Suddenly the house felt much stiller, almost shadowy. The parade line of shoes seemed bereft with the largest pair dismissed. She had little heart to return to the game, knowing only part of what had made it so lovely remained, but she fixed a smile onto her face and entered the sitting room.

Timothy was neatly organising the property cards in their correct order: Old Kent Road, Whitechapel Avenue, The Angel Islington, Euston Road. The board and pieces were already packed away.

"We could carry on," she began, but he shook his head, while putting the cards back into the box.

"It gets difficult." It was weary wisdom gained from prior experience.

"A new one might be nice? I definitely need the practice! I never saw such determination!"

Timothy grinned. "Some of my friends' dads let them win, but Dad never does. If it's chess he gives me an extra queen or a rook or something and he lets me use the dictionary in Scrabble, but then he'll try to beat me all the same. I like that, because when you do win you know you won properly."

"So, would you like to start another game, Timothy?" she asked, reaching for the board.

"No," he shook his head again and replaced the box on its shelf. "We've not got time. It's only an hour till bedtime and I have to have my bath first. Thank you though." Suddenly he brightened. "I'll show you the house! Come on." She was not sure how Patrick would feel, but was reluctant to crush Timothy's resurgent good-humour and stood up to follow him.

He had not left the room though. "This is the sitting room," he said expansively, as if she had not been sitting there for the best part of the previous ninety minutes. "I'm supposed to do my homework in my bedroom, but I usually do it here instead."

"Why's that?"

He looked uncomfortable, but answered directly, as if knowing that she, of all people, would understand. "Dad usually does his work in here in the evening or listens to music and reads if he's at home. There are useful books here too," he added, as if ashamed by the sentimental admission.

She could see the useful books – an encyclopaedia in three volumes, a large dictionary, an atlas, the complete works of Shakespeare – in an alcove on the side of the fireplace. Rather to her surprise, there was also an elegantly bound Bible; she wondered if it had been Elizabeth's. This was clearly Patrick's side, with a collection of well-thumbed novels on the shelves below. The mix was eclectic, Graham Greene and George Orwell living cheek by jowl with Agatha Christie. To find The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists among them was unsurprising: she had not read it, but knew of its fierce humanitarianism. That Casino Royale was slid on top, possibly more recently read, was slightly more illuminating. Below the books was a simple decanter, of whisky she guessed from the colour, some glasses on a tray and a half-filled ashtray. The whole display was sober and neat, but sparse.

Yet viewing the room objectively, she saw that this alcove was not alone in that and what had previously charmed the room for her had been its occupants. It displayed signs of family life, but little of the clutter which tells of it and she felt the lack of jumble: pointless holiday souvenirs, absurd presents only valued by the giver and receiver, children's drawings, hobbies which colonised. Even the serene parlour at Nonnatus House contained tell-tale hints of the women who lived there: the limbs of unfinished gollies occasionally found under cushions, Sister Julienne's delicate watercolours left to dry on the table, even the odd abandoned pair of Trixie's shoes. The furniture was well-preserved and carefully polished, three paintings appeared on the walls, a gramophone gleamed on top of the sideboard, with the collection of records underneath, while a cabinet radio sat in the corner. But there was an absence to the room, something lacking.

It was countered by only two things. One was a number of photographs, mainly on the sideboard. There were posed wedding photographs of various couples from different times, including Patrick and Elizabeth, but predominantly they were precious snatches of family life: Baby Timothy with mother and grandmother, a very funny one of him as a toddler, sitting on Patrick's knee and attempting to use his stethoscope, and all three of the Turner family crowded around the MG, somewhere in the country.

The other was the second alcove, on the other side of the fireplace, which Timothy introduced as his. A litter of board games lived on the top shelves, with his folded music stand and violin on the shelf below. Then at the bottom was a kit for making a model aeroplane, a sketch pad, pencils and a paint box, on top of a pile of old newspaper. It made her smile; clearly it was not just cleaning shoes which Timothy completed rather messily.

"Most of my stuff's in my bedroom, but these are the special things. I'll show you the rest later."

She took one last glance around the room as Timothy marched her away, wondering whether the polished sadness of the room was due to careful preparations for her sake, or had been there far longer. Either way, she ached at its poignancy.

The dining room was speedily dispensed with as 'a bit boring', and they detoured into the back of the house, with Timothy pointing out Mrs. Harrison's rooms and entrance, which were strictly out of his bounds, before arriving at the kitchen. For Shelagh, already taken around it by Mrs. Harrison, her interest lay in what Timothy chose to show her. While Mrs. Harrison proudly pointed out the stove and the larder, Timothy ignored the room's usual functions, apart from collecting the biscuit tin and Horlicks 'for later'; the only similarity between what he and Mrs. Harrison spoke of was the same crushing assessment of Patrick's ability at cooking.

Instead he dragged out the step-ladder to show how the view from the window 'went for miles', a fact she took on trust, it being too dark to see anything beyond the start of the garden. He then let down the drying rack which hung from the ceiling, explaining how it could be used for aerial fights between his planes if he tied them on in the right place and poked them with his violin bow.

"And what does Mrs. Harrison think about that?" she asked.

He gave her an impish look. "Not a lot. She lets me away with it on special occasions."

Returning to the hall, after briefly sticking her head into the cobwebbed cupboard under the stairs, she thought they would go straight upstairs. But then he stopped and looked at a closed door next to the dining room.

"That's Dad's study," he said. "Nobody really goes into it apart from him. Mrs. Harrison sometimes cleans it, but she calls it a 'midden'. What does midden mean?"

"In this context it probably means a wee bit of a mess."

"Oh. That's fair. It's Dad's den." He pushed open the door and stepped inside. As Shelagh followed, she reeled from the fug and even though only dim light drifted in from the hallway, she clearly discerned its chaos. It was very small, with bookcases dominating two of the walls, one low, but broad and glass-fronted, the other tall and full of files, an armchair in front of it. Behind the door was a roll top desk. Piles of folders were stacked on it, a pewter tankard acting as a makeshift paperweight, scraps of paper littered the surface and an ashtray disgorging its heap of finished stubs sat precariously on the edge. The only uncluttered area was a corner where a small, framed photograph sat, but in the darkness she could not see what it was of.

She was temporarily blinded when Timothy switched on the light. "I'm not supposed to go in here," he began, adding quickly when he saw her stricken face, "but it'll be OK as I'm showing you. It's really messy, isn't it? Dad's always telling me off for not tidying my bedroom but this is much worse! I don't know what he uses it for. He says it's for paperwork, but mostly he does that in the sitting room. I think he just sits here and thinks. When Mummy was ill and after she died sometimes he came in here and cried. He thinks I don't know, but I do because I heard him. He sat in his car and stared out of the window when he was sad too. He did that a lot when you were in the sanatorium."

She felt the words like an electric shock. She knew herself to be loved by Patrick; he did not say it, but it showed in every action and eloquent silence. Yet the implications gleaming within Timothy's blunt remark were too precious to be easily processed. She turned away to the glass-fronted bookcase opposite the door. It was as meticulously organised as the desk was untidy and chaotic, with a series of medical textbooks and journals categorised and in alphabetical order. She instantly identified the journals as The Lancet and the British Medical Journal. Even had she not recognised them one or two stray copies peeked out from beneath the files on the on top, while once again there was a photograph: four young people, three men and a spectacularly beautiful woman. They were laughing at each other, the photograph capturing some private joke. On the left was her fiancé, holding up a pint glass to the camera; his face was unlined, the figure more athletic, but the expression was little changed and the resemblance to Timothy striking. The others were unknown. On the right was one of the men, round-faced, cheerful and with the woman's left arm draped along his shoulders. The other man was more bizarre: bespectacled, tall and thin, on his head he wore a deerstalker.

"That's Dad with Uncle Kenneth, Uncle David and Aunt Louisa when they were training to be doctors," said Timothy, identifying them one by one. "They're Dad's friends."

"That's a fairly unusual choice of hat!"

Timothy beamed. "That's Uncle Kenneth. He's Holmes," he explained. "Holmes, Watson and Lestrade. They were their nicknames at university."

This was a new insight into Patrick she had not anticipated. "Do you know why?"

Timothy nodded. "Uncle David. His surname is Watson, so he really is Dr. Watson. I suppose Auntie Louisa's Dr. Watson too. She's married to Uncle David. She used to be a doctor although she isn't now. Uncle David says it's because she's too busy talking, but it's really because they've got children. They both talk all the time though. Uncle David works at Great Ormond Street. Uncle Kenneth was Holmes. He's really clever, but quite strange. Auntie Louisa says he's eccentric and that Aunt Alice is the bravest person in the world. He's a heart surgeon and he loves trains and Uncle David says that he's the person we know who is mostly likely to end up on a stamp. Uncle Kenneth's got an amazing study, much better than this one, with a life sized skeleton you can dress up and a model heart which he can take apart and everything."

"So your dad was Lestrade?"

"Yes. Uncle David says Dad was the sensible one who kept them in order." He was about to add his private suspicion: that his father was the dull one, but Shelagh was staring at the photograph so wistfully that he closed his mouth and slipped away to another corner of the room.

She was scanning the unknown faces, their youth and hope and shared history. What she saw had help to mould Patrick into the man she loved, but she could not recall him ever mentioning their names. Dimly she remembered him once particularly requesting a specific consultant at Great Ormond Street when making a referral on the grounds that he was a friend, while years ago he had lent her a fascinating article, destined for publication in the BMJ, about a new practice called open heart surgery, as he had a preview copy from the author; but that was all. Was it his omission or her forgetfulness? She thought she recollected every word of every conversation they had had for many, many months. And then there was the camaraderie, the like of which she had never known. Her intended vocation separated her from her peers when she was training, her youth from her sisters once the vows were taken. She had never thought of herself as unhappy, but now she saw the loneliness of her life.

It was a sharp cry from Timothy which recalled her from her reverie. Joining him, diagonally across the room, she understood the cause. Just beyond the desk, there was a portion of the wall which was hidden from view at the door. It was covered in pictures by Timothy. From the improvement in the draughtsmanship they clearly covered some time, ranging from uncertain representations of people and places to more recognisable depictions of himself and his father.

"These are lovely. They're all by you, Timothy, aren't they?"

He nodded, staring. He pointed at two of the more incoherent ones, the images faded and the paper curling. "That's really old. So's that. He must've had them for ages." There was a tremor in his voice.

"Did you not know that he kept them?"

"No," he said quietly. "He puts them up in the sitting room for a bit. We took one down this morning when we were tidying," he explained. "I knew you wouldn't mind, but Dad said we should anyway."

But Shelagh did not answer. She was transfixed by a picture near the bottom.

It was two figures, a man with black hair and a woman with glasses, facing each other and smiling. The man's hands were on the woman's shoulders and appeared to be holding a long brown cape around her. Further back in the picture was a car, with a brown haired boy beaming through one of the windows, against a cloudy sky.

"When did you give him that one?" she finally asked.

The stare broadened. "I didn't. It was supposed to be for you, but I messed it up. The coat's all wonky, do you see? I was going to throw it out and start again, then Dad told me I ought to be in bed and he'd clear up for me." They were close, very close, and he was standing directly in front of her. Almost without thought she folded her arms around him, feeling him tense for a second in surprise, then relax back against her. "Do you like it? Should I have finished it?"

"Yes, I like it very much." It was almost a whisper.

With strange relief they headed up the stairs, quickly stopping at the bathroom on a landing half way up, to the rooms on the first floor.

"That's just the airing cupboard and it's boring. And that's the spare bedroom," began Timothy. He looked at her uncomfortably and pointed at the room on their right. "I don't know about going in there. That's Dad's room." It was not like the end of a sentence, more a trailing away, perhaps disconcerted by their previous invasion into his father's privacy, perhaps faintly realising that this room would eventually be hers too.

"I don't think we should, Timothy. You wouldn't like it if I went into your bedroom without your permission, would you?" He shook his head. "I think that bit of the tour should be with your father." Too much had been stripped naked for her within the study, too many nerve ends left exposed.

Timothy's relief was palpable and he headed to the next room along, a storage room, full of boxes, suitcases and little used junk. "We use this for stuff we don't use much. We've got a loft and it's quite big, but we usually put it here."

It was an odd use for the room. Although small, it was compactly designed and neatly painted and papered. It could have been a bedroom and, she thought, would have made a perfect nursery. At the thought, she started to ponder whether another quiet shadow lingered in Patrick's life.

"Have you always lived here, Timothy?"

"No. We moved here when I was four. I can't remember the other house much, except it was tiny and had a blue and red beaded doormat. Do you want to see my room now?"

She would not ask any further questions of either Timothy or Patrick, but she guessed the dreams which had initially been had for the little room and she was right.

The detritus of Timothy's energetic existence spilled across his room. She noted with amusement an unsubtle attempt to kick his cubs jumper under his bed, clearly not put away from yesterday, and his air of maturity when dismissing the battered teddy bear lurking in a corner as 'from when I was little'. There was a sizeable collection of books, ranging from the library loans they had borrowed together to older volumes inherited from Patrick. A meccano set and two model aeroplanes lay on another shelf, while there was a box containing a muddle of toys: a wooden boat, some soldiers, a football and an elderly cricket bat, small even for Timothy and with a makeshift grip fashioned from a grubby bandage. Timothy proudly introduced each treasure, sharing the stories of his little life. However, it was the corner with his desk which was most interesting. The desk itself was mundane enough, suffocated by an abandoned school bag and guarded by a family of paper frogs, but the wall above was dominated by a vast map of the world and a string of postcards. Most were from close to home: Margate, Brighton, Lymington. She instantly recognised the card she had sent from the sanatorium, carefully pinned up on the left. Others were from slightly further afield: the Lake District, York. However the jewels in the crown were on the right of the map: a collection of cards from overseas. With the exception of one picture of the Melbourne Cricket Ground from a university friend of his father who had emigrated, all were from the same source.

"Uncle Kenneth sent these," said Timothy. "He went to a conference in Switzerland last year by train and sent me a postcard from every country he went through. That one's from him too." It was of the Statue of Liberty. "He has a friend in New York and got him to send me the card after Mummy died to cheer me up. It's got a British stamp, because it got put in with a letter and then Uncle Kenneth had to post it to me, so it looks a bit funny, but it comes from New York originally, and that's what counts. It started my collection."

It was only after considerable probing that Timothy admitted that he needed to get ready for bed and, having collected pyjamas and dressing gown, headed to the bathroom. Making her own descent to prepare his Horlicks, she had reached the kitchen when she heard a door open behind her.

"You make him happy." Mrs. Harrison stood in her doorway. "Both of them. Who won the game?"

"We weren't able to finish it unfortunately."

"There've been so many Saturdays like that, when the doctor's been called out and little Timothy left with his puzzles or his books. But now he has you."

"Oh, I didn't really do anything. I just listened while he entertained me."

"That's enough, dear. Believe me. You're waiting until the doctor gets home?" Shelagh nodded. "It might be a very long time. He might be called out on another call."

"If he has to go to another one, I'll go. But I want to wait if I can." She remembered the face and the muttered words. She did not want Patrick to return once more to silence and loneliness.

Mrs. Harrison smiled. "I'll telephone your lodgings then, dear, and tell them you'll be late and to leave a key out."

Swept up in Timothy's tour of the house, she had forgotten. "I should have done that. I can do it."

"No, I'll do it. You worry about Timothy. Sometimes these things sound better from a grumpy old woman like me than a young lady like you!" Shelagh wondered whether Patrick had confided to the dignified woman his fear of compromising her reputation or whether she simply guessed how he would wish to protect her. Even without him, his care surrounded her.

Shelagh moved around the kitchen quietly, singing as she found the mugs and plates, but still overhearing the murmur from the telephone. She did not need to wonder how Mrs. Harrison knew the telephone number; she knew it would now be on the list for when calls came to the house. Bubbles rose and puckered as milk simmered in the pan.

"You have a lovely voice! That's something I'll get used to." Mrs. Harrison had returned, still smiling. "All done. They'll leave a key under the mat and pop a hot water bottle into your bed for you."

"Thank you."

"Not at all." She looked at her kindly. "There's a little piece of cake left in that tin and some ham and bread if you wanted to make a plate up for him for when he gets in." It was a hint, but charmingly made; and in that moment, both Shelagh and Meg Harrison knew that things would be alright.

"I will, thank you. I'm very pleased to have met you, Mrs. Harrison."

"So I am. Good night, dear."

Scrubbed and wet-haired, Timothy was no less irrepressible when he appeared for his supper, picking up the monologue about his room as if there had been no pause; and when he traipsed up to bed, although he claimed the right to put himself to bed, he still elicited a promise that she would come up and tuck him in in a quarter of an hour's time.

Fifteen minutes dragged heavily. Idleness sat awkwardly on her and it did not take long to clean up the dishes and prepare the plate for Patrick. She wished that she had her workbag with her. Her mind, starved for so long, was greedy for what the house provided abundantly, but her misgivings were grave. She knew he would not begrudge it, nonetheless she halted with her hand on the doorknob before she entered his study once more.

The latest issues of The Lancet and the BMJ were quickly found and she was about to depart, having no wish to disturb the room's secrets more than she had already done. But now the photograph on the desk was in light and she started as she saw it, for she had been there when it was taken: newly qualified, newly arrived, a postulant, she had not yet met the doctor of whom such glowing things were said by Sister Julienne, nor would she that day. She was simply dispatching deliveries in response to the phone call requesting more supplies, any supplies, sterile dressings, penicillin, as the brave new world had exploded into existence beyond their wildest imagination. The edges of her postulant's habit flapped like sails as she cycled to the surgery, wondering if it was seemly to go so fast, then turned the corner and stopped, astounded. Outside the practice was a seemingly endless queue: the weak, the destitute and the needy, all patiently waiting. It was the 5th July, 1948, the first day of the National Health Service, and the man from the Poplar Echo was there to capture it.

Here, at the heart of his work was his motivation, his desire to serve. She needed no insight into his heart for she knew it, but cradling the photograph, she held him in her hands. Carefully returning it to the desk, she sought the things she could do for him, yet felt how inconsequential they were; hanging up the clinical coat discarded on the armchair, emptying the overflowing wastepaper basket and ashtray into the kitchen bin, washing them, replacing them in the study, then walking upstairs to kiss his son goodnight, her own small acts of service.

It was well past eleven, later even than he had anticipated, when Patrick returned, stepping into silent darkness as he entered. He quietly called out her name, but there was no reply and hanging up his jacket, he saw her coat was gone. It was foolish to feel sad. As the hours had dragged on, he had hoped increasingly that she would take his earlier advice, call for a taxi and return to her lodgings. But the disappointment crushed him like lead. Too weary even to climb the stairs, he sat down to rest for a moment at the bottom of the staircase, wiping sleep from his eyes. And as he did, he saw a faint strip of light emitting at the bottom of the sitting room door.

There was no sound beyond the creak of the door as he opened it, no light except the standard lamp, but curled up in a corner of the settee, underneath her coat, was Shelagh. She was asleep.

For the first moments he could only watch, mesmerised by her peacefulness. She seemed to smile as she slept and her hair shone temptingly. Even tied up, it was still a burnished liquefaction. He had dreamt of her hair, fantasised about it, never imagining it would be so fair. When he first stood before her in the mist, he could not resist the lure of the forbidden fruit, so long hidden, touching the edges although trying to conceal his desire within a mundane professional gesture. It haloed a face now strangely bare. He had never seen her without her glasses before, apart from the few seconds after she stumbled at the fete, but they lay on top of a copy of The Lancet on the table, next to an open Bible. He glanced at the shelf in the alcove; there was a gap. Without them, the mouldings of her face were finer, more delicate, a new country.

He did not want to disturb her, but knew he should and crouched down, not wishing her to wake in a house that was still unfamiliar and find herself crowded by a figure she could not identify without her glasses. With one hand on one shoulder, the other on one knee, he gently shook her. "Shelagh. Sweetheart. Wake up."

Her face twitched as she dragged herself by slow degrees back to consciousness, squinting at the fuzzy image in front of her, aware of pressure on her knee and shoulder ceasing and the familiar form of her glasses pressed into one hand. "Patrick?" she asked.

"Yes. Wake up, sweetheart."

She blinked at him now, pushing the coat away and failing to stifle a yawn. "Hello."

"Greetings." His voice was teasing as he used her word.

"I meant to stay awake for you."

He hushed her. "It's very late. You're here. That's more than enough. I'll take you back now."

"Wait a minute first." She patted the settee, willing him to join her, watching the heaviness with which he pulled himself up, sat alongside her and fell back in exhaustion. "How was it?"

There was a long pause before he answered. "Difficult. Baby was already lost before I got there, I'd say before Nurse Miller did. Saved the mother. When she started to haemorrhage, I thought we'd lose her too. I wish I'd had you there."

"How did Cynthia do?"

His face crumpled. "I didn't mean that, not at all. She did very, very well. She's become such a good little nurse and her diagnosis was perfect."

"She'll cope?"

"I think so." He understood her meaning. "She knows there was nothing she could do. It won't be another Thomas Kelly. Shelagh, will you speak to her and reassure her?"

"Yes, of course, if you think it will help."

"It will. She looks up to you so much. I already told her to call you. You don't mind?"

"No. I'm more than happy to."

"Thank you. They need you." Diffidently he took her hand. "So do I. That was all I was saying." In his face she read a weariness which extended to his bones, but also something more; a famished, starving look. What he sought she knew, for she felt it herself. She knew he would not take what he wanted; his chivalry would baulk at even so mild an intimacy. Yet she wondered if something else stopped him: the memory of when he had once allowed his feelings full release and she had pulled away and turned her back. His love for her was shown in his restraint and it must be her who found the uncertain way for them both.

Tentatively, she reached out and stroked the dark hair, finding strands of silver within the black, which made her feel still more tender. Then slowly she pushed under the surface, feeling his hair wash over, around and between her fingers, drawing them down beyond his ear, until her fingertips trailed on skin and her palm lay on his cheek. His starving eyes were burning and a slight, quiet noise, caught between a breath and a sigh, stuttered from him. He pressed his own hand over hers, pulling her palm to his lips. They both knew it was the same hand with the now almost imperceptible scar, but this time she did not pull away.

In her eyes he thought he found the answers to questions he was too timid to ask. Taking her face in his hands, he lent forward and kissed her. At first it was delicate, little more than he had bestowed on her previously, their lips only fractionally more parted than before, lingering longer but no more. He felt the membrane of her upper lip stick against his, then release with an inaudible pop. He barely moved, afraid of shattering the glass world newly spun around them, but saw the blood coursing underneath the fragile surface of her skin, forming patterns like mother of pearl. Then he kissed her once more and deepened it, gradually, mildly, but steadily, every thought and feeling concentrated into expressing his delight in her. His hands held her to him, just as they had done at the moment of dizzying certainty when he knew that she was truly his, but now no coat barred his discovery of her neck, the escaped tendrils of hair, the smoothness of her skin. Yet there was a deeper joy, for her arms were around him, pulling him to her, he felt her smiling against his kiss and every cell of his body was alive as she responded, offering back the same mysterious mixture of desire, supplication and cherishing.

And then, as steadily as he had first deepened the kiss, he now began to lighten it. It was for her, even now not wishing to discomfort her, but not just her. Feelings he feared had died within him lived once more and he was awed by the discovery. With one last, fragile kiss, he pulled away to gaze at her, stunned by what had been awakened in them both, but grateful, almost relieved, to know that it was there, in her as well as himself. She was smiling, tiny abrasions on her lips where his stubble had grazed it and when he searched her eyes again, he found himself in their centre.

"Hello," he said, breaking into a smile at the foolishness of the remark.

Her laughter was like the chiming of ecstatic bells. "Hello, Patrick." She smiled into the indecision that lingered on his face and nestled against him, pulling his arm around her. "That was wonderful." She took his hand and kissed it. "It was perfect, my love." She had never used the endearment before, but it was so simple a truth that she could not understand why not.

There was no need for more; she had expressed it all. The rightness, his completion by her, astonished him. Beside him now, within his arms, their bodies fitted together with a neatness he could not have imagined. He did not understand his previous fears, so absurd they seemed now that the world had slid into a new, incandescent focus.

"Did you finish the game?"

"No. Not without you. Timothy gave me a tour of the house." She felt him swallow and heard the sharp breath, but he said nothing. She placed a hand upon his chest, guessing at his fear. "Not everywhere. He only showed me his bedroom and the little room upstairs, not yours."

When his reply came, it was shyness, not awkwardness. "Our room soon, Shelagh."

"Yes. That's why I want you to show me it."

His arms tightened around her and she looked up at him. "You can change things, Shelagh. There, and anywhere else. We could rearrange things or get Len Warren in. I want it to be your home too."

She nodded. "I know. It will be." Once more he made no answer, but she felt his chin rest on the top of her head. "We went into your study though. Do you mind?"

"No. There are a lot of books and journals," he waved towards the table, "you found them, which we'll both want to use. We could share it if you want. It's a little messy, I'm afraid."

"A little?" she scoffed. "I think it can stay your 'den' as Timothy put it!" As he ruefully grunted, Shelagh pieced together the question she wanted to ask. "Patrick, Timothy saw the pictures. It's lovely. Why do you hide them away?"

His voice was quiet. "I don't know. It wasn't deliberate. I suppose I didn't want to lose them. They're his childhood." She wondered for a moment if he would continue. "I keep missing parts of it. I let him down all the time."

"No, Patrick." She reached up to touch his face, but he took her hand in his own before she could.

"Shelagh, I do. Do you remember the time when he hurt his arm at school and turned up at the clinic and how I reacted?" His face was twisting. She remembered. "You knew exactly what to say to make him feel better and special. You're a natural with children. All I did was upset him."

"You were worried for him, Patrick. It was the middle of the clinic, which is always chaos, and suddenly he turned up injured and you didn't know what had happened. It was just reaction."

"Maybe. You saw his face, though. You heard what he said 'You're always at work'."

"Look at me, Patrick." Her authority was quiet, but it was there, and he obeyed her. "You were in the middle of a consultation, you rushed out of it and were by his side in seconds. I watched the two of you tonight with the shoes and board games and your private jokes. It's very precious. He's just a wee boy still, Patrick. He'll say you're always at work or that Uncle Kenneth has a more interesting study and so on, because he's isn't thinking. You've raised Timothy by yourself for two years and bore the brunt of the parenting for a good eighteen months before that and he's wonderful. Yes, I saw his face then, but I saw it tonight too when he saw those pictures and he loves you very, very much."

"Sometimes it's as though I'm ripped in two, between the practice and him." The words were emerging from somewhere deep within him, an uncertain confession. "I don't know how to put the pieces together again."

"You're not ripped in two. You're just exhausted, my love." Upon his lips she placed a soft, protracted kiss; a reassurance and a promise. "But you're not alone any more. We'll find a way."

"Thank you." They sat like sculptures in the lamplight, their arms wrapped around each other. The only gleam of brightness was the diamond steadily shining from her hand, while he listened to their breath murmur, feeling hers synchronise to the slowing rise and fall of his chest. Holding her, he sensed her own shattering tiredness, and regretfully knew what he must do. "I think I'd better take you back now, sweetheart, before you turn into a pumpkin, or I do." One more touch of her face and hair and he unfolded her from him to stand, his hand outstretched. "Or I get another call out. It should be Roger Preston on call tonight, but, – "

"I know." She took his hand and was still holding it when they reached the front door, only releasing him when he offered to help her on with her coat, smoothing its crushed panels.

"It's a pity that while Timothy was showing you the house, he didn't show you how to put the sitting room fire on."

"I worked it out Patrick, but I didn't like to. Not when it was just me."

"Penny pinching Scot," Patrick snorted, enjoying the face she pulled at him. "Did he really say that Ken had a more interesting study than mine?"

She chuckled. "That's the thing you remember? Yes, apparently so, with a skeleton you can dress up and a model heart! And is it true that he likes trains and 'Uncle David' and 'Aunt Louisa' never stop talking?"

Despite his fatigue, Patrick hooted with laughter. "That wonderful boy! Absolutely true. They never stop! At some stage, my darling, you'll be 'Louisa-d'!"

"You make it sound like an enema."

"'High, hot and a hell of a lot'?" He raised an eyebrow. "Believe me, there are similarities."

"And the trains? The full case notes please, Doctor Turner. Or," Coyly, surprised by her own boldness, she pulled him towards her by his lapels, "Inspector Lestrade?"

"Good grief, he's told you everything, hasn't he? Careful, sweetheart. It was almost Moriarty."

The last echo which died away in the hallway was a duet of laughter, as they closed the door and headed towards the car.