‘I’m glad you’re pleased,’ he said. ‘How are things in Inverness? Your father sounded well when I spoke to him.’

‘Yes, he is, and the baby of the family’s just arrived, so that’s made his day.’ As if on cue, Moire hovered awkwardly in the doorway with two glasses of sherry, and Josephine waved her through. ‘Are you busy at work?’

‘Too busy. It’s the usual season of peace and goodwill to all men. A woman’s just cut her husband’s throat in Ealing. Three little girls have been taken into care, covered in bruises and half starved. We dragged a man out of the Thames last night because he couldn’t pay his debts and he didn’t want to go home to his family without a present for them.’ His voice sounded bitter, and Josephine wondered for the thousandth time how he coped with the relentless sadness of his job. ‘I was thinking just now, before you rang – I can’t remember a Christmas that wasn’t more steeped in misery than the rest of the year. It drives people to do the most terrible things to each other, this pressure to be happy. And on that note … I’ll see you in Cornwall. Give my love to Marta.’

‘I will.’

She put the phone down, and Moire smiled at her. ‘I didn’t want to interrupt,’ she said coyly.

‘You weren’t.’ 19

‘How is your policeman?’ Josephine didn’t dignify the question with a response, but Moire carried on undeterred. ‘I really don’t know why the two of you have to keep dancing round each other. You’ve been so close for years, and neither of you is getting any younger. He’s a nice man, you say, and you could do a lot worse. Why don’t you just throw your lot in with him, Josephine? We’ll sort something out for Dad.’

There were a hundred and one reasons why, but Josephine wasn’t about to explain them to her sister. ‘We’re friends,’ she said, and nodded to the small, gift-wrapped box in Moire’s hand to change the subject. ‘What did you get her this year?’

‘A brooch. And you?’

‘A ring. I found it in a market in London. She would have loved it.’ Josephine watched while her sister put the present under the tree at the bottom of the stairs. It was a ritual that had begun the Christmas after her mother’s death and continued ever since, a personal act of remembrance that was special to the two of them and jealously guarded. Funny, she thought, that only Christmas could bring out this uncharacteristic streak of sentimentality, when her mother – like many Scottish women of her generation – had never made much fuss of the day. Whenever Josephine thought of her, it was always summer, and she was striding across the sands at Nairn or playing with her daughters in Daviot, the village they all loved. Winter had never really suited her, and yet here they were, she and Moire, buying her presents and crying into their sherry.