“You did what?Chris, you may not be prepared to go on doing nights now the new contract is on us— that’s up to you—but I think you’re wrong. Why should our patients suffer, so you and your chums can score political points?”

“Patients are not going to suffer.”

“Well, I’m going to carry on doing nights on call the same as I always have.”

“Anyway, where were you?”

“Don’t dothat to me, just ignoring what I say and changing the subject, it’s so bloody arrogant. I’ll make it clear to the PHCT tomorrow that whatever you said applies to you, not to me.”

“Thus slicing the practice down the middle. How supportive.”

“Oh, don’t be childish.” She got up. The wine, which she had drunk too quickly, had hit her like a hammer, making her sway with exhaustion. “I need to sleep.”

“You still haven’t said where you were.”

“I was having my mobile nicked and being knocked to the ground in a passageway on the Dulcie estate, after which the paramedics found the patient I’d gone to see dead in his lavatory. Then I went to the hospice where Lizzie Jameson had just died and Max went roaring off into the night. Then I came home. On the way I heard that North Riding Police have arrested someone—a womanfor God’s sake. She’d abducted a little girl, and she might be the David Angus person as well c too much for one night.”

Upstairs, she sat down on the edge of the bed and began to sob. Seconds later, Chris was beside her.

“God, I am so sorry c I’m a pig.”

“Yes.”

“We don’t need this.” He put his arms round her. “Neither of us needs this. Just think if we didn’t have to.”

“Please,” Cat said, “please don’t start about Australia. I really, really couldn’t take it.”

“Well, something has to happen, Cat. A big change.”

“Oh God.”

“Listen, get a babysitter for Saturday. I want us to go out. I want to talk properly. Can you?”

“I don’t want to spoil a nice dinner talking about Australia,” Cat mumbled. “I’m too tired to get undressed.”

“Yes, look at you c look at us. You come in from being mugged on some poxy housing estate, I’ve been fighting bureaucracy instead of treating patients, then fighting my children because I’m tired and frustrated c What is this? What are we doing here?”

She had been on the brink of falling asleep in her clothes. Now Cat sat up, her brain and body charged and electric. “Why are you shouting at me? We don’t do this, Chris, we don’t shout.”

“Exactly. Exactly.”

“This can’t wait until we’re sitting across some random restaurant table. I won’t sleep now until it’s sorted. It’s not just about being on call at night.”

“No. It’s a whole lot more. I’ve been trying to get to grips with it in my head c”

“Without talking about it to me?”

“We’re never together long enough.”

“That’s rubbish.”

She felt as if she was being attacked on all sides by hideous things which danced round her in an evil, gloating dance. And then it occurred to her, sickeningly that this was what had happened to Karin McCafferty—one moment, rushing home to tell her husband that her scans were clear, her cancer gone, the next being confronted by a man who was leaving her to live with another woman in New York.

“It wasn’t even a younger woman,” she said aloud. “I don’t know why that would have made it better but it would. Only she was older. An older woman for Christ’s sake.”

Chris was staring at her blankly.

“Karin,” she said dully. “When Mike left her.”

“What’s that got to do with anything?”

“Hasn’t it?”

There was a pause, then Chris closed his eyes. “Oh dear God.” He took hold of her hands. “What this has to do with is that I am sick and tired and I am almost burned out. It is about me not wanting to do this any more. I do not want to be what I am.”

“Which is? Husband? Father?”

“Of course not husband and father. A GP. I don’t want to be a GP.”

“But you’re a doctor through and through, you’re—”

“I didn’t say ‘doctor,’ I said GP. That’s what I’ve had enough of. You still love it. I am beginning to hate it and when I don’t hate it I resent it. The job has changed, the bureaucracy gets to me c but it isn’t just that c I don’t want to do it any longer. If I carry on I’ll become a bad doctor.”

“We need a holiday, that’s all.”

“No. It isn’t all. We had a holiday and I didn’t feel any better. Look, I didn’t mean to start on this huge thing in the middle of the night when we’re both shattered.”

“What do you really want to do?”

“Retrain c well, partly. I want to go back into psychiatry.”

“I think I might cry. Or be sick.”

“Shock?”

“Relief. Not Australia, not another woman.”

“I’ve given up on Australia and what other woman would have me?” He wandered into the bathroom. “Whatwas that about a woman being arrested?”

Fourteen

“Father in Heaven, grant them comfort in their suffering. When afraid, give them courage, when afflicted grant them patience, when dejected afford them hope; and when alone assure them of the prayerful support of your holy people, through Jesus Christ Our Lord.”

The candle flames barely glimmered and the lamps made a glowing cave of the Chapel of Christ the Healer. The great cathedral spaces behind Jane Fitzroy were hollowed out of darkness. She knelt alone before the small altar on which stood a striking modern gold cross.

She loved to say the last office of the day alone here. Tonight she had come in to pray for the two patients who had died in Imogen House, and for another who would probably die in a few hours. The cathedral’s night silence seemed not hollow or empty but crammed with centuries of prayer. She could understand how people gave themselves to the monastic life.

She bent her head for another moment to commend herself to God but, as she did so, a sound made her hesitate. She thought she had heard a door brush against the stone floor as it opened. She waited. Nothing. Silence again.

She bent her head.

Footsteps came down the side aisle, someone in soft-soled shoes.

The main doors would have been closed and locked but the side door was open for her to secure when she left for the night.

She stood up. “Is someone there?”

The footsteps stopped.

“Hello?” The candle flames were steady but her own voice wavered slightly. “Can I help you?”

Nothing. She wondered whether to move forward confidently or wait. The footsteps came nearer.

“The cathedral is closed really, but if you’ve come in to pray please stay a few moments, there are things I can do before I have to leave.”

A man stood at the open gate of the chapel. He did not come in. He had a two-day stubble on both jaw and head, wore a navy reefer jacket and a red scarf. She sighed. Not a madman, not a thief, not drunk, not—she smiled as the word came to her—not unrespectable.

“Max,” she said.

He looked bewildered, as if he were not certain where he was or why. Then he said, “Lizzie.”

“Max, I am so sorry.” Jane got up and went to him, put out a hand to touch his arm. He stared at it as if an alien creature had alighted there. “I’ve been saying the evening prayers. Do you want to sit quietly for a minute?”

“Why?”

“You look exhausted.”

“I’ve been walking about. I can’t go home. I can’t go back there.”

“It’s very hard.”

He took a few steps into the chapel. Jane waited. She and Max Jameson had met only once, when she had been to see Lizzie at Imogen House and he had been curt with her, telling her that she was not needed. She had left, understanding, but returned after he had gone, to give the then sleeping Lizzie a blessing.

“I hate this place.”

“The cathedral?”

He gestured around him. “She made me bring her here. Early on. I would have taken her anywhere. I’d have carried her on my back c It was called a service of healing.” He laughed, a small, cold laugh. “I knelt down there. I prayed as well. It might have worked, I’d have tried whatever she wanted. She believed it helped. She said so.”