Hannah dropped her toast on the plate and howled. Felix stared at her over the lid of his beaker. Sam went through the door like a shadow and fast up the stairs. Richard got up.

"Let him be," Judith said. "Cat knows what to do."

Richard frowned but then sat down again, and after a second, put his hand on Hannah's arm.

Upstairs, as Cat lay beside her husband, Sam came quietly to the doorway, but sensing that it was different now, that there was something in the silence and the stillness that he had never known before, he stopped just inside the room.

"Sam?" She could hear him breathing. "Sam, do you want to come here? You don't have to."

"What's happening?"

"Daddy just died. A few moments ago. He was sleeping and then sleeping more deeply. And then he wasn't ... he died."

"Now?"

"A little while ago."

"Should I tell them?"

"I think I'd better do that."

"Can I look at him?"

"Of course you can. Do you want me to put the lamp on?"

"No." Sam did not move. "Not yet, please."

"Fine. There's some light from the landing."

Slowly, Sam came to the bed. Cat reached out her hand and he took it and squeezed it tightly. After a moment, he climbed up and reached over her, his hand hovering and then finally touching Chris.

Cat held her son closely and put her hand over his.

In the kitchen a few minutes later, Judith, putting the plates and cups onto a tray, paused and looked at Richard. He held her gaze. Hannah had gone to feed her hamster.

"There is," Judith said, "a different kind of stillness in the house."

Sixty-eight.

"What I don't understand is where people get guns from. And I don't mean field sports."

Phil shrugged. "A lot of them are adapted from guns built to shoot blanks, some come from Eastern Europe."

"But that's gangsters."

"You've been watching too many B-movies."

"Seriously ... I can't understand how kids get hold of guns, kids on the estates."

"Why are you worrying about it?"

"Because it's worrying of course. Aren't you worried? Don't you wonder if the kids you teach are going to get hold of guns? Maybe they already have, maybe this lunatic is one of them."

"Unlikely."

They had just watched the television news and what Phil had called a non-report from Lafferton about the gunman-on-the-loose.

"This guy doesn't just have one gun-if it is a guy."

"Oh, it couldn't be a woman."

"Why not?"

"It just couldn't ... no. It couldn't."

"And if it is just one man and not two. Or more."

"I don't think I want to have this conversation."

"Want to talk about weddings instead?"

"Yes. No. I think I'm too tired."

"We don't have to wait until you're well, you know. We can get married next week."

"I can't plan a wedding in a week!"

"What's to plan?"

Tom moved silently away, across the hall and into the kitchen, closing the door with care. But they hadn't heard him. They were too wrapped up in themselves to be bothered if he had heard.

He didn't like himself for listening at the door. He hadn't meant to do it, but as he had come downstairs, they had started to talk and he had, somehow, started to listen.

How do people get guns?

He sat down and fiddled with the salt and pepper, changing them round and round.

How do people get guns?

Lizzie was out with a gang from school. He should have been at a practice for the chapel song group but he'd had a sore throat and his voice sounded weird.

How do people get guns?

Besides, he wasn't sure he wanted to be at the chapel. There was stuff in his head he needed to deal with and it was muddled with the last time he had been there, his conversation with the pastor, the nightmares he kept having.

"We can get married next week."

They wouldn't. They could. They might.

He pulled a small paring knife towards him and started to make a score mark in the wood of the table-top, a thin, mean little line, cutting it slowly.

How do people get guns?

Phil came banging in, whistling.

"Tom."

Tom nodded. Did not look at him.

"How's things?"

"OK."

"Your mother wants a word."

Even Philip Russell, Tom reminded himself as he went, has an immortal soul. He doesn't know he has. But he has.

His mother looked pale. She'd almost died. She hadn't died but if she had, what would Phil Russell have done then? He knew what he and Lizzie would have done, which would have been just carry on, because that's what they knew you had to do, that is what they'd done when their father died. It helps to know.

"Hi."

"Come and sit down."

"I'm going out actually."

"Two minutes. Where are you going?"

"Just out." He sat on the arm of the sofa next to her. "In a bit. You OK?"

"I'm fine. Tired, that's all. I wanted to ask you something."

He waited. He could hear the kettle whistling.

"When we get married, I'd really like it if you would give me away, Tom."

He knew what it meant now when it was said that someone went cold. You did. You did exactly that. You went cold.

"You don't have to answer now. But there isn't anyone else I'd like to do it."

"Uncle Pete."

"I never see him. How long is it-three years? Has to be."

"He'd do it."

"I expect he would but I don't want him, I want you."

He got up. Still cold. How could this have happened?

"I'm going out now."

She didn't say anything but he knew that she was watching him, looking after him, he knew what the look on her face was and how her eyes were and what she was thinking.

He went out. At first he was going to take the Yamaha but then he decided against that. At the gate he glanced back at the house. Something clicked inside him. Odd. He felt odd. He'd never felt so odd.

It was cold. He zipped up his fleece.

Odd.

Why should it matter? Being cold.

Sixty-nine.

They reached the top of the Hill at last. It was steeper than she had remembered, took longer. After a while, no one had spoken. Simon got there first and put the cool bag down on the stone which had been there for thousands of years. Or since just after the last war, depending on who you believed.

It was, as always, the most amazing view.

"Three counties," he said to Cat as she arrived. Hannah was with her, Sam, the best climber, walker, runner, swimmer, all-round athlete, trailed slowly up a long way behind.

"He's all right," Cat said, following her brother's gaze. "Really. Quiet. But all right."

"Can we have our picnic now?"

"Wait for Sam."

"Why? I want a drink now, why do I have to wait for Sam before I can have a drink? That's cruelty to children."

They had left Felix at Hallam House with Richard and Judith. Simon unzipped the bag and handed Hannah a carton of apple juice.

"I wanted Ribena."

"Hannah!"

"Please?" She sighed and sat down on the stone. Simon swapped the cartons.

The autumn sun struck warm on their faces, touched the flying angels on the four corners of the cathedral tower in the distance, and a white horse in a field.