Above him in the enormous house, he could hear a bath running. Ginny would be soaking away the stress of the evening and the tension of the months that had preceded it. He wished that he could do the same. It seemed to him that he had so much more cause.

He allowed himself to relive those glorious moments of triumph a final time: the audience rising to its feet before the curtain call had begun, the cheers, the hoarse shouts of “bravo.”

All that should have been enough for David. But it wasn't. It couldn't be. It fell, if not on ears that were deaf, then on ears that were listening to another voice entirely.

“Petersham Mews and Elvaston Place. Ten o'clock.”

“But where…? Where are they?”

“Oh, you'll work that out.”

And now when he tried to hear the praise, the excited chatter, the paeans that were supposed to be his air, his light, his food, and his drink, all David could hear were those last four words: You'll work that out.

And it was time.

He climbed the stairs and went to the bedroom. Beyond, behind the closed door to the bathroom, his wife was enjoying her soak. She was singing with a determined happiness that told him how worried she actually was: about everything from the state of his nerves to the state of his soul.

She was a good woman, Virginia Elliott, David thought. She was the very best of his wives. It had been his intention to stay married to her till the end of his days. He simply hadn't realised how abbreviated that time would turn out to be.

Three quick movements did the job neatly.

He took the gun from a drawer in the bedside table. He raised it. He pulled the trigger.

September