I abandon the remains of my tuna sandwich and move on to the tub of Hagen-Dazs. For once, I think Lauren might have made an excellent point. "Sorry, I mistook you for me," I say. "Im the one who should ditch her partner and definitely not have a baby with him." I cant believe I said that out loud.

Only to Lauren. It doesnt count.

Still. Ive never even said it to myself before.

"Whats your husband called?"

"Were not married. We just live together. Sean."

"Dont you love him?"

"I dont know if I do anymore. Even if I do, its not enough."

Lauren laughs. "You say some freaky things, you. How can love be not enough? Its, like, the most you can care about someone, isnt it?"

"I dont find him impressive or admirable. I cant convince myself that I dont deserve better." A proper, self-sufficient grown-up. Someone capable of spending up to four evenings a week alone without complaining. A sudden surge of anger makes me say, "If I werent so busy with work, Id have got my act together and left him by now."

Have I turned myself into a procrastinator for Seans sake? To spare his feelings, because I know I dont want to be with him anymore?

Thank G.o.d Im not pregnant. Thank G.o.d my flight home was delayed. This is a chance.

"Maybe you deserve better than Jason," I tell Lauren. "Is he kind to you? Does he treat you well?" Or is he a bully, or violent? Is that why you mistake verbal abuse from a stranger for the comforting care of a new friend?

"Hes just a bloke, isnt he?" Lauren looks away. "Theyre all pretty much alike."

I decide not to press her for more details. I dont think Id like them if I heard them.

"I once knew a man who was nothing like anybody else Ive ever known, male or female," I tell her, slipping free of my usual controls. "Id have married him like a shot." And had his name tattooed on my upper arm, both my arms. All over my face and body, even the soles of my feet. Sometimes I think that there is nothing I wouldnt do, absolutely nothing, if I could have Tim.

"What happened?" Lauren asks.

"I f.u.c.ked it up, then blamed Sean."

"Blamed Sean? Why, what did he do?"

"Nothing. But Ive found a way round that: its called being unfair."

"So what about the other one?" Why does she look and sound so avid? Having shown no interest in me up to this point, shes suddenly staring at me wide-eyed, as if my theories about my love life actually matter to her. "Is that why youve not married Sean, because youre still hoping to pull him?"

I laugh. The word "pull" in connection with Tim is absurd.

Lauren shoves more crisps into her mouth: enough to reveal that she expects to be listening and not talking for the foreseeable future.

"Tell me about your man first," I say. "Not Jason-the innocent one whos going to prison for murder." Lauren isnt a bad person. She seems to have a strong sense of fairness, even if she does wave it around irresponsibly in public places. And something else thats just occurred to me: willing and enthusiastic partic.i.p.ants in miscarriages of justice wouldnt typically use that form of words: "let an innocent man go to jail for murder." Thats the sort of thing youd say if you were against, not in favor. And Lauren wouldnt be in favor. Incredible as it sounds, I feel I know her well enough to be able to say that. I dont believe she would stand by and let someone be framed for murder unless she felt she had no choice.

Unless she cant go to the police with the truth, because shes too scared of what the real killer might do to her. Could that real killer be Jason, her husband?

Or am I leaping to crazy conclusions?

Lauren stands up. "You wont let it go, will you?" she says bitterly. She brushes Pringle crumbs off her fingers onto the carpet, picks up her bag and heads for the door with the missing corner. Before I have time to apologize-insincerely, since I dont believe anyone would let it go, and nor should they-shes locked herself in the bathroom.

Hasnt it occurred to her that I could easily go to the police? I more than could, I decide: I will. Im not scared of Jason Cookson; he has no hold over me. No one should do time for a crime they havent committed.

The lines from the poem I half remembered at Dsseldorf Airport come back to me again: Our time in the hands of others, / And too brief for words. How can I have forgotten the rest? I dont like to think Ive lost anything that came from Tim. They were someone elses words originally, but when Tim read me the poem at the Proscenium, they became his.

I pull my BlackBerry out of my bag and switch it on. Ignoring the symbol telling me that I have voice mails, I hit the Internet browser b.u.t.ton and type the two lines I remember into the search box. The first result that comes up is the one I want. I click on it, and the poem appears on my screen like an old friend. "Unscheduled Stop," its called, by Adam Johnson.

I sit in the Charles Halle At windy Manningtree, While gulls enact their ballet Above the estuary.

"We seem to have a problem . . ."

A faltering voice explains.

I spy, along the platform, A sign: "Beware of trains"

And picture you, impatient, In the car park at the back Of a gaudy toy-town station, Or craning down the track As the afternoon rehea.r.s.es An evensong of birds- Our time in the hands of others, And too brief for words.

To my horror, I find that I am crying. I can see Tim at the top of the Prosceniums ladder, can hear him telling me that the poet was dying when he wrote the poem. Its his voice in my head, reading the words of each verse aloud.

I wipe my eyes briskly, hoping Lauren wont emerge from the bathroom anytime soon. The older I get, the longer it takes me to lose the crying look.

Who is the carrier?

I have to stop this. Now.

Im about to turn off my phone when I have an idea: would an Internet search track down Laurens wrongly convicted man? Unlikely, since I dont know his name.

Unless Laurens name would do the trick. Even more unlikely: "Lauren Cookson, wife and protector of the real murderer, Jason Cookson, stood by and did sod all to prevent police from arresting someone who had nothing to do with it."

Still, I type Laurens name into the search box because it gives me something to think about that isnt Tim. Quicker than the blue line of a pregnancy test, the result Im looking for comes up: "Lauren Cookson, her twenty-three-year-old care a.s.sistant . . ."

I press my hand over my mouth to make sure no noise escapes, nothing that might alert her. Has this been in the local papers, the ones I never read? On the local news that I never watch because Im too busy? Theres too much here to choose from. I click on Laurens name.

G.o.d oh G.o.d oh G.o.d. This cant be right. Cannot be happening. Ive had this exact feeling before, so I know that when whats unfolding in front of your eyes is simply not possible, you still have to deal with it. You have to think and act and breathe, and sometimes speak, even though you no longer believe in the world that contains all these things.

It would be ideal in so many ways if this were to turn out to be a dream. It would mean Im asleep now, for one thing; Ive wanted to be asleep for a long time. Only, can I swap this nightmare for a dream that doesnt make me want to scream until I wake up?

My eyes skid over the story, disorientated, trying to take in what they can. "The body of Francine Breary, forty, was found by Lauren Cookson, her twenty-three-year-old care a.s.sistant . . . husband Tim Breary has been charged . . . DS Sam Kombothekra of Culver Valley CID . . ."

The words wont lie still and let me read them. Im going to black out. I have to close my eyes.

Its Tim. Laurens innocent man is Tim Breary.

POLICE EXHIBIT 1432B/SK-

TRANSCRIPT OF HANDWRITTEN LETTER FROM DANIEL JOSE TO FRANCINE BREARY DATED 22 DECEMBER 2010.

Francine, I dont want to write this letter, and youre never going to read it. Not exactly the most promising start.

Who am I writing it for? Kerrys the one who asked me to do it. Begged me. Repeatedly. For Tims sake, she said, so a better answer might be Tim, except h.e.l.l never read it either. Kerry says that doesnt matter. h.e.l.l know its there, she says, like he knows her letters are there. He might read them and he might not. Kerry thinks theres a good chance. I disagree. And, since I said Id only do it if she swore shed never read what I wrote, and I have to say I trust her on that, Im fairly sure Im now writing a letter no one will read. That idea is supposed to make me feel free to say whatever I want, but, as I told Kerry, I dont think that works unless you have something you want to say, and I dont. Generally, I only bother saying things to people I like who might listen to me. You never fell into either of those categories.

So, I have two options, I suppose. The cop-out would be to put a blank sheet of paper in an envelope, seal it, write "Francine" on it and shove it under your mattress. Sorry-its not yours, and never will be, even if you lie on it for the rest of your life. Its Kerrys and mine, on loan to Tim (thats right, Francine: to Tim, not to you) for as long as he needs it, and thats the only reason you have the use of it. This seems as good a moment as any to make it clear that if it werent for Tims decision to move back in with you and look after you when you had the stroke, Kerry and I wouldnt have got involved. Youd have had no money and no support from us. Just so you know: Tims the one wed do anything for. Hes the reason youre in the lap of luxury with your own round-the-clock care a.s.sistant. Youre the one wed do nothing for.

Looks like I did have something I wanted to say after all.

Well, this piece of papers no longer blank, so if Im going for option one Ill have to start again with a new piece, and not start writing next time round. I dont think Kerry would check. She trusts me. As she should, since I never lie to her. Even if she looked, I dont think a sealed envelope would make her suspicious, though I know she doesnt put her letters to you in envelopes. She leaves them open and accessible, so that Tim can read them.

She believes shes found a loophole in his policy. Direct communication about anything personal has always been forbidden (well, not forbidden so much as evaded, but it amounts to the same thing), but if Tim can read her letters secretly and replace them without ever having to admit hes read them, thats a different scenario. He might find it acceptable. If Kerrys theorys right and Tim avoids conversations about feelings because hes not prepared to risk becoming emotional in front of anybody, this is the perfect solution. Personally, Im skeptical. I think Tims as afraid of feeling the difficult stuff in private as he is of looking weak in public. Thats why he tried to kill himself. Hed succeeded in escaping from you, Francine, and from me and Kerry and everyone else who knew him, but he couldnt escape the contents of his own head and heart. (He would say, "Are you being superst.i.tious again about the muscular organ that pumps blood around my body?") Its a pity Im not allowed to read this letter to you, but I have to stick to Kerrys rules. Yes, I have a mind of my own, but I couldnt begin to formulate a set of rules for living that would be superior to or even equal to Kerrys. Shes the fairest and wisest person I know.

Thats not to say I always agree with her: I dont think there would be anything wrong with making an exception and reading you this letter, or part of it. You should know about Tims suicide attempt. You deserve to know that being married to you has that effect on people. Youre a tyrant. Were, I mean, before the stroke. Kerry and I agreed on that definition of you, about six months after you and Tim married. "A tyrant is anyone whose death would free somebody," Kerry said. "Even only one person."

I blame you for what Tim did to himself, though he laughed at me once when I told him this, and said, "No aspect of my behavior has anything to do with Francine, now or ever. I ignore her as scrupulously as you ignore my free will." Seeing that I wanted to pursue it further, he changed the subject-to something about rugby, I think. Later, I puzzled over what he might have meant, and came to this conclusion: he didnt have to marry you. He could have left you at any time. Or he could have stayed with you but stood up to you when you tried to micromanage every facet of his life. When he finally walked out on you, he could have gone straight to Gaby Struthers and told her she was the woman he loved and wanted to be with. He neednt have turned his back on his friends and his career, rented a hovel of a bedsit in Bath, logged on to the Internet five months later in search of instructions on how to slit his wrists in a way that would guarantee his death. At every stage he had choices-that was what he was trying to tell me. To an external observer, it looked as if he obeyed your every order slavishly until the day he left you, but Tim chose to define it differently. He liked to think he disregarded you entirely, and picked the course of action that was best for him every time. If that happened to be whatever would keep you happy and therefore off his back, then the benefit to you was a side effect. Kerrys sure this is how he saw it, and I agree with her.

Has he told you about trying to end his life, Francine? Maybe he has. He talks to you now in a way that he didnt before, when you could answer. He didnt tell me and Kerry, when he rang us out of the blue, after no contact for five months, and said, in his normal tone of voice, "I suppose youre too busy to come round, arent you?," as if we were still regularly in touch and nothing had changed. Kerry said we werent too busy. There was and is no such thing in our world as being too busy for Tim. You wouldnt understand, Francine, but hes our only family. All three of our actual families are worse than useless-quite a lot worse. We have no one but each other. Ive come to the conclusion that people who suffer our particular type of deprivation tend to gravitate toward one another: those of us looking for water that can be thicker than blood is for most people, if you get my drift.

Do you know the story of Tim and his family? Has he told you yet? Post-stroke, I cant see why he wouldnt.

I knew it was Tim on the phone from the way Kerry sat upright and waved frantically at me, signaling emergency. We hadnt heard from him since the letter hed written us when he left you and Heron Close, apologizing for having to let us know that wed never see him again, consoling us with the a.s.surance that we were better off without his third-rate presence in our lives.

"Where are you?" Kerry asked him. "Give us an address. Were on our way." The address was in Bath, three and a half hours drive from Spilling. Kerry said, "Wait there, were coming." It was eleven-thirty at night. We knew we would miss work the next day. Neither of us cared. Kerry suggested this might be the perfect opportunity to both hand in our notice. We were about to become very rich thanks to Tim, and Kerry was convinced that his unexpected phone call meant that we would need to abandon our regular lives for the foreseeable future and devote ourselves entirely to helping him. "He wouldnt have rung if his situation wasnt desperate," she said on the way to Bath. Having delegated the driving to me, she was taking care of the worrying.

I tried to disagree. "He might just have missed us and fancied getting in touch," I suggested. "No," Kerry said. "Whether he fancied it or not, he wouldnt have allowed himself to do it unless hed reached a crisis point. And this is Tim were talking about. Hed have to recognize it as a crisis-think how bad itd have to be for that to happen. If it wasnt life or death . . ." I heard her exhale, trying to breathe her anxiety out. "Tim isnt an undoer. He makes the most uncomfortable beds, then lies in them until his whole bodys riddled with bedsores." "Nice image," I joked, trying to lighten things up. I suspected she was making a fuss about nothing, but she wasnt having it. "Think about it," she said. "Marrying Francine, letting Gaby disappear out of his life. Its one of his rules: he doesnt value or like himself, so hes rigid about what he will and wont allow himself to do."

Tims rules, Kerrys rules. Come to think of it, you used to have a fair few rules yourself, Francine: no shoes in the house after you bought 6 Heron Close, with its immaculate engineered oak flooring; no putting anything damp to dry on a radiator (why the h.e.l.l not?); no food or drinks in the lounge; no having the central heating and the gas fire on at the same time, even when the colds getting into minus degrees; no opening a suitcase to pack for a holiday, and certainly no entering a supermarket, without first making a list. Once in a supermarket, no buying anything that isnt on the list. And then the subtler never directly stated rules that governed the psychological lives of all those close to you: no preferring anybody to you, no finding anybody more interesting than you, no being closer to anybody than to you. No suggesting, ever, that Tim might want to come round on his own if you were busy on a particular evening, or that if you needed to go into the office one Sunday, Tim might prefer to come out for lunch with Kerry and me than to sit at home alone doing nothing, for no reason other than to ensure you didnt feel excluded. We had to remove a h.e.l.l of a lot more than our shoes for you, Francine. We had to shed our authentic selves (yes, I know that sounds intense, but [a] no one will ever read this, and [b] I dont give a toss). The constantly looming threat that Kerry and I never spoke of to Tim, nor he to us, was that you would ban him from seeing us: one of us would slip up and do something that made it clear that the three of us were closer to one another than any of us was to you, and that would be it-Tim wouldnt be allowed to see us again. None of us was prepared to risk that. Without Kerry and me, Tim wouldnt have had anybody in his life apart from you. So we swallowed most of the conversations wed have liked to have, and sat there like robots, saying the kinds of things we thought would meet with your approval. In our f.u.c.king socks, most of the time.

Apart from our shoes when we were in your house, you couldnt dictate what Kerry and I wore, but Tim wasnt so lucky, was he? Before he met you, he wore young duffer clothes, always: old-fashioned tweedy suits with waistcoats that made his clients look twice at his face and wonder if this might be an exceptionally young-looking seventy-year-old. The clothes might have looked strange on anyone else, but they suited Tim. Instead of looking like a relic from a bygone era, he looked exactly as everyone knew he was meant to look, and, even weirder than that, he somehow made everyone around him look wrong. I freely admit that shortly after Tims company merged with mine, I started to dress more traditionally, directly influenced by him. The irony is that I still dress that way, even though Tim hasnt for years. When he got engaged to you, Francine, you told him he looked like Colonel Mustard and bought him a whole new wardrobe of clothes that would make him look exactly like everybody else. Tim didnt seem to mind. When I complained on his behalf, he smiled and said, "Francine cares more than I do about what I wear. She thinks it matters; I know it doesnt." I was unwilling to let it drop. I said, "She also cares more about getting married. You dont really want to do it, do you? So why are you?" "Because I said I would, and she wants me to," Tim explained, as if it made sense. "Youre right, she cares more. It seems fair that the one who takes the greater interest should have their way, dont you think?"

But there was more to it than that, Kerry says. In contrast to Gaby Struthers, who adored Tim and believed he was special (and therefore couldnt be trusted), you behaved as if you thought he was a useless piece of rubbish, which tallied with how he saw himself. You were forceful too-determined to impose your will. Kerry thinks thats why Tim married you and stayed with you. You always seemed so intent on improving him. Maybe he hoped youd succeed.

"But shes so relentlessly horrible to him," I pointed out. "He has zero freedom. Id give up all hope of improvement and reclaim my life at this point, I think." Kerry told me I didnt understand. "Tim has no interest in self-ownership," she said. "Whod want to own a product that they perceive as among the most flawed on the market? Francine convinced him early on that his life was more her project than his. He doesnt think sufficiently highly of himself to treat himself to a second chance."

She said a similar thing on the way to Bath, about Tim having phoned us out of the blue, five months after writing to us to say he was exiting our lives forever. "Im sure he knew within days that banishing himself was a bad choice, but this is Tim. He believes that if he forces himself to live with the consequences of his screw-ups, hes at least keeping himself in line. Only utter desperation would provoke a U-turn on this scale-a late-night phone call, a summons halfway across the country, with no notice."

I sort of knew she was right. Or maybe thats hindsight. I think I can remember being on the verge of saying, "But hes U-turned before, when he left Francine," and then stopping myself when it occurred to me that in his farewell letter to us, Tim had written, "Francine might contact you with a hysterical and asinine account of my having left her. If she does, do your best to impress upon her that Ive done no such thing. What I am doing is no reflection on anybody else, nor is it something I am doing 'to anyone, as all but the most ego-ridden will appreciate. I decided it would be beneficial for me and for those close to me if I were to isolate myself, and so thats what Ive done. And, more important, its all Ive done. I have not left my wife."

"Only Tim," I said to Kerry. Or perhaps she said it to me. We said it to each other all the time, and still do. "Only Tim would leave his wife, then claim emphatically that he hasnt left her, and mean every word of it."

We arrived at Tims flat at two-thirty a.m. on the night of the surprise phone call, having done most of the journey at an illegal ninety miles an hour. Kerry put her hand on my arm as we pulled up outside number 8 Renfrew Road. "Prepare yourself," she said. "I dont know what were going to find, but its going to be bad." The house was a shabby Georgian carve-up on a street that was basically a hill, nearly too steep to park on. The front door was standing open, but the effect was the opposite of welcoming. It was more suggestive of none of the residents caring enough to shut it properly. The communal areas were disgusting. The threadbare carpet was every shade of stamped-in mud, the walls were cracked and damp-stained. The place smelled of a mixture of stale urine and wet dogs. Kerry and I tried not to touch the banister as we walked up the stairs. Tim had one of the two rooms on the top floor, hed told us on the phone. We a.s.sumed it was the one with the open door, from which music was drifting out onto the windowless uncarpeted landing: cla.s.sical. Songs, in German, a male voice. I looked at Kerry. I probably raised my eyebrows somewhat optimistically. Tim used to listen only to cla.s.sical music before he met you, Francine-before you called it depressing, and banned it. Kerry shook her head: no cause for optimism. That was when I realized that the guy singing sounded pretty desolate. "Tim," Kerry called out.

"Come in," he called back cheerfully. The music was turned right down, as if to make way for friendly conversation. Once again, I started to doubt Kerrys take on the situation. It would be exactly like Tim, I thought, to make us drive for three hours in the middle of the night and then greet us with ordinary banter, taking up where wed left off as if we all still lived round the corner from one another.

I saw how wrong I was when Kerry and I walked into the bedsit. Tim was sitting on the bed wearing only boxer shorts and a T-shirt. Next to his feet were pools of blood and a small knife, the sort youd use to chop garlic. The puddles werent huge but they werent small. It was a slow-drip-from-the-ceiling volume of liquid, I remember thinking at the time, as if the roof of Tims building had a few broken tiles and had leaked red rain in several places.

I freely admit, Francine: I was useless. I froze. Did nothing, said nothing. Well, not quite nothing: I did a lot of looking, staring. So much that I can see the scene clearly now, years later. There were cuts to Tims wrists, bloodstains and streaks all the way up to his elbows. His skin had a green tinge to it. Hed also cut at his ankles and heels, hence the blood on the floor. The room that contained him was in as sorry a state as its occupant. There was mold growing up the walls, and several of the windowpanes were cracked. Two corners of the ceiling were sporting spiderwebs the size of hammocks, or fishermens nets: thick, gray rope-like constructions that must have been there for years. It horrified me to think that Tim had rented the room in this condition, that he hadnt even cleaned away those enormous cobwebs. "Because he planned to do nothing in that bedsit but decline and die," Kerry explained later.

"Dont come near me," Tim ordered us, picking up the knife. "Youll get wet and sticky." It looked and sounded to me as if he was threatening to harm himself further if we approached him physically, but I could have been wrong about that.

Kerry was brilliant, Francine. Acted as if nothing remarkable or upsetting had happened, as if this was just a practical issue that we could easily deal with. "I can tell you now that none of those injuries is fatal," she said matter-of-factly to Tim, striding away from him and over to the table where his laptop sat open. There was a pen and a notepad next to it, with something that looked like a list on the pad, dotted with flecks of red where Tim had bled as he wrote. Kerry fiddled with the keyboard and the screen came to life. "Were these your instructions?" she asked.

"Theyre rubbish," Tim said. "If they were any good, I wouldnt still be here." The sickly greenness of his skin became more p.r.o.nounced every second. How did Kerry know he was in no danger of dying? I wasnt so sure. The blood was flowing, there was no doubt about that. Kerry had her phone out. "Dont phone an ambulance," Tim snapped at her. "Im sure its going to happen soon." I remember feeling as if someone had poured a bucket of icy water into my stomach. Was that why Tim had summoned us: to watch him die? Did he want us there for moral support? Didnt it occur to him to wonder about the effect it might have on us?

Kerry snapped back at him, "I will phone an ambulance, and youll shut up." And she did. And Tim let her. She asked him when hed done it. "Half past ten?" he said speculatively. Every few seconds he gripped his knees as if they were the part of his body that hurt most. "'Happy slashing?" Kerry read aloud from the website. I shuddered when I heard those words-literally, a whole-body shudder. I wished the Internet had never been invented, and hoped that everyone who put suicide instructions on it would practice what they preached and die, in pain and soon. I knew the second I heard the words "happy slashing" that Id never be able to get them out of my head, and I was right: I never have been able to.

Kerry told the ambulance people it was urgent: a man had cut his wrists and ankles and was losing blood. "Im glad you didnt tell them I tried to kill myself," Tim said. "Didnt you?" I asked him. He dodged the question, saying, "Spilled blood is visible, cuts are visible. Intentions are not visible. Better to stick to the facts." Kerry told him again to shut up, and that there was no way hed done this to himself at half past ten. "You did it half an hour ago, after I rang you to say we were twenty miles away. Didnt you?"

Do you think thats what happened, Francine? Has Tim told you? Not that youd be able to tell me if he had. Id love to know, though. Did he do it as late as possible, so that wed be in time to save him? Was that his plan all along? If he wanted to live, why not skip the wrist- and ankle-slashing altogether? Wouldnt someone like Tim have chosen a more dignified way to cry for help? Or did he mean to kill himself and fail? In which case, why not admit it, say, "I cant even kill myself properly, Im so useless"? Rubbishing himself has been one of Tims favorite hobbies for as long as Ive known him. I said that to Kerry, and she said, "But hes also proud. Youve heard him insist that he doesnt miss Gaby. He rubbishes himself in the abstract-'Im third-rate, Im unoriginal-while defending his craziest behavior like a zealot and insisting hes never made a wrong decision."

While we waited for the ambulance, Kerry interrogated Tim, trying to get a coherent account out of him, her tone strongly implying that she didnt believe a word he said. She sounded almost like Francine, and told me later that shed hoped to increase Tims chances of survival by forcing him to use his brain to defend his story. "Why did you write out your wrist-slitting instructions by hand, on paper?" she asked him. "Why not just read them off the screen? You wanted to kill time, didnt you? Kid yourself you were working toward your goal. Youd made a few tentative cuts and you were putting off making any more." Tims responses were inconsistent. He strenuously denied putting anything off, but also wouldnt admit to having tried to take his own life. When the ambulance pulled up outside, siren wailing, he said, "Why am I being saved, exactly? 'I do not approve, and I am not resigned, as a poet once said. That poet was Edna St. Vincent Millay."

You never approved of Tims love of poetry, did you, Francine? You thought it was effeminate. When he joined the Proscenium Library, he didnt tell you. He knew youd say it was a waste of money and sulk until he "decided" to give up his membership.

Tim was furious with Kerry and me, once he heard the footsteps of the ambulance team running up the stairs and realized he was unlikely to die. "Why all this effort and fuss for me?" he demanded. "Does someone in Spilling have some VAT they need to claim back? Are all the other accountants busy? Im not going back there, you know. Its not safe for me to go anywhere near Francine. Youre deluding yourselves if you think you can move me in with you, unless you have a house I know nothing about thats nowhere near the Culver Valley." After saying this, his eyes started to close and he seemed to be drifting off. Kerry burst into tears. I wondered what Tim had meant about it not being safe for him to go near Francine: safe for him or safe for her? The ambulance people rushed into the room and started to do their stuff, and it was a huge relief not to be responsible anymore. I put my arms round Kerry, but she was too busy to be comforted-she was already planning. "We have to leave Spilling," she said. "Well sell up, buy a house miles away from Francine."

Well, we did. And we took Tim with us. We didnt think wed ever come back, but then you had your stroke and here we are. Tim claims were here because of you-another of his convenient distortions. You could be anywhere, couldnt you? We could all tell you that you were in the bedroom of a house in Spilling and you wouldnt know any different. The move back was nothing to do with you, Francine. It was all about Gaby Struthers.

Signing off for now, Dan

6.

11/3/2011.

The rain from the night before had stopped. Charlie opened the door to a few unconvincing patches of sun and a twitchy Sam Kombothekra, whose nervousness and guilt couldnt have been more obvious. "I wanted to catch Simon," he said. No one who observed his "nervous supplicant" facial expression would have dreamed he was Simons boss; indeed, Sam himself tended to give the impression of being baffled to find himself in charge of a team of detectives, all of whom were more opinionated and a.s.sertive than him.

So Regan hadnt lied. And Sam was here to do the right thing. "Youre too late," Charlie told him.

"Hes not due in till midday. Hes set off already?"

If she said yes to this, shed be giving a false impression: that Simon was on his way into work. Hed left clear instructions: she wasnt to reveal his whereabouts or plans, but she also wasnt to lie. "Hes not here," she said. "Thats all I can tell you. Just dont expect him to turn up for business as usual. Dont expect his cooperation or respect from now on, either."

Sam sighed heavily, rubbing a hand across his face.

"What the h.e.l.l were you thinking, Sam? Scheming with Proust and Sellers against Simon? And Gibbs." About whom Charlie didnt care because her sister cared too much, but still. "Doctoring interview transcripts, leaving out-"