“Don’t you people talk to each other?”

“I’m sorry,” she says. Don’t apologize!

The reverend looks back down at his papers and leaves her hovering there. Then he looks up again. “Was there something else?”

She hesitates, and she knows it’s a mistake even before she begins talking. “Did you know Gerald Cartwright well?” It’s too late. He is unimpressed by her, has seen self-doubt in the way she’s clutching the hideous bag in front of her. He stands up and moves round the desk. She steps backward instinctively and curses herself for doing so.

“Look, my dear, there’s obviously been some sort of cock-up at your end. I suggest you go and read my statement and then”—he looks her up and down again, his eyes lingering on her longer than she’s comfortable with; he makes Daley look amateurish in the perv stakes—“if one of your superiors needs something clarified I’ll be happy to speak to them again.” He ushers her backward with a fake smile, kicks away the doorstop, and shuts the door in her face.

Rabbani stands on the stone paving staring at the wooden door in front of her. She feels as though her face is on fire. She’s never let anyone treat her like that. Not since she joined the force anyway. Not since she was given the uniform. How can everything she is, everything that she’s trained for, be undermined simply because she’s no longer in body armor and helmet? Why should it matter that she’s replaced her checkerboard tie and hi-vis jacket for a crappy suit with no pockets? It shouldn’t matter!

But it does.

—

“I’m back!”

There’s no response. She finds Edna watching the telly; some wildlife program or other, her feet up on the Cavalier footstool. Lily doesn’t bother much with the TV, unless it’s the snooker. She drops the blemished newspaper onto the arm of the chair, but Edna doesn’t acknowledge it.

Lily looks at Edna properly for the first time in days. The disease is taking its toll; her face shrinking in on itself like a deflating balloon. She’s never been a small woman—and she’s hardly that now—but she is certainly . . . diminished. All skin and hair, her eyebrows too large for her face, great hairy caterpillars that wriggle across the top of her glasses. Her breasts no longer fill the ample room inside her blouse. She has been reduced, consumed from the inside out, and Lily is sure this cancer is somehow all her fault. A punishment from God for her past sins . . . whatever they may be.

She knows what Edna would say. Don’t be silly, Lillian.

What’s done is done.