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to what should have been a simple automatic bank transaction, but for some unknown reason it didn’t appear to be working. ‘You should have said something sooner,’ she told Louise. ‘The money is there. I’ll write you a cheque now. And after the holidays I’ll get onto the bank and sort it out,’ she said.
    Louise was palpably relieved. ‘Thanks, I appreciate it. Have a great Christmas.’
    Some hope, thought Mariner.
     
    At home he helped Anna to go through the motions of decorating the tree, wondering if it was as hollow and unsatisfying a gesture for her too. In the evening she insisted that they go to the open air carols on Bournville village green, to try to recapture something of the Christmas mood. In a crowd of thousands, many of them children, carrying glowing lanterns and wearing flashing Santa hats, they stood on the hard frozen ground, the cold spreading up through their feet.
    Untouched by the carols, Mariner’s attention was snagged by a toddler in a thick snow-suit wandering around in front of them. The crowd was dense and he was roaming further and further from his parents, weaving in and out through the forest of legs. ‘He’ll get lost,’ Mariner thought, irrational panic quickening his pulse. He made to intervene, just as the child turned and made a beeline back to his dad. But minutes later the child made another foray into the crowd, his mum and dad singing enthusiastically and completely oblivious, so when a stranger hoisted the child up and began to move off, Mariner lunged forward and snatched the toddler, causing him to shriek out in fear. A woman screamed and the white-haired man holding the child spun round in alarm. ‘What are you doing with my grandson?’ And suddenly the situation looked very different.
    ‘I didn’t know you—,’ Mariner handed back the wailing child. ‘It’s all right,’ he said to the hostile faces. ‘I’m a police officer. I thought—’ But now he could see exactly how it looked, and explanation was futile. ‘I’m sorry.’ Turning away he pushed his way back through the crowds and out onto the road, Anna trailing in his wake, unnerved by the outburst.
    ‘What was that all about?’ she asked when they were back in the car.
    ‘I don’t know. I thought the kid was going to get lost, he was straying too far, and then that man picked him up.’
    ‘He was with his family. They were all his family.’
    ‘I can see that now, but at the time—,’ He couldn’t explain the panic he’d felt, the overwhelming need to intervene that had overtaken him. ‘I overreacted, I realise that, but I couldn’t help it.’
    ‘Okay,’ Anna said, but her tone implied it was anything but.
    ‘I just can’t get those five families out of my head,’ Mariner said. ‘Their Christmas will never be the same again.’
    She put a hand over his and squeezed it. ‘I know.’
     
    During the night Mariner was woken by a deafening roar. The low-flying aircraft made him cry out in fear. Suddenly there seemed to be danger everywhere, lurking around every corner and he was on a constant adrenalin rush, waiting for the next thing to happen.
     
    25th December
    On his own while Selina was in hospital, Tony Knox came over for Christmas lunch the next day and Mariner told him what had happened. ‘I lost it,’ he said. ‘But I don’t really know why. It was nothing.’
    ‘I don’t like being inside,’ Knox admitted. ‘It makes me nervous.’ So he and Mariner took the puppy for a long walk over Clent and Walton Hills. Early morning frost had given way to a brown and murky day, the cloud low and misty, and the rotting woodland vegetation smelled acrid. Paddy ran huge circles around them, bounding back and forth, dragged by the nose along the scent trails of a hundred other creatures. Selina’s baby. Breathing hard from the first steep climb, the men walked in companionable silence for a while.
    ‘Have you seen your two this holiday?’ Mariner asked suddenly, kids