I would have heard of it."

"Malcolm was very nearly killed," I said flatly. "He and I asked Norman West to make sure that none of you could have done it."

Joyce demanded to be told what had happened to Malcolm, and I told her. She and all the others listened with open mouths and every evidence of shock, and if there was knowledge, not ignorance, behind any of the horrified eyes, I couldn't discern it.

"Poor Daddy!" Serena exclaimed. "How beastly."

"A matter for the police," Donald said forcefully.

"I agree," I said. "I'm surprised they haven't been to see all of you already, as they did when Moira died."

Edwin said, with a shake of the head, "How near, how near," and then, hearing the regret in his voice as clearly as I did, added hurriedly, "What a blessing he woke up."

"When the police make their enquiries," I said, "they don't exactly report the results to Malcolm. He wants to make sure for himself that none of the family was at Quantum last Friday afternoon. If you cooperate with Norman West when he gets to you, you'll set Malcolm's mind at rest."

"And what if we can't prove where we were?" Debs asked.

"Or even remember?" Lucy said.

"Malcolm will have to live with it," Joyce said crisply.

"Living with it would present him less problem," I Said dryly. "It's dying he wants to avoid."

They stared at me in silence. The reality of Moira's murder had been to them, I guessed, as to me, a slow-burning fuse, with seemingly no bad consequences at first, but with accelerating worries as time passed. Perhaps they, as I had done, had clung to the motiveless-intruder-from-outside theory at first because the alternative was surely unthinkable, but in the weeks since then, they must at least have begun to wonder. The fuse would heat soon into active suspicions, I saw, which might tear apart and finally scatter for ever the fragile family fabric.

Would I mind, I thought? Not if I still had Malcolm… and perhaps Ferdinand and Joyce… and maybe Lucy, or Thomas… Serena… would I care if I never again laid eyes on Gervase?

The answer, surprisingly enough, was yes, I would mind. Imperfect, quarrelsome, ramshackle as it was, the family were origins and framework, the geography of living. Moira, un grieved was already rewriting that map, and if her murderer remained for ever undiscovered, if Malcolm himself – I couldn't think of it – were killed, there would be no healing, no reforming, no telephone network for information, no contact, just a lot of severed galaxies moving inexorably apart.

The big bang, I thought, still lay ahead. The trick was to smother the fuse before the explosion, and that was all very well, but where was the burning point, and how long had we got?

"Buy me a drink, darling," Joyce commanded. "We're in deep trouble."

She began to move off, but the others showed no signs of following. I looked at the seven faces all expressing varying degrees of anxiety and saw them already begin to move slightly away from each other, not one cohesive group, but Donald and Helen as a couple, Lucy and Edwin, a pair, and Ferdinand, Debs and Serena, the youngest trio.

"I'll tell Malcolm your fears," I said. "And your needs."

"Oh yes, please do," Helen said intensely.

"And Gervase's plan," Ferdinand added.

"Do come on, darling," Joyce said peremptorily over her shoulder. "Which way is the bar?"

"Run along, little brother," Lucy said with irony. Serena said, "Mumsie's waiting," and Debs fairly tittered. I thought of sticking my toes in and making Joyce come back, but what did it matter? I could put up with the jibes, I'd survived them for years, and I understood what prompted them. I shrugged ruefully and went after Joyce, and could feel the pitying smiles on the back of my neck.

I steered Joyce into the busy Members' bar which had a buffet table along one side with salads and breads and a large man in chef's clothes carving from turkeys, haunches of beef and hams on the bone. I was hungry after riding and offered Joyce food, but she waved away the suggestion as frivolity. I bought her instead a large vodka and tonic with a plain ginger ale for myself, and we found spare seats at a table in a far corner where, after the merest glance around to make sure she wouldn't be overheard among the general hubbub, she leaned forward until the brim of the green hat was practically touching my forehead and launched into her inquisition.

"Where is your father?" she said.