Her car was missing from the garage which probably meant she was shopping in the town before picking up David at school. He had deliberately avoided calling her to say he would be home. When Vicky was working up to an emotional explosion it was very difficult for Hutchman to think constructively about anything, and this afternoon he wanted his mind to be cold and dark as an ancient wine cellar. Even as he let himself into the house the thought of his wife triggered a spray of memory shards, fragments of the past stained with the discordant hues of old angers and half-forgotten disappointments. (The time she had found Muriel’s home-telephone number in his pocket and convinced herself he was having an affair: I’ll kill you, Luke — steak knife’s serrated edge suddenly pressed into his neck, her eyes inhuman as pebbles — I know what’s going on between you and that fat tart, and I’m not going to let you get away with it… another occasion: a computer Operator had haemorrhaged in the office and he had driven her home — Why did she come to you? You helped her to get rid of something!… a receding series of mirrored bitternesses: How dare you suggest there’s anything wrong with my mind! Is a woman insane if she doesn’t want a filthy disease brought into the house, to her and her child? David’s eyes beseeching him, lenses of tears: Are you and Mum going to separate, Dad? Don’t leave. I’ll do without pocket money. I’ll never wet my pants again.)

Hutchman put the past aside with an effort. In the coolness of the kitchen he hesitated for a moment then decided he could do without eating. He went into the bedroom, changed his business clothes for slacks and a close-fitting shirt, and took his archery equipment from a closet. The lustrous laminated woods of the bow were glass-smooth to his touch. He carried the gear out to the back of the house, wrestled the heavy target of coiled-straw rope out of the toolshed and set it on its tripod.