Outside, everything was quiet at number nine Oriole Drive. The snow fell silently on itself, making a slab on the roof that needed new tiles. The light wind that occasionally sent the solemn flakes into a swirling frenzy shook the branches of the tall pines in the yard and made the snow sculptures on their boughs fall to the ground with a barely audible whoosh. Far away in the distance, a train sounded its horn as it pulled its coal through the night.

But inside the house three people were still awake. Katie lay looking at the dim outline of her towelling robe hanging on the back of the door.

Physically she was warm, but far from comfortable, hugging herself beneath the covers, legs curled up to her belly, arms circling her knees. Her thighs were still wet from their sex and she lay completely still, a mile away in the bed from her husband, making no attempt to move and barely breathing.

Katie was sore. Between her legs was a dull ache that was matched only by the one in her heart, the one that was compressing her chest like a vice, making her breathing a chore. She had initiated their sex with a feathery touch and a caress as soon as they climbed into bed a few hours ago. Sam had seemed so small and lost, so weary from his confessions and broken by his circumstances, that she wanted to hold him, to have him inside her and soothe him with the anaesthetic of pleasure.