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‘Donna Snyder. Art teacher at the school.’

Calder nodded. There was no need to ask what she was doing in England, or why Kim was so upset. For a moment he considered suggesting that there was a misunderstanding, but one look at Kim convinced him that that was pointless.

‘She must have waited until she saw me leave,’ she said. ‘I wonder how long she’s been here, skulking in the car park, watching.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Calder said. ‘I’m so sorry. What a terrible way to find out.’

‘I should have realized,’ Kim said. ‘I knew they liked each other. They would always talk to each other at school functions, joke together and so forth. I suppose I was mildly jealous, Donna does have those big baby-blue eyes after all, but you can’t go through life being jealous of every attractive woman your husband is friends with.’ She sighed. ‘Or maybe you can. Maybe that was my mistake. Anyway, I noticed about a month ago at a dinner party given by the principal that they were avoiding each other. Stupidly I was relieved. I thought they’d fallen out, had one of those staff-room squabbles, something like that. But that’s what happens when flirtation turns into an affair, isn’t it? Ignore each other in public, but in private...’ She broke down in sobs. Calder leaned over the table to touch her arm. There were a few other visitors in the café, and they looked on in sympathy. Grief is what you expect to see in hospitals.

Calder drove her home, promising to bring her back the next day to pick up her own car. He cooked some supper. Kim went out for a long walk through the marshes alone. When she returned, there was a little colour in her cheeks but her dark hair was a mess. Calder had a bottle of white wine open. She took a glass thankfully.

‘I don’t know, Alex, I don’t know what to think. I mean, I love him, I love him so much. And I see him lying there every day, so helpless, not knowing when he’s going to recover, if he’s going to recover. And all the time she’s outside, tearing herself up with her own grief. I feel like such a bloody idiot. I want him to get better but I also want to strangle him. And the terrible thing is, if he doesn’t get better, then I’ll know that at the end he was in love with her, not me. I couldn’t face that, I just couldn’t face that.’ She buried her face in her hands.

Her agony was painful to watch. Calder would not wish Todd’s condition on anyone, but his anger was building too. It had turned out that Todd was like all those other good-looking charmers after all. He had used Kim and he had hurt her. Except that this time Kim looked as if she had been hurt so badly it would be difficult to recover.

They ate supper and moved outside to the bench in the garden. Calder opened another bottle of wine. It was a warm evening, despite the clouds overhead, but to the west there was a band of clear sky into which the sun was dipping, throwing its long shadows across the garden. The rooks kicked up their evening fuss. Kim talked and drank. Calder listened and drank.

They talked about university, the other schmucks. Calder spoke about an old girlfriend who had dumped him. They opened a third bottle of wine. He put his arm round her and she buried her head in his shoulder. The sun sank beneath the horizon and the windmill on the ridge retreated into the darkness. The rooks settled down. He kissed her, or did she kiss him? They broke away. She rested her head on his shoulder again. Then she turned her head up to his and they kissed again.

They made angry, passionate, drunken love, there, on the grass, under the apple tree.

Calder heard the car draw up outside the front of the house. Then he heard the engine splutter and stop. Then he heard the door knocker. It took him several moments to react. He looked frantically around for his clothes. Kim was lying semi-naked on the grass, her mouth open, asleep. Calder grabbed a shirt and some trousers and pulled them on. Who the hell was that?

‘Hello?’

Christ! He recognized the voice. It was coming closer, around the side of the house, checking the garden.

‘Hello?’

‘Sandy!’ he shouted, frantically zipping up his trousers. ‘Sandy. Wait there! I’m in the garden. I’ll be right round.’

Kim stirred, and raised herself on one arm. ‘Huh?’

‘Alex?’ The voice was nearer. The little side gate to the back garden squeaked open. ‘Alex? What the hell...?’

Calder stood barefoot, shirt hanging out of his trousers. Sandy stopped by the side of the house, speechless. Kim was sitting on the grass, blinking, her top half still clothed, but her jeans and panties in a ball at her feet.

‘Oh, my God!’ Sandy put her hand to her mouth and turned and ran. Calder ran after her. ‘Sandy, stop! Wait!’

‘Didn’t you get my message?’ Sandy said as she opened her car door.

‘What message?’

‘I left you a message. That I was coming up to see you. Oh, God.’ She jumped into the car.

‘Sandy, stop!’

But Sandy slammed the car into gear, spun it round and drove off back to the village and the road to London.

Calder stood there, watching the tail lights disappear round the first bend.

‘Alex?’

It was Kim, still blinking, but now wearing her jeans. ‘Who was that?’

‘Sandy,’ Calder replied.

‘Jesus,’ Kim said. ‘I’m sorry.’

Calder looked at her, his alcohol-sodden brain torn between confusion and a rising surge of panic.

Kim pulled her arms around herself. ‘Alex? What have we done?’

14

‘Can I have some of that?’

Kim motioned towards the pot half-full of coffee. Calder poured her a mug. She sat down. It was eight o’clock. He had been up since six, stewing.

Kim sipped at her mug and stared straight at Calder. ‘We’ve messed everything up, haven’t we?’

Calder had been running over in his mind all the things he would say to Kim, the explanations, the excuses, the self-recrimination. In the end, she had made it easy for him.

‘Yes,’ he said.

A tear ran down her cheek. She took a deep breath. ‘I can’t believe I did that. With Todd in the hospital.’

‘You were drunk. And I led you on,’ Calder said. ‘It was my fault.’

‘It was both of us,’ Kim said. ‘We created this mess together. But I can’t use the drink as an excuse. I wanted to get drunk. I was angry and I wanted to get back at Todd. I used you to do it.’

Calder didn’t answer, but stared into his coffee.

‘So that was Sandy?’

‘“Was” is the right word.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘So am I.’

They sat in silence. All night Calder’s brain had shifted between two images: Todd, lying prone in his hospital bed for days, and Sandy standing staring at him. He had listened to the messages on his mobile. There were three. The first was from her, saying she had some good news and she wanted to tell him in person. She’d rent a car and drive up to Norfolk to see him. She should be there by nine. Could he call her at her hotel to say he had got the message? Then there was a message from his sister asking if she could bring the kids up for the weekend. And finally there was a second message from Sandy saying she hadn’t heard from him, but she was coming up anyway, she had been delayed and she might not get there till ten.

He wished he had checked his mobile the night before, but he had been too wrapped up in the shock of seeing Donna Snyder and Kim’s despair.

What was Sandy’s news? It must have been something dramatic, something that would allow them to rekindle their relationship. Maybe she had decided to give up the law. Or she had got another job. Or a transfer back to England. Something that was good news for her, good news for both of them.

And then there was Todd. Calder had never had sex with a married woman before. It was wrong. Perhaps there might be special circumstances when it was OK: when the couple were irrevocably separated, for example. But the husband being in a coma was definitely not one of those, no matter if he had cheated on her.