‘I suppose that’s why it’s called traumatic stress: stress that we’re not designed to deal with.’

‘Exactly.’

‘That’s well deserved, Johnny, and I know you’ll do a marvellous job. Now where’s our food, I’m ravenous.’

‘You two amaze me, with what you do for a living, I think I’d rather skip dinner.’

‘It’s a job like any other. I couldn’t do what you did. I’d be a useless soldier. What about you, Kelly?’

‘Me? A soldier? My God, I’d want a solid argument presented on moving forward before I agreed to anything.’

Johnny laughed. ‘It’s true, you’d be a liability. I can just imagine it: being briefed on a dawn raid and you questioning some brigadier and his tactics. I’d pay to see it, though.’

‘Theirs is not to reason why…’ Ted quoted Tennyson.

‘So, can you talk about the case? I don’t mind if you do,’ Johnny said.

‘It’s ugly. There are no clear pointers to a love interest or a burglary or the usual first set of theories that come to you when you first examine a scene. It was so staged,’ Kelly said.

‘I agree,’ said Ted.

‘You see, that’s the interesting bit: when you two put your heads together and postulate and chew over your vast experience. It’s the fallout I couldn’t handle. You know, the families, when kids are involved, and people doing that stuff to each other when they’re not even at war. It makes no sense.’

‘Does war make sense? Who was it that said war was just organised murder?’ Ted asked.

‘Ian Brady, the Moors murderer.’

‘That’s a whole other debate, I think I might go and see where our food is and get another drink.’ Johnny left the table.

‘He’s not proud of being ordered to kill,’ Kelly said.

‘I understand that, and I see it in him. I’ve no experience of war, and I have no desire to. Conscription had ended when I was old enough. I feel for these men who are given a rifle and told where to aim it. It’s inherently wrong. But I like Johnny immensely and I know your mother did too.’

Later, when Kelly was walked to her car, needing to get back to work, she put her arm through Ted’s on one side, and Johnny’s on the other. It was only after they’d walked five metres that she realised the intimacy of what she’d done and that it had happened so naturally. It had felt the most unpretentious thing to do and she glanced sideways to see if Ted had reacted at all. He tightened his arm and they strode on.

Chapter 24