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admitted only once and never to Florence, was that he did not loathe or despise this feeling. Instead, he greeted this molten fury when it came with something close to relief. For weeks on end he had to hold it all in, to speak calmly, to smile at acquaintances, to feign interest in students, to discuss cricket or Herodotus with some fossilized nonagenarian at high table. But when the fury came, it came with elemental force, a force that cared for nothing but his appetites, his fears and his rage. When James was in the grip of this anger, he did not care about the consequences of his actions or what the neighbours would think. He did not think at all. It made him free.
    He reached for one of those damnable candlesticks and, satisfied by the weight of it in his hand, threw it squarely at the window looking out on the back garden: it sailed through, smashing the glass but clipping the window-frame on its exit, splitting the white wood. He heard it land hard on the flagstones beyond. To hell with the bloody Walsinghams and their bloody adulterous daughter!
    Next he turned to the dresser, containing their best china. He opened the glass-fronted door and removed the largest plate, and hurled it, discus-style, in the same direction as the candlestick. It went askew, smashing on the wall to the right of the window. The noise was too feeble to sate him, so he took another plate and threw that one to the floor. Softened by the rug, it broke in two with a single crack. Reaching for a third, he smashed it on the table before him; it cut his wrist on impact, producing a jagged wound. The sight of the welling blood brought the eruption to a halt and suddenly he felt tired, spent.
    And now came the reckoning, the feeling of disgust that followed release. He surveyed his surroundings, strewn with rubble of his own making. So much destruction. Again.
    He stumbled towards Harry’s room and slumped onto his son’s infant bed, imagining he could still feel the boy’s warmth. At this moment, Harry was probably walking between Florence and the man who had stolen her from him. They were each holding one of the boy’s hands, calling out ‘one-two-three’ then lifting and swinging him through the air. The man was smiling at Florence who was looking more beautiful than ever. How long before Harry called him Daddy?
    As if trying to escape the thought, James headed to his study, now as cavernously empty as the rest of the house, suddenly desperate for a cigarette. The first hit of nicotine flooded through him, swamping his neural circuitry, just as he wanted it to. As he exhaled, a fresh thought occurred to him, one sparked by the ache in his shoulder, now pulsing with increased voltage. Florence had tired of him, and who could blame her?
    She had tired of living with an invalid. Not yet thirty, James was already a veteran with a war wound. A cripple. Yes, he could row, though at nothing like his former strength and at such enormous effort. He was still a cripple, rejected three times for military service, despite his repeated appeals and best endeavours at string-pulling in Whitehall. So what did that make him? A cripple who tried hard. A Victorian oddity, on display in a travelling show. Good old James: shoulder smashed to pieces, but still he does make a jolly good effort, I’ll say that for him.
    Florence, on the other hand, was twenty-four and in her impeccable prime. Why would such a perfect creature want to be paired with a physically damaged specimen, why would she tolerate it? She needed more than he could give her.
    He thought of the first time, not long after it happened, when he had realized this. They were back in England, married for less than a year. He had woken with a terrible thirst and croaked out, ‘Florence! Florence?’
    And then he had seen that her side of the bed was empty. He had hauled himself up and staggered to the kitchen. He had been about to go inside when he had stopped short, halted by the sound of sobbing. He