“What?” she said.

She was sitting on an uncomfortable hard-backed chair in the corner of the sitting room. The baby circus occupied at least half the room. The Wizard of Oz was on the television but nobody was really watching.

“Pictionary,” repeated Jonathan, holding up the box. “Oh, yeah, and Robs, could I come and stay with you for a weekend in February?”

I’m only kidding, texted Morris. Frances.

“What?” Robin said again, under the impression somebody had asked her something.

“Morris is obviously a very interesting man,” said Linda archly, and everyone looked around at Robin, who merely said,

“Pictionary, yes, fine.”

Got to play Pictionary, she texted Morris.

Draw a dick, came back the instant answer.

Robin set down her phone again. The drink was wearing off now, leaving in its wake a headache that throbbed behind her right temple. Luckily, Martin arrived at that moment with a tray full of coffees and a bottle of Baileys.

Jonathan won Pictionary. Baby Annabel screamed some more. A cold supper was laid out on the kitchen table, to which neighbors had been invited to admire Annabel. By eight o’clock in the evening, Robin had taken paracetamol and started to drink black coffee to clear her head. She needed to pack. She also needed, somehow, to shut down her day-long conversation with Morris, who, she could tell, was now very drunk indeed.

Mohter gone home, complaining not seeing grandchioldren enough. What shall we talk about now? What are you wearing?

She ignored the text. Up in her bedroom, she packed her case, because she was catching an early train. Please, God, let Matthew and Sarah not be on it. She resprayed herself with her mother’s Christmas gift. Smelling it again, she decided that the only message it conveyed to bystanders was “I have washed.” Perhaps her mother had bought her this boring floral antiseptic out of a subconscious desire to wipe her daughter clean of the suggestion of adultery. There was certainly nothing of the seductress about it, and it would forever remind her of this lousy Christmas. Nevertheless, Robin packed it carefully among her socks, having no wish to hurt her mother’s feelings by leaving it behind.

By the time she returned downstairs, Morris had texted another five times.

I was joking.

Tell me u know I was joking.

Fukc have I offended u

Have I?

Answer me either way fuck’s sake

Slightly riled, and embarrassed now by her stupid, adolescent pretense to her family that she, like Matthew, had found another partner, she paused in the hall to text back,

I’m not offended. Got to go. Need an early night.

She entered the sitting room, where her family were all sitting, sleepy and overfed, watching the news. Robin moved a muslin cloth, half a pack of nappies and one of the Pictionary boards from the sofa, so she could sit down.

“Sorry, Robin,” said Jenny, yawning as she reached out for the baby things and put them by her feet.

Robin’s phone beeped yet again. Linda looked over at her. Robin ignored both her mother and the phone, because she was looking down at the Pictionary board where Martin had tried to draw “Icarus.” Nobody had guessed it. They’d thought Icarus was a bug hovering over a flower.

But something about the picture held Robin fixated. Again, her phone beeped. She looked at it.

Are you in bed?

Yes and so should you be, she texted back, her mind still on the Pictionary board. The flower that looked like a sun. The sun that looked like a flower.

Her phone beeped yet again. Exasperated, she looked at it.

Morris had sent her a picture of his erect dick. For a moment, and even while she felt appalled and repulsed, Robin continued to stare at it. Then, with a suddenness that made her father start awake in his chair, she got up and almost ran out of the room.

The kitchen wasn’t far enough. Nowhere would be far enough. Shaking with rage and shock, she wrenched open the back door and strode out into the icy garden, with the water in the birdbath she’d unfrozen with boiling water already milky hard in the moonlight. Without stopping to pause for thought, she called Morris’s number.

“Hey—”

“How fucking dare you —how fucking dare you send me that?”

“Fuck,” he said thickly, “I di’n—I thought—‘wish you were here’ or—”

“I said I was going to bloody bed!” Robin shouted. “I did not ask to see your fucking dick!”

She could see the neighbors’ heads bobbing behind their kitchen blinds. The Ellacotts were providing rich entertainment this Christmas, all right: first a new baby, then a shouting match about a penis.

“Oh shit,” gasped Morris. “Oh fuck… no… listen, I di’n’ mean—”

“Who the fuck does that?” shouted Robin. “What’s wrong with you?”

“No… shit… fuck… I’m s’rry… I thought… I’m so f’king sorry… Robin, don’t… oh Jesus…”

“I don’t want to see your dick!”

A storm of dry sobs answered her, then Robin thought she heard him lay down the phone on some hard surface. At a distance from the mouthpiece he emitted moans of anguish interspersed with weeping. Heavy objects seemed to be falling over. Then there was a clatter and he picked up his mobile again.

“Robin, I’m so fuckin’ sorry… what’ve I done, what’ve I…? I thought… I should fucking kill myself… don’t… don’t tell Strike, Robin… I’m fuckin’ begging you… if I lose this job… don’t tell, Robin… I lose this, I lose fuckin’ everything… I can’t lose my little girls, Robin…”

He reminded her of Matthew, the day that she’d found out he was cheating. She could see her ex-husband as clearly as though he was there on the ice-crusted lawn, face in his hands as he gasped his apologies, then looking up at her in panic. “Have you spoken to Tom? Does he know?”

What was it about her that made men demand that she keep their dirty secrets?

“I won’t tell Strike,” she said, shaking more with rage than with cold, “because his aunt’s dying and we need an extra man. But you’d better never send me anything other than an update on a case again.”

“Oh God, Robin… thank you… thank you… you are such a decent person…”

He’d stopped sobbing. His gushing offended her almost as much as the picture of his dick.

“I’m going.”

She stood in the dark, barely feeling the cold, her mobile hanging at her side. As the light in the neighbor’s kitchen went off, her par­ents’ back door opened. Rowntree came lolloping over the frozen lawn, delighted to find her outside.

“You all right, love?” Michael Ellacott asked his daughter.

“Fine,” said Robin, crouching to fuss Rowntree to hide her sudden rush of tears. “It’s all fine.”

PART FOUR

Great enemy… is wicked Time…

Edmund Spenser

The Faerie Queene

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