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for something I couldn’t possibly have done.’
    ‘I hope you aren’t including me with them.’
    ‘No, no, no!’
    ‘Dave, I know I treated you badly but when the kids started demanding to be a family again I knew I had to go the whole hog. It suddenly came to me that if I stayed in journalism the most I could achieve would be a by-line of my own in some supplement of the Guardian and the occasional appearance on a panel show when they wanted a hard faced feminist to sneer at.’
    ‘Jan, feminist maybe but hard faced never.’
    ‘Oh, I was getting that way. It hit me like a sledgehammer when I was so wrong about you.’
    ‘Oh …’
    ‘Dave, I know I said it was the kids who wanted you back but it was really me.’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘I kept waking up in the middle of the night wondering where you were.’
    ‘I was banged up, Jan. I was in the special wing with the nonces.’
    ‘Don’t Dave. You can’t make me feel guiltier than I feel already.’
    ‘Jan I never blamed you. Have I ever said a word?’
    ‘No, but sometimes you have a look.’
    ‘Jan, I never blamed you. I never will blame you. I blame myself and that cowboy copper Rix for what happened. You only ever wanted me to get off the case.’
    ‘I don’t want you off my case,’ she said. She pulled me to the sofa, pushed me down and then collapsed on top of me.  I suppressed a gasp; never a sylph-like figure, pregnancy hasn’t reduced Jan’s avoirdupois.
    ‘Dave, you know I never believed you were a serial killer. It was just that you kept on working for that American bitch Ruth Hands.’
    ‘Ruth isn’t a bitch. She was a client and she was waiting for me when they let me out of that damned prison.’
    ‘I know. She’s wonderful and I’m the bitch who let you down.’
    ‘I never said that. I knew what I was getting myself into. You weren’t like those worms plotting behind my back. With you everything was out in the open.’
    ‘I was never jealous of her. I thought she was just exploiting your good nature. That’s the trouble with you, Dave. Sometimes you’re too nice for your own good. You don’t know when to say enough is enough.’
    I strained to move my head so that I could look her in the eye.
    ‘Listen my love, nice or nasty; I’ve already decided not to lift a finger to help Lew. God, if he thinks being Dad’s remote relative is enough to involve me in some murder plot he’s crazy. Bugger the lot of them. I’ll change my name to Smith if I have to. Anyway, let me up now Jan, or you and baby Cunane are going to crush me to death.’
    She made no effort to move.
    ‘He did give us a lovely coffee service, Dave, don’t forget that,’ she said with a laugh.
    ‘Yeah, like it was fashionable back in eighteen hundred.’
    Jan put both hands against my chest, pushed herself upright and incidentally expelled the remaining breath from my lungs.
    I let out a sigh of relief.
    ‘Well, Dave Cunane, there are some things that never go out of fashion.’
    She took me firmly by the hand and led me into the hall and up the stairs to our bedroom.
    ‘Er, Jan,’ I said when I saw where things were trending, ‘Where are the children?’
    ‘I told you, Dumbo, they’re at school. You delivered them, remember? God, that bloody Sir Lew really shaken you up hasn’t he? There’s plenty of personal time for us.’
    ‘Do you think we ought to?’
    ‘I’m still in the second trimester and I’m as horny as hell.’
    ‘So am I,’ I muttered as I lifted off her print top.
    Afterwards we lay in each other’s arms for a long time, making up unlikely names for our child. Lewis wasn’t even suggested, nor was Patrick.
    I began to feel a little more normal.
    We dozed and the afternoon slipped by.
    Eventually we showered and dressed.
    ‘It’s the hormones or something,’ Jan said. ‘I know I should be screaming about bloody Sir Lew Greene but I feel too placid to get worked up. This is just how your little escapades always start.’
    ‘Not