It was a real ‘party’s over’ moment, in her mind heralding the death of the summer. The weather had broken, an Atlantic low-pressure system blowing in to quench the heat of a sustained sunny spell, the majority of which had happened, typically, during the fortnight Catherine had spent on holiday in Menorca. Now the holiday was finished, the sunny spell had been washed away, the schools were back and she was knee-deep in another murder case. It felt like summer was over and she didn’t quite know where it had gone, or what she’d been planning to do with it anyway.

Catch up, that was what she had wanted to do. Get off the belt, step back. Now the belt was whizzing away again, everything the way it always was, except maybe faster. Fraser was starting Primary Two, yet some mornings over the school holidays she had caught herself wondering why Drew wasn’t getting him ready for nursery. Duncan was starting Primary Four.

Then there was Drew, the main reason she had wanted to get off the belt.

They hadn’t had sex in six weeks. He probably didn’t think she was counting, but she was, and she knew for a fact that he would be. He probably thought she wasn’t that fussed either, but he was wrong about that too, acutely.

It wasn’t the kind of thing you could confide in anybody because they would jump to the wrong, overdramatic conclusions. To most outside observers, six weeks without sex would automatically indicate a rough patch in a marriage. Most outside observers without two kids and two jobs between them, that was. It wasn’t indicative of a rough patch at all: it was just practicalities, complications. Everything else was fine. That, in fact, was perhaps what made it all the more of a strain that the physical side was so neglected. Drew was understanding, up to a point. Going by his demeanour this morning, sealed with a cursory kiss, she could assume that point had been breached last night.

She wasn’t withholding from him. It was just bad luck. Circumstance. Things had been chaotic and exhausting in the lead-up to their holiday, ironically because she was trying, prior to their departure, to free her mind of the kind of clutter that might be an impediment to relaxing. Hence she had been hammering it a bit at work, trying to tie up loose ends so that she wouldn’t end up distracted by thinking about them when she went abroad. She knew she was knackering herself and consequently neglecting Drew, but the holiday was going to be a watershed. She and Drew would have time for each other, time to talk about something other than work and family arrangements. They’d talk about the future, what they’d like to change. They’d talk about sex, and they’d have a lot of it.

Bad luck. Circumstance.