'Well,' Frannie said, 'if Abe's got the doubts, and now Ridley – and neither of them are exactly pro-defense – then maybe you'd better start considering that Cole is telling you the truth.'

'It wasn't unconsciousness? He just happened upon her after somebody else did her?'

She shrugged. 'It could have happened.'

'"Could have happened" doesn't meet much of a legal standard, Fran. I can't argue that in front of a jury.'

'How about just a judge? How about at the hearing?'

Hardy didn't even have to think – he shook his head no. 'The hearing's a formality. The standard is probable cause, not reasonable doubt. Torrey demonstrates that – and the confession alone ought to be enough on that score – and that's it. We go to trial.'

'I know, I know, but listen…' Her eyes were alight with the idea. 'There's something about this particular case that's causing all kinds of confusion even among you professionals, right? You've got to admit that. I mean, Abe getting put on leave over it? Come on, that is not normal. Now Ridley Banks agreeing to talk to you. Even you yourself and your decent mind.'

'Decent legal mind. The rest of it's often pretty indecent.'

'OK, still. I'm saying you might be able to get a judge to feel that way too. Not a jury, but one person. If you could get all the questions out in front of one of them.'

His eyes had turned inward. A couple of times he seemed about to speak, but the thread eluded him. Finally, he looked at her. 'The problem is, Fran… that presupposes that he didn't do it after all, and I think he did.' He put up a hand to stop her from breaking in. 'I'm not saying he meant to. I don't think he planned it. Maybe even as he did it, he didn't get it. But I'll tell you something: he sure had means, motive, and opportunity. He's got the opposite of an alibi.' His voice was becoming harsh, unyielding. 'He's exactly the kind of pathetic loser who makes mistakes and ruins lives and then really, truly wishes he hadn't done it. Maybe even to the point of believing his own lies. But frankly, I think he deserves to be punished for it. Not death. Not even life without since nobody else in San Francisco gets it. That's why I took the case at all. But he ought to get a good long spell in the slammer, during which maybe he'll come to have a little bit of a clue.'

'But probably not.'

'Probably not,' Hardy agreed. 'Law of averages, probably not.'

'So you're going to try for unconsciousness?'

His eyes flashed impatiently. 'And that, Fran, would be a major triumph.'

'Even if he didn't do it?'

'He did do it!'

'He says he didn't, doesn't he?'

'Everybody says they didn't. Smart lawyers don't even ask.'

'But if the best defense the law allows is proving he didn't kill Elaine, that he's telling the truth after all, don't you have to try for that? Otherwise, maybe you should give him to somebody else.'

'I'm not giving him to anybody else!'

She let him live with that for a second. 'When you talk to Abe and Ridley, maybe you ought to really listen to what they say.'

'That was my actual plan, believe it or not. What did you think I was going to do?'

She looked into his eyes. Her voice was gentle, without any threat in it. 'I thought you might be looking for something to argue, not something to believe.'

She rarely saw any sign of her husband's Irish temper. It surprised her that he was on the edge of losing it now. Over Cole Burgess? It made no sense unless the boy had come to represent something beyond himself.

She reached a hand out and touched his arm. 'What's going on, Dismas?' she asked.

'I'm not looking for something to believe, that's for sure.' His voice was harsh.

'Then what are you arguing against? What's so terrifying?'

'What's so terrifying?' he snapped back. 'How can you even ask me that? That's what I want to know. You can't envision our sweet little Vin where Cole is someday? Or even the Beck? You don't think that's terrifying?'

She tightened her grip on his arm. 'That isn't going to happen, Dismas. That doesn't make any sense.'

'That's my damn point, Frannie. It doesn't have to make any sense. It just happens sometimes. It just happens.'

And suddenly the source of his terror was clear to her. Educated, white, middle-class, raised by caring parents, Cole Burgess was Dismas's own private vision of the devil, the personification of everything he feared and could not control. Their own children might turn out just like Cole if they weren't ever vigilant with them, and maybe even if they were. And beyond that, the dangers everywhere in the modern world – the threat of random violence, terror out of the dark night. The tragedy inherent in every moment of temporary weakness – why the struggle must never end, not for an instant.

She lifted her hand up to touch his face, and he backed off, by all signs angry at her. During his little speech, his color had gone progressively to a deep red. To the Union Street crowd, it probably seemed that they were having a fight.

'Dismas?' she said softly.

He was furious. Tears of rage had come to his eyes and he was determinedly blinking them back. She stepped into him, put her arms around his back, held him. 'It's all right,' she said. 'Everything's going to be all right.'

It was Old Home Week around Abe's bed again. Isaac had picked up Jacob after his arrival from Milan, and the two of them came straight from the airport to the hospital. Nat and Orel were already there – the first time the whole family had been together in nearly two years. There were only the five of them, and that was just as well. Since the word was out about Elaine, there was a lot to talk about.

At a little before nine, Hardy and Frannie showed up, looking a bit the worse for wear. They had both cheered slightly at the sight of Jacob, as they had with Isaac the night before, but after a while the edge between them appeared again. It didn't help that Hardy was expecting Ridley Banks to come and talk about Cullen Alsop, and that he never appeared. And with the boys and Nat there, it wasn't a good time to talk murder cases anyway.

By nine forty-five, everyone had gone home.

Glitsky leaned back into his bed and closed his eyes. Tonight, he was tired. His groin throbbed where they had inserted the angiogram into his femoral artery. The blisters on his chest – mementos of the defibrillation – itched uncomfortably. They had him on some blood-thinning medication and he still felt wiped out from sedatives.

He fancied that he could feel his heart, that the presence of all of his sons and his father tonight had filled it almost beyond its capacity. Early on, before the Hardys came and after the first flurry of questions and answers about Elaine, he'd asked Jacob if he would sing them all a song with his newly-trained Italian voice, then surprised him not by asking for anything from the opera repertoire, but for 'Unchained Melody'. He'd sung it so beautifully that the nursing staff and other visitors seeing patients had come into the room, applauded when he finished.

The melody came back to him now. It had been Flo's song, but the image now was not of his past wife. He opened his eyes, grabbed his book, took out Treya's card and reached for the phone.