Eventually Jane had given her money. She had a sudden foolish impulse to take Mary out for a meal. She wanted to feel her gratitude and childish happiness in the shared experience. She realised just in time that would have been unprofessional, so Jane just saw her to the door, slipped a few pound coins from her purse into the wrinkled brown hand, and wished her luck.

“Good luck to yourself,” the old woman said, “though you’ll not be needing it, a fine lady like you!”

And they say that the Irish have second sight! Jane thought.

In the afternoon she left the grimy office on one of the city’s bleakest housing estates and drove to a smart village just beyond the suburbs to interview a separated mother before writing a contested custody report for the divorce court. The woman was educated, superficially civilised but more bitter and dishonest than any of Jane’s clients from the criminal court. Jane returned with relief to the office. She had more in common with the separated mother than she liked to admit, and the similarity disturbed her. She began to write the report but could not concentrate and knew she would have to complete it while she was in Cornwall.

At five-thirty Jane hovered in the tearoom, hoping that one of her colleagues would suggest that they should go for a drink after work, but everyone else hurried away, and she was forced at last to go home.

She knew as soon as she walked in through the door that Roger was furious. There was a pile of suitcases in the carpeted hall, and he was waiting for her. The house seemed lifeless and empty. Watching his anger, she felt as detached as she had been when interviewing the heroin addict. She could recognise how good-looking he still was despite his grey hair and lined face. She could remember how she had loved him.

“You know I wanted to start early,” he fumed. “ You promised me you’d be back on time tonight. It’ll be midnight before we get to Rose Pengelly’s.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. She was sorry. She liked Rose. She liked Cornwall.

He looked at her suspiciously. “ You haven’t been to the pub with all your friends from the office?”

She roused herself to self-righteous anger, too.

“No,” she said. “ Of course not. I’m a probation officer, not a teacher. I don’t have twelve weeks’ holiday and finish work at four o’clock in the afternoon.”

“No,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

She could not tell what he was thinking but knew he was not sorry. He never regretted anything. He was humouring her. He often treated her as one of the difficult adolescent girls he taught at school. She knew he hated teaching the girls. He could shout and rage at the boys or tease them with his sarcastic good humour, but he was afraid of making the girls cry.