A long week later – party day – and it was going to rain.

Dooher had noticed the clouds piling up on themselves out over the ocean as he drove to his home in St Francis Wood.

He considered his neighborhood the best of all worlds. It was both the city and a suburb, but without the blight of either. He had civilized neighbors. An elegant, gracious canopy of old boughs shaded the streets by day, enclosing them with what felt like a protective security by night. Stands of eucalyptus perfumed the air in the fall, magnolias in the summer.

The street was quiet, with large houses, widely spaced. Most cars were in their garages, although – in the few houses with small children – vans squatted in driveways.

The afternoon sun gave a last glorious golden shout through the clouds – and it stopped him for a moment as he turned into the drive in front of his home.

Like the other facades on the block, his old California Spanish hacienda was impressive, with its tiled front courtyard behind a low stucco fence, ancient magnolias on the lawn, wisteria and bougainvillea at the eaves and lintels.

Upstairs in the turret, Sheila's office, a light had been turned on, although it wasn't dark. Imagining her up there, Dooher felt a stab of what he used to call the occasion of sin – the frisson of excitement. One deep breath drove the thought away. After all, he had done nothing wrong.

He pulled up his driveway.

He parked in the garage and closed the automatic door behind him, then walked back down the driveway and into the house through the side entrance, as he usually did.