“What’s wrong with me for goodness’ sake? I’ve coped with a hell of a lot worse than that.”

“Funny thing, shock.”

“I’m tough.”

“Aren’t we all? Then out of the blue, we’re felled by something small. Happens to me. Death after death, all the difficult ones, young people, pain we can’t control, someone’s fear c and I’m very calm. I get home and there’s a dead mouse on the mat and I’m in tears. Try this tea again.”

Cat’s hand was steadier.

“What did the police say?”

Cat shrugged. One random youth on the Dulcie estate who had snatched her mobile, kicked out at her and run? She could hear Simon’s patient sigh.

“How’s Lizzie Jameson?” she said, setting down her cup.

Sister Noakes looked up. The desk lamp cast a shadow on to her face, but Cat was swift to catch the fleeting expression.

“It’s a bugger,” Cat said. “I’ll go along and see her in a moment. Is Max there?”

“He is. He goes into the garden a lot c walks around c sits on the bench. He’ll need a lot of support when it’s over, Cat.”

“And he isn’t an easy man to help. Very stubborn, very proud.”

“He’s angry.”

“So am I. This is the first case I’ve seen, and I’m angry because it was preventable. Every case of variant CJD was preventable, they came about because of greed c greedy bloody farmers.”

“The farmers weren’t to know.”

“Don’t be so forgiving, I can’t handle forgiveness at the moment.” She got up. “I don’t know what I’m going to say to Max either.”

“Come on, you always know. It’s your best thing.”

“Hm.”

In the corridor, Cat felt the extraordinary atmosphere of the hospice, the tremendous, packed stillness, the feeling of being out of time. It was never like this in any hospital, there was always clatter, voices and footsteps, a sense of urgency. Here, that was absent. Here, nothing mattered except the individual patients being nursed, kept pain-free and comfortable, what they wanted to say listened to carefully. “At the still point of the turning world,”Cat always thought when she came here.

She opened the door of Lizzie’s room.

And in that split second, time stopped. Max Jameson was standing beside the bed, holding his wife’s hand between both his own, staring down, his face stark with disbelief and a sort of horror. The nurse on the opposite side of Lizzie glanced up at Cat and everything was clear from the expression in her eyes. There was the most profound silence and stillness. The room was a tableau, the people motionless, the dead woman’s eyes still open, staring blankly at the ceiling.

Then the picture fractured and splintered into a thousand pieces whose sharp edges cut the silence as Max Jameson let out a sound Cat had heard only a few times in her life, a howl that mingled pain and grief, rage and fear. And then he hurled himself past Cat, pushing her as he ran, out of the room, down the corridor towards the hall, his cry trailing behind him like blood spilling out on to the floor.

Cat went to the bed, and drew her hand gently down over Lizzie Jameson’s eyes. Already there was the look she knew so well, the strange, deep and distant look of the dead, sleeping with an absorption that took them far beyond reach. But, freed from the struggles and the fear, Lizzie was beautiful again and already years younger; it was as if, at the moment of death, time began counting backwards.

“Poor girl.”

“Hard for them both.”

“It was cruel.”

“I fear for him, Dr Deerbon. I’ve been watching him today. He’s been like a hot spring boiling up inside, just about keeping the lid on for her.”

“I’ll go and see him.” Cat lifted Lizzie’s hands and folded them gently on top of each other. “But not tonight.” She turned towards the door. “I’m bushed.”

It was all she could do to stay focused enough to drive safely, and she opened the car windows and switched on the late-night news.

“Police in North Yorkshire have arrested a thirty-eight-year-old woman in connection with the abduction of a six-year-old girl, Amy Sudden, from near her home in the village of Gathering Bridge. The woman was taken to Scarborough hospital from where the detective in charge of the case, DCS Jim Chapman of the North Riding force, spoke to reporters.”

Cat turned on to the bypass. There was very little traffic, and she could slow down without causing annoyance.

The strong Yorkshire voice came over, speaking in the usual, robotic official way. “I would like to confirm that, this afternoon, officers from the North Riding force pursued a car travelling towards the coast and that a six-year-old girl was discovered in the boot of that car, when it came to a halt on scrubland above the cliffs some miles north of Scarborough. The girl was taken by ambulance to Scarborough hospital where she has undergone a medical examination. Although suffering from shock and dehydration, she has no serious injuries and should be allowed home in a couple of days. I can also confirm that police pursued and subsequently arrested the driver of the car and that tonight a thirty-eight-year-old woman has been taken into custody. That is all I can say for the moment.”

“Superintendent, can you comment on reports that charges may also be brought in connection with the disappearance of two young boys, one in the North Riding force area, and one from the south of England?”

“I’m sorry, I can’t say any more for the time being.”

“Can you confirm that a senior officer from another force is with you in connection with these other two cases of presumed abduction?”

“I can’t, no.”

Cat switched off the radio, and headed for home.

Lights were still on in the farmhouse but the kitchen was empty. From upstairs came her elder son’s voice wailing loudly.

“I didn’t know it would, I’m sorry, Daddy, I didn’t know c”

Cat dropped her bag and headed up.

“What’s going on?”

Chris, Sam and Felix were in the bathroom. Felix was in the bath.

“Mummy, it wasn’t my fault, it wasn’t, I didn’t know it—”

“Sam, shut up. Stop whining. The more you go on the crosser it makes me, so shut up.”

It was rare for Chris to speak so sharply to the children.

“What happened?”

“Sam thought marker pen made good tattoos on Felix and I can’t get the bloody stuff off.”

Cat sat on the laundry bin and began to laugh.

“The funny side of it escapes me. Felix, stop squirming.”

“You’ll get nowhere scrubbing like that, Chris, it’ll just have to wear off. Sam, you should know better. Gosh, is it that late? Where’s Hannah?”

“Asleep. This is boys’ trouble.”

Chris looked at Cat for the first time. “Hey.”

“Hey. Glass of wine would be nice.”

“Christ, what a pack of mongrels in here.”

“Whereas outside it’s more your baying wolves.”

“What happened?”

“Tell you later.”

Cat scooped her younger son out of the bath.

“His fingers have gone wrinkly,” Sam said. “Like aliens’.”

“How do you know?”

“I know everything about aliens.”

“Maybe because you are one.”

He let out a gleeful shriek.

Twenty minutes later, children asleep, Cat went in search of the glass of wine that had never materialised. Chris was lying on the kitchen sofa.

“Asleep?”

“Yes.” She nudged him. “Move your legs.”

Chris opened his eyes. “It can’t go on,” he said. “And I want a whisky.”

Cat knew better than to take umbrage. Moods like this had become quite common. She thought she knew how to handle them.

“I’m absolutely pissed off.”

“Sam just didn’t think. It’s not the end of the world.”

“Not Sam, though he’s too old to be so stupid, he should start thinking occasionally. But not that, bloody everything. I had a pig of a day, I had three emergencies, I had a mountain of paperwork, I had that meeting with the Primary Health Care Trust which you should have been at, I come home expecting you to be back within the hour and you’re gone half the night. Anyway, I’ve told the PHCT neither of us will be joining the night-call rota and that goes for half the GPs in our area, more than half, they can pay through the nose for agency doctors, serve them right.”