He had already clipped two wing mirrors of stationary cars he hadn’t even been aware of. He guided the Land Rover into the middle of the road and prayed for a drop of luck. If the roads remained deserted for the rest of the drive, he’d be fine. His head was starting to ache and the cavity of his left eye was leaking pus onto his cheek. He wondered how close he was to passing out. He slumped over the steering wheel and tried to control his racing thoughts. If his luck was out—and on this night, of all nights, he had no reason to suspect otherwise—he’d be spotted careening across the road by a police patrol vehicle and the game would be up. He just had to hope that the worst the night had to offer had already been inflicted. That somehow—more by serendipity than design—he would get to Maggie Ensworth’s apartment before his body collapsed.

* * *

The door to the rectory was opened by a large man wearing a full-length dressing gown and slippers. His hair was dishevelled and his face was creased. Like crumpled paper, Kate thought. He was trying desperately hard not to look annoyed.

“Hello, Mike,” Jasper said. “You still believe in that Samaritan crap? We need a little help.”

The large man looked at him for a moment, still bleary-eyed, and then smiled and reached out to embrace him.

“Will I regret it?” he asked, hugging Alison and helping her inside.

“Only from this moment on, I suspect. The first minute was kinda nice there. Almost like a reunion.” The two men smiled at each other and Kate glimpsed a thread of history stretching back further than either man probably cared to recall.

Jasper moved to one side in the porch light and waved her forward.

“Kate, this is Father Mike Hedley, a good friend of ours. Mike, this here’s Kate Hopewell.” He paused for a moment and then added, “She’s had quite an eventful night.”

Father Hedley shook Kate’s hand; her trembling fingers were engulfed.

“You’ll be safe here,” he said, trying to reassure her with a smile. “Come on inside. I’ll put the kettle on and you can tell me everything you think I need to know.”

Kate stopped and looked back at the truck.

“We have a little baggage,” Jasper explained. “He’s asleep on the backseat.”

Father Hedley looked towards the truck, his eyes unreadable.

“Would you like me to collect him for you?”

Kate remembered how easily her hand had been swallowed up in his and nodded without saying a word.

“Try not to disturb him, Mike,” Alison said from within the rectory. “The poor mite needs his rest.”

“I’ll tag along too,” Jasper said, following Father Hedley down the gravel path. “If he wakes up in the arms of this big bastard, he’s liable to scream the damn church down.”

Kate watched the two men walk towards the truck, one towering over the other, and wondered what she had done to deserve such kindness. She thought that if either man had seen the damage she’d inflicted upon her husband, they might not be inclined to such acts of generosity. Especially Father Hedley, whose calling surely precluded him from indulging anyone with a recent history as unforgivable as Kate’s.

She watched the dark outline of the priest open the rear door of the truck, bend low, and effortlessly scoop Billy up in his arms. The boy looked as fragile as an injured bird, and for a brief second she felt a terrible urge to stand in the porch and weep as these two gentle men transported her son to safety on her behalf.

Father Hedley began walking back down the path, the gravel crunching quietly underfoot. He held Billy with such disarming delicacy, Kate wanted to surrender her son to it for as long as possible; to allow the boy a fraction of the tenderness she was ashamed to admit he had too often been denied. As Father Hedley approached, Kate marvelled at how weightless the child seemed, locked in the cradle of his arms, and a weak, exhausted part of her wondered what it might be like to rest there, just for a frozen moment, as the insistent world ticked by.

“Thank you,” she whispered as he carried the boy into the rectory. The priest smiled and ducked his head beneath the door. She saw that Alison had already dimmed the lights so as not to awaken her son and she considered again, not for the first time tonight, exactly why she had been graced with such sympathetic companions; what accommodating force had first drawn, then gently tethered them to her hand.

“Come on, lass,” Jasper said, guiding her towards the soft light of the rectory. “You’ve a story to tell.”

Kate looked at the dark fields surrounding the church and listened to the brawl of the wind. It sounded like it was whispering her name.

* * *

When Maggie Ensworth opened her apartment door, she saw the black vacuum of Jimmy Hopewell’s left eye and failed to suppress a scream.

Hopewell ushered her inside quickly and closed the door.