In the few short hours since she left for the library Nevis Smith has changed, some small, bright part of her gone, perhaps forever. The alteration became clear to her in the conversation with the policewoman. The old Nevis Smith never once in her life told a lie. This new, sadder, Nevis is surprisingly good at telling only part of the truth.

Chapter 6

Cullen

Christopher Cullen is pulling on his still-damp jacket and trying not to allow Veronica’s complaining to get to him. He knows how much his wife hates it when he drops everything for his mother. The calls usually come at night, often from the care home, sometimes from Amanda herself. When it’s the home it’s usually because Amanda has done something unconscionable to one of the other residents or is refusing to let anyone in her room. Amanda will then call to deny the accusations and counterattack with a list of grievances about the facilities or the food or the carers and to demand her son come over immediately. This time it’s the care home. Amanda, or the Dalek as he calls her in private, on the grounds that she is capable of exterminating everything in her path, has called the police again, this time claiming to have been kidnapped.

‘Do you really have to go?’ Veronica says, watching him from the doorway to the living room. His wife has no idea of the hold Amanda has over him and Cullen wants to keep it that way. A few loose words and his mother could ruin him, ruin this, the beautiful house, the glamorous, prestigious wife, his future prospects. And if it came to it, if he crossed her, if he displeased her, she would. Cullen is in no doubt about that.

‘It is what it is,’ he says, blandly, relieved to have an excuse to get away and not be called upon to service his wife who, he suspects, might be ovulating.

‘Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten!’ she says, affronted.

Whumph. There it is. The demand, the judgement and, oh God, his wife’s more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger look, similar enough to Princess Diana’s doe eyes to make him suspect Veronica of practising it from old clips of the princess on YouTube. ‘Can’t it wait till tomorrow?’

‘No,’ Veronica says, determinedly. ‘My OPK checked positive yesterday. Sorry, darling, but the old ovavavooms are primed and ready. It’s time to muster the troops.’