Jenny’s head moved on the pillow, heavily, from side to side. “If I knew that, I could’ve stopped it. I’ve been lying here just thinking and thinking, but I can’t put my finger on it.”

“When did you first notice that something was bothering Pat?”

“Way back. Ages ago. May? The start of June? I’d say something to him and he wouldn’t answer; when I looked at him, he’d be there staring into space, like he was listening for something. Or the kids would start making noise, and Pat would whip round and go, ‘Shut up!’—and when I asked him what the problem was, because that totally wasn’t like him, he’d be like, ‘Nothing, just I should be able to get some bloody peace and quiet in my own home, that’s the only problem.’ It was just tiny stuff—no one else would have even noticed—and he said he was fine, but I knew Pat. I knew him inside out. I knew there was something wrong.”

I said, “But you didn’t know what it was.”

“How would I have known?” Jenny’s voice had a sudden defensive edge. “He’d said a few times about hearing scratching noises up in the attic, but I never heard anything. I thought probably it was a bird going in and out. I didn’t think it was a big deal—like, why would it be? I figured Pat was depressed about being out of work.”

Meanwhile, Pat had slowly turned more and more afraid that she thought he was hearing things. He had taken it for granted that the animal was preying on her mind too. I said, “Unemployment had been getting to him?”

“Yeah. A lot. We were …” Jenny shifted restlessly in the bed, caught her breath sharply as some wound pulled. “We’d been having problems about that. We never used to fight, ever. But Pat loved providing for all of us—he was over the moon when I quit working, he was so proud that he could afford for me to do that. When he lost his job … At first he was all positive, all, ‘Don’t worry, babes, I’ll have something else before you know it, you go buy that new top you were wanting and don’t worry for one second.’ I thought he’d get something, too—I mean, he’s good at what he does, he works like mad, of course he would, right?”

She was still shifting, running a hand through her hair, tugging harder and harder at tangles. “That’s how it works. Everyone knows: if you don’t have a job, it’s because you’re crap at what you do, or because you don’t actually want one. End of story.”

I said, “There’s a recession on. During a recession, there are exceptions to most rules.”

“It just made sense that he’d find something, you know? But things don’t make sense any more. It didn’t matter what Pat deserved: there just weren’t any jobs out there. By the time that started hitting us, though, we were pretty much broke.”