Mark laughed. “All right, all right. What are the chances of getting a taxi?”

“In Chetwood village? After midnight?”

“Nil,” said Mark. “I suppose I’m walking. Gin jacket should keep me warm, at least.”

“For heaven’s sake,” said Walden. It was mid-December. There was frost on the grass every morning. “You’ll end up as an icicle, don’t be ridiculous. I have a spare bedroom, you can sleep here.”

Mark made all the right demurring noises and then let himself be persuaded. He wasn’t that bad, really, Walden thought. Quite manageable, if you were used to him. And quite good-looking as well.

Not that that mattered. But as she fell asleep, more than slightly tipsy and thinking as she so often did of Laura Kenning, she remembered muzzily another late-night gin, walking back from the pub afterwards. A kiss that never happened. And the admission: I do miss sex, occasionally.

chapter nineteen THE END OF TERM

Christmas at Chetwood School officially began on December 8, which was the day that Annie in the school office started wearing her tinsel bauble earrings. Ten days left! The slog of the Autumn Term was a little more bearable with the end in sight.

The final week and a bit of school was always, not to put too fine a point on it, a doss. Walden, who taught only an A-level class and a critical magical safety course, would not be spending any lessons making Christmas cards or watching ever-so-slightly relevant films on the school’s eStream, but she did not grudge her colleagues a single lesson of relief after what was invariably an absolute nightmare term. The children enjoyed it too, of course. Very few of them would realise that the fun and easy end-of-term lessons were only minimally for their benefit.