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Now she was in the ter with help, only able to speak a little before beco and – cheerful? Yes It sounded so unlikely, Cat thought, closing the door quietly behind her But true

Jocelyn Forbes opened her eyes, eyes that were fading, growing paler What had been sapphire was now rinsed-out blue-grey But there was a light in theennow The eyes said, ‘Please take this thing off my face’ Cat did so, and quickly replaced it with two thin tubes that went into her nose and connected via theen supply

Jocelyn sers of both hands, but not raise an arm She could turn her head a little to the left but not to the right Her neck was supported in a collar, whichuncomfortable She did not complain Every time she had seen Cat after her return from what she always referred to as ‘the death place’ she had said she had been given back her life, or given a new life, had been reborn or even resurrected, that everything she saw and heard and smelled and sensed was as if for the first tihter, sounds clearer, the air sweeter and fresher, music and voicesplunged into a period of darkness and guilt

‘I’ious,’ she had said to Cat, ‘I didn’t believe in God before and I don’t believe in God now This didn’t do anything to change ood reasons and I think they have a right to, so why do I feel guilty? Because I’ve no right to have this delight in life given back to me, have I? In spite of the illness, and what the end will be, I wake everyI don’t deserve it’

‘Do we all get e deserve and not e don’t? I’m a believer and you are not but it often see chopped up into pieces and thrown out of aThey just fall where they fall’

‘It rains on the just and on the unjust, you mean So which am I?’

Her condition had deteriorated over the past week Now, as Cat took her wrist to feel the weak, uneven pulse and saw that breathing had becoer, and was glad it was so Her quality of life was almost at zero

Jocelyn smiled her lopsided smile and Cat wiped the dribble from the side of her mouth

‘Thank you,’ she mouthed No sound came, just the hiss of breath

‘I’et here Have they told you how much snow there’s been? Lafferton is at a standstill’

The sh the muscles of her mouth could barely move now

For the next half-hour Cat stayed, and it took all of that for Jocelyn Forbes to try and say what she wanted to say But by Cat’s questioning, repeating and suggesting, while Jocelyn tried again and again, they ca It was simple and not unexpected She did not want to be kept alive with tubes, or to be resuscitated, or to be given antibiotics if she contracted pneumonia She knew that she was close to death and she was ready to die She also knew that Penny would not be there She had not seen her daughter for al snow, so The tyres of a car spun round Jocelyn dozed, woke to the noise, s as she could before starting on the general work of the day because this hy she did the job Over recent years there had been a major push for ‘hospice at home’ – terminally ill patients looked after by palliative care nurses, away from both hospital and hospice Sometimes, it was the perfect answer but Cat was concerned that the chief reason for pressure on patients to die at hoe of trained nurses, difficulty over pain and symptom relief, and even more because of unsuitable ho there was not the right option Better a good death in a hospice than a distressing one at horeat pressures on doctors not to refer patients to a hospice unless it was unavoidable and that en House’s very existence look uncertain Hoould people like Jocelyn Forbes fare then? They would be sent into a general hospital, and the whole palliative care movement itself would start to be under was unusually busy, with other arrangeet in because of the weather, relatives stranded on their way to visit, which left those ere longing to see them disappointed and distressed And inevitably soet in to work

Cat was trying to adjust a syringe pu trouble, when her pager bleeped She ignored it The syringe failed again and she decided to give up on it and get a replace

‘I’ve had Hannah on the phone I think you’d better coet someone else to sort that out’

Cat ran

‘Muiven Felix some cereal What shall I do next?’

‘Have you been up to her room and knocked on the door?’

‘Loads of tio in?’

‘No, because you always say Molly’s room is her room and –’

‘I know, but this is different Hanny Take the handset with you and go upstairs Bang on the door again, and if she doesn’t answer, go inand then tell ht I ought to ask’

‘You did the right thing Don’t worry though, because sometimes she takes tablets if she can’t sleep and theyinto the receiver and her footsteps up the stairs Fro as she cli hard first’

The banging started, stopped, started again

‘She isn’t answering’

‘OK, in you go If she’s sound asleep try and wake her – but gently, don’t yell in her ear or anything’

‘The curtains are still drawn but it’s really light because of the snow She’s turned the other way in the bed’

‘Put your hand on her shoulder and shake her gently, and say her na that until she stirs The tablets make her sleep quite deeply’

She waited Heard Hannah’s steps Hannah’s voice, saying Molly’s name quietly Then more loudly

‘Mummy?’

‘Has she moved yet?’

‘No Mummy, I think she’s dead’

Seven

‘OH, WOW!’

They had walked through the belt of pine trees, their footsteps round No one else was about and there had only been three other cars parked down the long avenue that led from the road They had stepped onto the last section of boardwalk and then clambered down the uneven steps cut out of the bank, which were treacherous with ice And then, they were on the beach

‘Wow!’ Sa line of sea far away, to the silver rivulets of frozen water criss-crossing the flat sand, and to the snow, a couple of inches deep and extending seventy or eighty yards out, until it thinned away to nothing The huge sky was pale silver blue, arching over them and over the sea, the sand, the shoreline There was no wind at all so that apart fro of seabirds it was utterly quiet They stepped down onto the snow

‘The sand is frozen,’ Sam said Then he went a few yards on and bent down beside one of the saltwater pools ‘And the seawater is frozen Wow!’

Simon looked at his watch, as smothered with dials as the control panel of an aircraft, as Cat had said when he’d bought it the previous year A an to run

Si up at the sky as a skein of geese went honking over, arrowing their way inland To the right, two dog walkers stood watching their black Labradors chase one another, the wild barks co sharply across the flat open space Another walker ca up sand and glittering arcs of icy water that caught the brilliant sunlight

Sa where he was running towards the tide’s edge

They had been in Norfolk for three days, had another four to coleeful child he had once been, shedding his adolescence and the mild sullenness and sloth that ith it as he walked beside Simon for miles, read and listened to bands via his headphones while Simon drew seabirds and church towers, apparently perfectly happy They had rented a cottage just off the marshes, which in winter were quiet, the streets of the little villages e walkers Si to take his nepheay so that they could have so in Wales, walking over the Brecon Beacons, visiting the Scottish island where he had enjoyed aor another, usually police work, had got in the way This Norfolk week, Saed at the last minute The snow had come as they had headed east They ate in pubs, or Sireat panfuls of chips, and Sa he did not doby hi or out with his sketchbook, was untroubled by this but his sister had hinted strongly that the week aould be helpful in getting Sam to tell his troubles, and perhaps talk about his father It was almost four years since Chris Deerbon’s death Felix was too young to remember and Hannah had cried all of her emotions out, but Sam had barely reacted and would never answer questions about his feelings