'I went away for a couple ofdays. It's all a bit of a blank, I'm afraid.

I think I had some kind of temporary amnesia. "Disassociative fugue state" is the medical term, I seem to remember. Trauma brought on by the memory ofa previous trauma. Andrew Decker, I suppose. And , so on.

'And so on?' Louise echoed.

She was trying to think of a way into an interview with two consummate liars -she wasn't sure how to find the truth let alone follow it -but she was saved from the problem for now by a knock at the door. Karen Warner lumhered into the room.

'Sorry to interrupt, boss.' She was breathing heavily, as if she'd been running. She didn't even give the miraculous reappearance of Joanna Hunter a second look. She had the kind of grim expression on her face that could only mean something bad had happened.

'Oh God,' Louise said, holding on to her heart. 'It's Needler, isn't it? He's back,' and Karen said, 'Yes. He is.' 'Someone's dead,' Louise said, 'I can tell from the look on your face. Who? Alison? One of the kids? All of them?' 'None of them, boss. It's Marcus.'

Touch-and-go. It was a funny phrase if you thought about it. Marcus was in the operating theatre. Louise and Karen were sitting in the deserted 'Sanctuary' in the RIE. There was some kind of nondenominational greenery to indicate Christmas.

'What happened?' Louise asked.

'I don't know, there seems to be a lot of confusion. He heard the call and responded, I think he was on the ring road coming into work. Local uniforms were there already, I think it was all a bit casual, you know, the woman who cried wolf too many times.'

'Casual. Jesus.'

Needler had kept his family at gunpoint all night. One of the kids had managed to get hold of the panic button and the local police had responded, the 'first officer on the scene' had rung the doorbell and Needler had opened the door and shot him in the chest. That 'first officer' was Marcus. 'He wasn't wearing a vest,' Karen said. 'He should have waited for the IRV. Idiot.'

'Fools rush in,' Louise said. 'He was trying to help.' By the time Karen and Louise arrived it was all over bar the weepmg. Needler had walked out of the house, giving an IRV officer a clear shot but before they could take it he had turned his gun on himself.

'The bastard,' Louise said. She had wanted to be in there at the kill, she wanted to have torn him apart with her bare hands, like a crazed Maenad.

*

Marcus had been taken to St John's hospital in Livingston and then transferred to the Royal Infirmary in Edinburgh where he had been operated on.

When the surgeon came out of the operating theatre he recognized Louise and raised his eyebrow a fraction, a minimal gesture missed by Marcus's mother but caught by Louise.

'Oh God,' she moaned.

'Don't think He's going to help,' Karen said.

Louise stood at the foot of the bed. Marcus's mother was sitting by the side of the bed, clutching her son's hand. He was on life support in the intensive care unit.

'He's an only child,' his mother said. Her name was Judith but it was impossible to think of her as anything other than 'Marcus's mother'.

'His father's dead,' she said. 'I've always worried that something would happen to me and he would be left alone.' A motherless child. Now she was going to be a childless mother. Louise was losing him too, her sweet boy.

A girl appeared, led to the bed by a nurse, and sat across from his mother. 'This is Ellie,' Marcus's mother said to Louise. Ellie didn't acknowledge either of them, if she could have brought Marcus back with the power of her thoughts then he would be up walking about. His mother reached across his body and took the girl's hand. With her free hand she stroked her son's close-shaven curls. 'He's such a good boy,' she said. 'He looks as if he's sleeping.'

Louise said, 'Yes, he does.' He didn't. He didn't look as if he was asleep, nobody looked like that when they were asleep, but hey.

He had already left, he was just waiting for them to say goodbye. To infinity and beyond.

Sweet Little Wife, Pretty Little Baby LASSIE CAME HOME. SHE DIDN'T NEED ANYONE'S HELP IN THE END.

She got back all on her own.

It wasn't light yet so it was difficult to make out who it was. Just a shape, a shape moving closer. But the dog knew who it was.

Reggie nearly fainted. She felt sick with the rush of chemicals in her body. A great cascade of adrenalin flowing through her, making her heart feel like a tight, hard knot in her chest. So many emotions flooded Reggie that she could hardly untangle them into their different threads. Relief and disbelief. Happiness. And horror. Lots of horror.

Dr Hunter was walking towards them, the baby in her arms. She was barefoot and she was still wearing her suit and the baby was still in his little matelot outfit. She was covered in blood. It matted her hair, it stained the skin on her face, her legs. The baby had streaks and splashes of red on him too.

Not their blood. The baby was laughing at the sight of Sadie and Dr Hunter was walking straight and strong, like a heroine, a warrior queen.

The dog cantered ahead and was the first to greet Dr Hunter, as playful as a puppy. When the baby was almost close enough he held out his fat little arms towards Reggie and did his starfish jump. She caught him and held him tight and said, 'Hello, sunshine. We missed you.'

*

Jackson went in the house and came back out, looking sick, then he siphoned petrol out of the Toyota that was parked outside and used it to set fire to the house.

You would think it was exactly the kind of situation in which a person would call the police -kidnap, murder, self-defence, etcetera -but no, apparently not. 'I don't want this in the baby's life for ever,' Dr Hunter said to Jackson, 'do you understand? The way I've had it in mine?' and Reggie supposed he must have done because he got rid of a whole crime scene -pouf! -just like that.

Then they left, walked back down the track to the car, the flames rising behind them into the dark morning sky. They must have looked as if they were walking out of hell.

Jackson dropped them in the small car park at the side of the field and Dr Hunter said, 'Just let us out here,' as if he'd given them a lift back from a supermarket. 'I can see my house from here,' Dr Hunter said. 'We'll be fine. Thank you. 'The baby reached out its fat little hand and Jackson shook it and said, 'How d'you do,' and the baby laughed.

'Goodbye, Mr B.,' Reggie said and kissed him on the cheek, as lightly as a sparrow.

There had been a lot of policemen at the house but they had walked in from the field, through the gap in the hedge in the back garden and into the kitchen and the only sign of life was fingerprint dust all over the kitchen surfaces so Dr Hunter and Reggie went straight up the back stairs and into the bathroom as if they were invisible or charmed. Dr Hunter ran a bath and gave the baby to Reggie and said, 'Will you give him a bath, Reggie, while I take a shower?' and when they were both clean and warm and wrapped in towels, Dr Hunter said, 'It's surprising just how much you miss soap and hot water.' And then she said to Reggie, as if it was a normal thing, 'Do you think you could take our clothes and put them in your bag and dispose of them somewhere?' And Reggie, who was pretty good at dealing with bloodstained clothes by now, stuffed the baby's matelot outfit and Dr Hunter's suit, T-shirt and pretty underwear -all ruined by the blood -into her backpack. The blood wasn't quite dry, which was a thought she didn't dwell on.

Then she got clean clothes from Dr Hunter's bedroom and the baby's room -more fingerprint dust -and they looked as good as new. Not Reggie, Reggie was old, she had lived a lifetime in a day.

When they came downstairs again all the police in the house looked completely stunned at the sight of them. One of the forensic officers said, 'Who are you?' and Dr Hunter said, 'Joanna Hunter,' and the forensic officer said, 'What are you doing, this is a crime scene, you're compromising it,' and Dr Hunter said, 'What crime scene?' and the policeman said, 'A kidnapping,' and then looked as if he felt pretty stupid because the kidnap victim was sitting right in front of him saying to Reggie, 'Do you want to put the kettle on?' and Reggie said, 'And we'll all have tea.' And then everyone wanted to ask her questions of course and Dr Hunter just kept on saying, as polite as pie, 'I'm really sorry, I don't remember.' When they'd had tea, Reggie said, 'Well, better be off, Dr H. Things to do, people to see.' And then she said to all the police officers, 'Bye, folks,' and hoisted her bag on her back as if it contained books or messages or anything really rather than two sets of bloodstained clothes.