'How am I supposed to do that? What am I supposed to say? She's with him.'

'OK,' Hardy repeated, making the turn. 'Fine.'

'She is.'

'I'm not arguing with you. I hope they're happy.' He pulled up in front of Abe's duplex, turned in his seat. 'You pick up the telephone, dial her number, asks if she wants to go to dinner or something. We call this a date. If she's involved with somebody else, she says no. If she likes you, she says yes. It's a simple concept. Even in your enfeebled state, I think you can grasp it.'

Glitsky shook his head, disagreeing. 'We've got to work together in the next few weeks, Diz. It would be too awkward. She'll say no anyway.'

'And I wouldn't blame her. But you never know, and you won't if you don't ask.' Hardy saw that Abe was suffering with it, and his voice softened. 'You know how you told me the other night how you wished you'd talked to Elaine when you had the chance?'

'That was different.'

'Only in the sense that everything is different from everything else. It's also a lot the same. I know it's not your preferred means of communicating, but talking isn't so bad once in a while. What's she going to do, laugh at you? I don't think so. Worst case, she'll be flattered you asked.' He brought a palm down on the arm rest between them. 'All right, that's my spiel. I'm done. You want me to swing by in the morning?'

For another beat, Glitsky didn't move. Then he bobbed his head and pulled the latch for his door. Out in the street, he leaned back in. 'OK.'

Hardy had a small patch of grass in front of his house. It grew behind a white picket fence and was bordered on the back by a flower garden that they tried to keep up, even during the winter months. A short walkway bisected the lawn and led up to an inviting porch. His house was the only single-family dwelling on the block and its curb appeal, to Hardy, was enormous. Tonight, though, after the four-block walk in the fog-bound darkness from the nearest parking place he'd been able to find, he considered tearing out the whole thing and paving it over.

He really thought he might do it except of course, that the downside – other than loss of his lawn – was that someone someday would park in his own private spot, maybe even by mistake. It wouldn't matter – Hardy would have to kill him.

The porch lights were on, as were those in the front window – their living room. He opened his door, smelled the oak fire burning in his fireplace, put his heavy briefcase down.

'Daddy!'

Rebecca came flying out around the corner and had her arms around him. Then Vincent, nearly knocking him over. He enfolded them both in his arms, dragged them laughing a few steps, rough-housing. Frannie was coming up the hallway with a glass of wine in one hand and what looked suspiciously like a martini in the other. 'What did I do?' he asked.

As it turned out, he'd done nothing special. Frannie had lit the fire and the kids were laying on the floor in front of it writing up their Valentine's Day cards for everyone in each of their classes. She'd called out for Chinese food, which would be there any minute, so she wasn't cooking. She'd like a glass of wine. If her husband got home at his normal time, she thought he'd enjoy a martini, too.

Handing him the glass, she kissed him. 'Sometimes it just works.'

It continued to work. The phone didn't ring once. The dinner arrived punctually and was delicious. Neither Rebecca nor Vincent had any kind of crisis, and they were both in bed by nine thirty. The name Cole Burgess never came up.

In the age of mangled care, Dr Campion proved himself extraordinary. He had called three times during the day and, receiving no answer, finally got worried enough to decide to see for himself. He got to Abe's duplex at a little after dark – it turned out that he made about one house call a week. The three boys and Nat were already home, which made all the Glitskys except the one he wanted to see. The doctor was probably more angry than all of them, but it was close.

Campion couldn't believe his patient wasn't home, but when that message finally made its way through, he reiterated his instructions, underlining them for everyone's benefit. This was no joke. He'd released Abe from the hospital, yes, but he wasn't out of danger. His instructions had been that Glitsky could walk around inside his house, but should take it easy and avoid all stress. There were no circumstances the doctor could imagine that could justify Abe being outside, presumably stressing about a murder case. The walk down his twelve front steps alone…

His heart had been seriously weakened, the muscle damaged – it was still not clear how badly. There was a reasonable chance of another serious, even fatal, attack. He should religiously be taking the blood thinning medication that was on the table next to his bed, its seal unbroken. Campion waited around for half an hour, then finally left his cellphone number and left.

When Abe did finally walk in the door, it was to the Riot Act. They all wanted to know what he thought he was doing. Did he want to die?

Nobody considered that what he'd done was even remotely defensible. They spent fifteen minutes repeating all of Dr Campion's horror stories, then marched him into his room, where they watched him take his pills, made him get into bed. Much to everyone's surprise, he admitted to complete exhaustion and fell asleep almost immediately. The rest of the family had a pow-wow in the kitchen and decided that they'd spell each other keeping an eye on him.

He wasn't going anywhere. Not without the doctor's permission.

Frannie kissed him. 'You might not be as good as you once were, but you're as good once as you ever were.'

It was sometime a little after ten. They were in their relatively new upstairs bedroom. It gave them privacy they would have considered unimaginable in the old configuration of rooms – theirs adjoining their two children's downstairs. Now they still might not be able to scream with rapture, but the occasional sound of pleasure could occur without it being followed by one of the kids knocking at the door, asking if they were OK. Did somebody get hurt?

'Thank you, I think.' He took her earlobe between his lips and gave it a tug. 'You're not so bad yourself.' Then, after a moment, quietly, 'You're my one.'

They lay contentedly in spoon fashion for a while, then when her breathing had become regular, he kissed her again, extricated himself, and turned onto his other side. The last embers crackled in the bedroom fireplace. He closed his eyes.

Somewhere far away a siren screamed. It was coming closer.

Abruptly, his heart racing, he sat up and threw off the covers. It wasn't a siren. It was the phone on the desk across the room. Frannie, still asleep, shifted behind him, made some noise. He got to it before it rang again.

'Yo.'

'Mr Hardy? This is Jon Ingalls.'

It took a moment. One of his new team. The clock in front of him read 11:11. 'What's up, Jon?'

'I'm in the car now. I just left Jeff Elliot's.'

'His house?'

'Yeah. He was talking about quitting. He's super pissed.'

'Quitting what? The paper? What for?'

Ingalls told him. This afternoon, the Democrat had come out with a story suggesting that when Cole had been staying with Jeff's family, he had undoubtedly used heroin there in Jeff's presence, if not with him. It was the most crass and unsubstantiated attack – ridiculous to anyone who knew Jeff – but the Chronicle's editor, Parker Whitelaw, had called Jeff right in. He wasn't to write another word on the Burgess case. Jeff had tried to explain that his connection to Cole was above-board and strictly as family. Whitelaw didn't care. Jeff's credibility as an objective reporter, he said, was compromised. With this kind of accusation in the city's political atmosphere, a simple denial wasn't going to be enough – there would have to be some show, at least, of an investigation. The entire future of his column might be in jeopardy.