Drew thought that her job sometimes took her to this dark place and made her forget she was a wife and a mother. The secret truth was that her job was what had kept her out of the dark place long enough to become a wife and mother.

She cast a glance at the station as she waited for a gap in the traffic, half-wishing that she would see Drew rush back out despite the rain to complete that kiss, and to hear her assurance that it constituted unfinished business. Instead she saw only a flash in her rear-view, as a Corsa driver gave her the okay to pull away.

There was a fear she did not like to admit at times like this, as though refusing to name it would keep it from her head, far less from happening.

It was that Drew might stray. Not hypothetically either, at some non-specific time in the future, but tonight: that something previously only dreaded was a tangible possibility in the here and now. He could have a few too many and do something silly but perhaps understandable. A little drunk, more than a little angry with her, feeling sorry for himself, feeling in need of reparation: Catherine knew enough about the way people justified their transgressions to be afraid.

He was coming home, though, she remembered with relief. A big meeting with the inner circle and then dinner, after which he’d be on a train from Waverley to Central. It wasn’t an overnight thing.

Games designers weren’t exactly rock stars, but they weren’t school librarians either. They transected certain circles, socially and economically. Where Catherine’s own professional Venn diagram overlapped criminals, doctors and lawyers, Drew’s brought him into occasional contact with more glamorous spheres. Two guys from The Wire had done voice talent on Hostile III. Rock bands were queuing up to get their tracks licensed on games for the kudos and exposure it delivered. And of course there were the aspiring cover girls providing eye-candy at the launch events.

Drew was nine years younger than her, and she couldn’t be the only one who found him irresistibly attractive in a just-the-right-side-of-geeky way. Therein lay the real root of her fear: sometimes she thought he was too good to be true. Too good for her, anyway. Attractive, bright, successful, considerate, affectionate, a loving and dutiful dad: what the hell was he doing with a crabbit older woman who complicated the hell out of everything and could go weeks without shagging him?