‘If the phone hadn’t rung at that moment, and it hadn’t been Chris with the news, I honestly think I might have punched him in the face.’
‘How very suitable for a DCI,’ Cat said, speaking to Simon, but looking down at her infant son.
The light from the bedside lamp shone in a soft circle on the two of them as they lay together in the high hospital bed.
It was just after six in the evening. Simon sat beside her looking at the charmed circle. ‘Damn, I wish I’d brought my sketch pad. It’s perfect.’
Cat smiled. ‘Plenty of other times … we’re not going any where.’
‘Sam and Hannah been in?’
‘Of course. Sam made his aeroplane take-off noise the whole time and Hannah was pink with pleasure.’
‘So am I.’
When Chris had phoned, seconds after Richard Serrailler’s cynical remark about catching criminals, Simon had felt a lift of the heart which made him realise how low he had been.
‘What did Mother say?’
‘The inevitable … the one about heaviness lasting a night …’
‘… but joy cometh in the morning … Well, someone had to.’
‘Odd how it’s so often true though … a death and then a new life.’
‘Every day,’ Cat rubbed her son’s back gently, before putting him to the other breast, ‘every, every day.’
‘Has he a name?’
‘He has two. Felix Daniel.’
Simon watched his new nephew snuggle into the breast, his mouth working, eyes tightly closed and a wave of emotion came roaring up through him. There was no one else in the world before whom he could have wept openly as he did now.
Cat reached out her hand to him. She thought when he had gone that tears might overcome her too, but Simon had pent-up emotion which had been simmering since Freya’s murder. Martha’s death and now this new birth had released it and she was glad. But she said nothing, merely kept her hand on his. Now was not the time for a doctor’s pious words.
After a few moments, he got up and went into her bathroom. She heard the taps running. Felix nuzzled more deeply into her breast and his fingers curled in bliss.
The door opened on Chris as Simon emerged, his fair hair wet, his face slightly flushed.
‘OK, I’m off … I think I’m going to sleep the clock round.’
Simon bent and kissed his sister and cupped his hand round Felix’s damp, warm head. ‘Good,’ he said, and left, touching Chris briefly on the arm as he went out.
In the corridor, he stood to blow his nose, and wipe his arm over his eyes again. His hand was shaking.