Then nothing.

Nothing at all.

Six

“Cat! I thought it was you.”

Cat turned from locking her car. Helen Creedy was a few spaces away in the Cathedral Close.

“It’s good to have you back—the altos have sounded pretty thin without you.”

“I don’t think! But it’s good to beback.” Cat looked around the old buildings of the close lit by the lamps that lined the paths. At the top end, the house in which her brother had his flat; down here, the east front of the cathedral towered over them. “I haven’t sung anything for nearly a year.”

“How was it?”

“Exciting. Challenging. Strange.” They walked together towards the door that led to the New Song School where early rehearsals always took place. Tonight, the first of the new season, they were making a start on Bach’s Christmas Oratorio, a favourite of Cat’s.

“What have you been up to, Helen? How are Tom and Lizzie?”

“Oh, fine. Actually c” Helen hesitated in the half-open doorway. “There’s something c do you think c” She was confused, not knowing exactly what she wanted to say.

“Am I a doctor here?”

“God, no—if I wanted to see you like that I’d come to the surgery. No—look, forget it, let’s find our places.”

“Helen c”

But she had gone on into the rehearsal room, crossing to the far side, hurried, embarrassed.

The Song School filled up, and Cat was greeted with shouts of welcome from right and left. They queued to get their music.

St Michael’s Singers rehearsals always ended with a drink in the nearby Cross Keyspub, but as Cat made her way along the cobbled lane she noticed that Helen Creedy was slipping off down the snicket that led to the close.

“Helen, aren’t you coming for a drink?”

Helen turned. “I ought to get back.”

“Lizzie and Tom not old enough to put themselves to bed? Come on, live a little.”

Helen laughed.

“Live a little.” She squeezed into a space next to Cat on the bench. “Funny you should say that.”

“You were going to tell me something.”

“Yes.” Helen took a slow drink of lime and soda. “I don’t know where to start. I don’t know what I want to say.”

Cat looked at her closely. “Helen?”

Helen’s face remained composed but her neck flushed scarlet. A roar of laughter came up from the group of tenors at the bar.

“You guessed,” she said, “sort of. Only I’m confused, I don’t know what’s happening c I think it’s OK, but I need reassurance maybe.”

Cat sipped her ginger beer. She had known Helen Creedy for some years as a patient she rarely saw and as a pharmacist she occasionally had to consult by phone. She knew her best in the context of the choir. But she had also seen fourteen-year-old Elizabeth in the first stages of near-fatal meningitis. She remembered it now, walking into the house expecting to see a feverish cold—and summoning the ambulance within three minutes, praying for it to be quick. Lizzie had made a full recovery and Cat had seen little of Helen since, other than on these choir evenings. She was a nice woman, but unconfident and reserved. Not someone Cat felt she was ever likely to know well.

Now Helen said in a low voice, “I’ve met someone.”

“Helen, that’s great! How long’s this been going on?”

“Well, that’s the thing c no time. Just the other night. It isn’t what I expected, Cat. It was Lizzie really—she pushed me into it. She kept telling me I should c”

“Get out more?”

Helen smiled.

“She was right.”

“If I told you what I did, please don’t laugh.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it. Does it matter how people meet? I met Chris over a corpse in an anatomy lab.”

“Can’t compete there. I went to a sort of agency. On the Internet c it’s called peoplemeetingpeople.com.”

“And you did.”

“I never expected anything c well, maybe a few new friends.”

“Was this the first one you followed up?”

“Yes. It just all clicked. But I feel as if it should have taken much longer, that I should have met half a dozen others first.”

“That’s like saying you want half a dozen people to look round your house and not make an offer before a buyer comes along.”

“I never thought of it like that.”

“Well, you should. I’m pleased, Helen. Friend or more than friend—it’s good.”

“You don’t think it’s a bit c I mean—doing it this way. I haven’t told anyone else.”

“Why should you? No one else’s business.”

“It isn’t, is it?”

“Are you going to tell me about him?”

“We’ve only met once. And he phoned just before I came out tonight to ask me out again. We’re going to the theatre tomorrow. It just seems to be rushing away with me.”

“Don’t you want it to?”

“I don’t know.”

“What’s worrying you?”

“Nothing. I suppose I hadn’t even thought I’d meet someone local—he even lives in Lafferton. I don’t know.”

The choirmaster was pushing his way through the crowded bar to greet Cat. She said, “Well, if you want to talk about it again ring me or we can meet. Sounds to me as if you just need someone to tell you you’re doing the right thing.”

Driving home, Helen played a tape of the Dixie Chicks which Elizabeth had given her for her last birthday, “to keep you up to date, Mother,” and recalled the phone call from Phil. “I really enjoyed myself. Can we meet again soon? Can I take you to the theatre tomorrow?”

Yes, she had thought, but not said. Hesitated. Pleaded a possible meeting with an old friend. Would have to check. Would ring him back. Had put the phone down and immediately decided she had been too cool, put him off, pushed him away. She wanted to go but did not know if she should.

When Elizabeth had asked if she was all right she had snapped; when Tom had made a joke about her evening out, she had rounded on him.

She turned into Dulles Avenue, taking a shortcut. A house halfway down was floodlit. Police vehicles and white vans were parked up and the whole of the front was cordoned off behind tape. Helen slowed instinctively, glancing to see what was happening. A policewoman standing at the gate peered at her.

She sped away as the Dixie Chicks sang of a travelin’ soldier.

Seven

He remembered the day. He remembered everything about the day. But the bonfire that had flared inside himself he remembered most of all.

“When can I go out on a proper shoot?”

“When you’re twelve.”

And then he was twelve. He was twelve.

It was cold. His head ached with cold. His face felt as if he had lost a layer of skin because of the cold. His ears burned with cold. He was aware only of being cold and blissfully happy.

They had been walking since a little after nine, the spaniels running ahead, and they had an hour or so more before they would stop for lunch. They paused. There was a brief silence. A shot rang out. Another. The rooks rose in panic from the tops of the trees ahead.

You remember this, his father had said. This is the most dangerous form of shooting you’ll know, until you get to shoot driven grouse. You’re walking up and firing together. If you don’t know what’s behindwhat you’re shooting at, you leave it be. Keep to the line. Watch and wait.

He had heard it like a lesson in church. The most dangerous form of shooting. He repeated the words to himself as he walked.

He was looking ahead but then something to the left caught his eye, a paler shape in a rough clump of grass. He stopped.

“All right, steady as you go. Watch carefully,” his father whispered. “Is there anything behind it?”

“Hedge.”

“Keep walking. Keep watching.”

He did as he was told. Then the spaniel was there, flushing the rabbit out, sending it racing away and he was ready, aimed and fired and all in a second, his heart beating as fast, surely, as that of his quarry and it almost stopped beating too, almost stopped as dead as the animal he had just shot.