“Giles’s. He’s in London attending a conference for a week and he rang to make contact. He’s getting married and I expect he wanted to tell me about it. When he heard about Annie and that I was driving here he lent me his car. Clara needs hers to visit Annie and mine is in Cambridge.”

Dalgliesh was shaken by the sudden spurt of jealousy, as powerful as it was unwelcome. She had finished with Giles before they had met. He had proposed and been rejected. That was all Dalgliesh knew. He had never felt threatened by anything in her past, nor had she in his. So why this sudden primitive response to what after all had been a thoughtful and generous gesture? He didn’t want to think of Giles as either of these things, and the man now had his Chair at some northern university, safely out of the way. So why the hell couldn’t he stay there? Dalgliesh found himself thinking bitterly that Emma might point out that she was comfortable driving a Jag; after all, it wouldn’t be for the first time. She drove his.

Mastering himself, he said, “There’s some soup and some ham, so I’ll make us sandwiches. Stay by the fire and I’ll bring it in.”

And even now, in the depth of distress, weary and heavy-eyed, she was beautiful. That the thought in its egotism, its stirring of sex, should come so quickly to mind appalled him. She had come to him for comfort, and the only comfort she craved he couldn’t give. And wasn’t this onrush of anger and frustration at his powerlessness only the atavistic male arrogance which said that the world is a dangerous and cruel place but now you have my love and I can shield you? Wasn’t his reticence about his job less a response to her own reluctance to be involved than a wish to shield her from the worst realities of a violent world? But even her world, academic and seeming so cloistered, had its brutalities. The hallowed peace of Trinity Great Court was an illusion. He thought, We are violently propelled into the world with blood and pain and few of us will die with the dignity for which we hope and for which some pray. Whether we choose to think of life as an impending happiness broken only by inevitable grief and disappointments, or as the proverbial vale of tears with brief interludes of joy, the pain will come, except to those few whose deadened sensibilities made them apparently impervious to either joy or sorrow.

They ate together almost in silence. The ham was tender, and he heaped it generously on the bread. He drank the soup almost without tasting it, only vaguely knowing that it was good. She did manage to eat and within twenty minutes was ready to leave.