a pen from the hall table she turns them around. There are five in total and she features in all of them.
In the first, she is leaving Joe’s house in the early evening. In the second, she is arriving back at her own home, in the dark, by car. The third has been taken through the kitchen window, at night, from someone in the courtyard outside and the fourth is of her standing at the window of her office on the west campus, again at night. The fifth is the worst. The fifth shows her stumbling out of Gonville and Caius College in the early hours, her make-up smudged on her face.
In a strange way, the appearance of the photographs is almost a relief. She might be losing her mind, in fact she almost certainly is, but she cannot have taken these herself. She gathers them up, and places them on the hall table, but one slides off and flutters to the floor. It lands face down, and she sees what she missed before. There is writing on the reverse of the photograph taken of her outside Joe’s house. It says:
I will kill you. And I will kill him too.
* * *
At eight thirty on the morning of Tuesday 16th July, Felicity formally accepts the job in South Georgia and instructs human resources to arrange her travel documents.
46
Joe
It is golden hour in Cambridge, and the warm rays of the dying sun cast an elusive glamour over the city. The beauty of golden hour is all the more valued for being transient, because the term hour is used figuratively and no one knows quite how long the world will appear this perfect.
At golden hour, the Cam below Jesus Green Lock is more rainbow than river. Here we see a blue narrow boat, patterned with diamond shapes and sporting a jaunty yellow canopy. Over there is a yellow-hulled vessel, broad in the beam, its decks awash with scarlet chrysanthemums. Nestling up against its bow is a dainty little craft, bottle green, currently under siege from a family of swans.
‘They can break your arm, you know,’ says Joe, as a cob swan rises out of the water, wings spread, to take something from his supervisor’s outstretched fingers. The swan’s mate, more reticent, waits for food to be thrown. Her three cygnets are almost her size now, but still carry the dove-grey feathers of youth.
‘Don’t be so bloody daft,’ Torquil replies.
The pen, the female swan, looks Joe’s way, opens her beak and emits a guttural hiss.
‘Come aboard,’ invites Torquil with an evil smile.
‘Call off the dogs first.’ Joe will not bet the farm on a swan’s ability to break human limbs, but he is pretty damn sure that they can give him a nasty peck. He waits until a handful of avian treats is thrown into the middle of the river and then leaps for it.
The cockpit of the boat is small – ridiculously small given how huge the boat’s owner is – and the seats are wooden planks over lockers, but the cold box is full and Torquil has provided bread, cheese, pâté and olives. Joe sits and opens a beer. The evening is perfect; warm and safe, full of colour, food and cold beer and for several long moments, Joe wishes he had nothing more to talk about than the cricket.
‘How’s it going?’
Joe knows this is no general enquiry. ‘Just had my seventh session with Felicity Lloyd. Another couple of weeks and she’s no longer my patient.’
He acknowledges, but doesn’t quite know what to do with, the wave of sadness. Not every patient can be helped. Over the years Joe has parted company with several, knowing their problems will be ongoing, and that their future is out of his hands.
‘How did the hypnotherapy go?’
‘It didn’t. She cancelled Tuesday’s session, citing a last-minute meeting at work.’
The swans are back. The male is by the rudder, looking directly at Joe.
‘Today, she arrived late, very apologetic, and declined to be hypnotised. Said she was feeling much better, that she’s had no more worrying incidents, and that she didn’t see the point in uncovering more episodes of smoking and eating junk food.’
The cob is gone from sight and Joe has the uncomfortable feeling that it is creeping closer, tucked away beneath the hull.
‘It’s so bloody frustrating, Torq. She was starting to open up, about the voices, the fugue states. Now almost complete withdrawal.’
‘It’s not uncommon after a big leap forward. Patients get frightened of what they