The truth was that she was a doctor. Just a doctor. She knew no more about how to cope with the person she loved dying of a brain tumour than anyone else, possibly less because she knew too much, looked for signs, interpreted everything. I should just get on with it. Get on with it, take it as it comes. Isn’t that what I say? Just take one day at a time.

She put the wine back in the fridge. On the worktop above it, a box of Chris’s medications. Later, she would take it upstairs.

She knew what rooms came to look like when people were dying in them, the clutter of medicine bottles and oxygen cylinders and syringe pumps. Would that happen here? Would Chris stay? Could she cope with that? Could the children?

The wind raced across the paddock and battered against the kitchen window and the headlights of a car fanned out across the drive. Then Simon dived into the kitchen, brushing off the rain.

“Hey, Chris, good to see you home. How are things?”

Cat held her breath, waiting for some explosion of anger, a withering remark. She held out the bottle of wine but Simon shook his head, flopping down on the sofa next to his brother-in-law.

“So-so,” Chris said. “Better for being here. Bloody hospitals.”

“Be a lesson to you to stop sending people in there then.”

“You could say that. But since you ask, my head’s a hell of a lot better. It works, lessening the pressure. I thought it would be more painful post-op than it is. Shows they can saw your skull across with little ill effect.”

“I’ll remember that.”

“I get sick but there’s good medication for nausea. I get tired but so what, no one stops me from going to sleep. So all in all, yeah, I’m doing OK.”

Why? Cat thought as she drew the curtains across to shut out the storm. Why can’t he talk to me like that? Why didn’t he tell me? Why can he say those things to Simon, no problem, and not to me? I don’t know what’s going on here and I mind. It hurts.

“Any coffee?”

She nodded.

“How’s crime?” Chris was asking.

They talked on in the way they had always talked, easy with one another, and hearing Chris, laughing, swearing, needling her brother, hearing but not seeing him, made it seem as if nothing was wrong after all, as if he were well and things were as they had always been. Nothing had changed.

It was only as Simon talked about police anxiety over the gunman, still somewhere out there, walking free, planning God knows what next, that she glanced at Chris and saw his face, drawn and gaunt, and with a strange, troubled expression.

“We’re stretched to breaking point, we have to cover the whole of the bloody Jug Fair full of families with kids, we have a cathedral wedding with royals coming and this damn gunman is giving us the complete runaround. I don’t often lose sleep over things but I’m waking in the small hours. We have got to stop him.” He banged his hand on the arm of the sofa. “We have got to get him.”

There was a short silence, before Chris said, “What are you talking about? What gunman?”

“Does a brain tumour affect your memory?” Simon said easily.

Cat waited, horrified, expecting Chris to turn in anger, as he had done to her several times that day, over less, far less.

But he only shrugged and said, “Apparently.”

He went to bed shortly afterwards, his face drained of colour, so exhausted that Cat had to help him wash and undress. He curled into the bed and groaned softly as he fell asleep.

“Can you stay?” she asked Simon, who was flicking through the television channels in the den when she returned.

“Not a hope, but I’ll have another coffee.”

“Judith and I are supposed to be taking the children to the fair but I wonder if it’s safe.”

“You’ll never be safer. We’ll have everything covered. Never mind the sniper, you won’t so much as stand a chance of getting your pocket picked.”

“Hope you’re right. Do put down that bloody remote.”

“Sorry. Chris looks bad but he seems in decent spirits.”

“To you.”

“What do they say?”

She shrugged. “They won’t. Can we talk about something else?”

“Depends.”

“Oh, you won’t want to, but you’re going to listen. Two Js. Judith Connolly. Jane Fitzroy.”

“Nothing doing, old girl. Do you want another glass of wine?”

“Sit down.”

But he was out of the room. She heard the sounds of kettle being filled, glass of wine being poured, cupboard doors banging. No, she thought, he’ll duck out of it, as ever. And suddenly, she didn’t care. She’d had enough. She was weary. Let Simon look after himself and let him think what he liked about their father.

He came back.

“Talk me through what kind of person shoots at random. It has to be a madman or someone with a grudge, but what grudge?”

Simon gave her a calculating glance. Drank. Said nothing. No, Cat thought. Nothing doing, as you said.

“We don’t know for sure it’s only one.”

“What, two gunmen?”

“Could be. The police are keeping an open mind, as they say. I think it’s one man. He can use a rifle, he can use a handgun. He can shoot at close range and at a distance. The Chief wants us to bring in a profiler. I’m against it, I think they’re useless. I can profile this bloke as well as anyone. Man. Loner. Gun-savvy. Grudge against women—it’s young women he’s shot. Clever. Cunning. Athletic. Good sight. Doesn’t stand out in a crowd. Local—knows the area well. Psychopath. Clear-headed—not on drugs, probably doesn’t drink, or not much. Good at covering his tracks. Easy when you know how. Now find him.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Wait till he slips up. Try and keep one step ahead—think like him. Difficult that.” He shook his head.

“You love it.”

“Yes. You didn’t hear me say it, but yes c this is the sort I like. Am I warped and twisted?”

“No. Fascinated by human nature and up for a challenge.”

“Right. I’d better go. God, I can’t take this in. This family doesn’t deserve another—” He stopped.

“Death. You can say it.”

“Yes c” He put his arms round her. “Might he be OK?”

“No,” Cat said, holding onto him tightly for a second. “No chance.” She moved away from him, walked to the television and switched it off. Looked round. Say it, she thought. Say.

“Don’t leave it, Si. Don’t duck your feelings. It doesn’t come round again.”

But he turned away without replying, as she had known he would.

Fifty-one

There was a single note on the organ, the sign for everyone to turn and look round and of course, she was beautiful, Chelsea Fisher, the most beautiful bride in the history of the world, as every bride was. Her mother had wanted to make the dress, said it was a waste of money to buy off the peg, but this wasn’t off the peg, was it, this was Designer, she and her sister-in-law had been to London to the showroom. It had taken four fittings. Never mind what it cost, no one had to know, least of all her mother, and if it was the same price as half a new kitchen, who cared? No one, at this moment. Not her mother. Not Andrew, gone scarlet and then chalk white in the face as he watched her. No one.

It was tight, skimmed her so she could hardly walk, and it had a fishtail and a long train like a mermaid and she shimmered like one too, the fabric was some sort of gleaming, glistening, clinging magical substance that blended with her, merged with her skin almost. The top was like silver snakeskin wrapped round her, but her long pale arms were bare, her shoulders covered with a wispy shrug of what felt like goose down. She had looked at herself in the mirror, looked at the tiny glittering tiara and the soft foaming veil, and floated away, then floated on Uncle Ray’s arm, floated in front of Lindsay and Flick and little Amy up the aisle towards Andrew and Father Brenner, grins a mile wide. Floated past them all, the hats and feathers and fascinators and pink georgette and lavender crêpe and black and white and purple cravats. Floated. Andrew’s mother had tears pouring down her face. Reached out her hand to touch the floating silk and gossamer and goose down as it drifted past.