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Penny didn't look at her but fumbled for her handbag on the floor near her feet. "I'd better" She swallowed. The car was sold, the money was in the bank. She wanted rid of it. "Will you take a cheque?"

"Of course." While Penny wrote, her hand shaking, Carmine put her coat on. "Thank you," she said. The cheque disappeared into a small black leather wallet. "Oh, and if you need me again, just phone. It's inclusive; no extra charge."

"Need you?" Penny demanded sharply. "For what?"

"Well you may already have worked out how to do it, in which case there's no problem," said Carmine. "But if you haven't" Her shoulders lifted in an eloquent but slightly self-effacing way. "You might want some help when you have to break the news of what we've done to David."

Penny sat beside her husband's bed, her gaze fixed glassily on his face, her body and mind numb. David wasn't breathing, and she had got through nearly half a bottle of vodka, and if Carmine's calculation was right there were still nine more hours to endure before his chest would move and his eyes would open and look at her, and she would have to tell him the truth. She didn't know how she would do it, and she wished that she had the barefaced gall to pray for guidance. But she didn't, and so waiting the hours away with the help of the vodka bottle seemed the only viable option.

At midnight she was asleep, slumped forward with her face on the bed, in a posture that would give her a diabolical backache by morning. At 7:45 a.m. a sound and a movement disturbed her, and she raised her head blearily. Her eyes wouldn't focus properly at first, but after a second or two David's face registered.

He was awake. He was sitting up. And he was hungry .

"Champagne." Carmine produced a bag with a refinedly understated logo and presented it to Penny. "To mark the occasion and celebrate a happy outcome."

The champagne was expensive and already chilled to the perfect temperature, both of which made Penny feel faintly inadequate. She said thank you too gushingly, but before she could make any move to open the bottle David took it from her. "Let me, darling. You know what you're like; you'll struggle with it and then it'll go off bang and we'll lose half the contents before we even start."

The remark stung but Penny didn't want to show it. She returned a stiff smile, fetched glasses, watched as the cork came out with nothing more than a soft hiss and the champagne bubbled into the bowls. Carmine was given the first glass (naturally enough; she was a guest), Penny the second.

"Well, then." David raised the third glass. "To all of us." But he was looking at Carmine as he said it.

Carmine smiled warmly. They drank, then a constrained silence crept in.

Penny said, "I'll see how the food's coming along"

All right , she told herself in the kitchen. This is still very new to him and she's been more than helpful; in fact I very much doubt if we could have coped without her. So stop resenting her, and stop being paranoid . Lecture over. If she repeated it often enough, the message would get through eventually. There was no cause to be suspicious.

She started to prepare the food, trying to concentrate on the filleted sole she had prepared for herself and not dwell too much on what David and Carmine were to eat. Only a desire not to alienate David had stopped her from staggering mealtimes so that they no longer sat together at the dinner table. She frankly couldn't bear to watch him; she had always been squeamish about red meat, and in the past their meals had majored on fish, chicken or vegetarian dishes. All that had changed now, and if David's diet wasn't as grotesque as legend, it was still bad enough. And the way he ate; the speed, the relish of it Meat, and especially beef or veal, either totally raw or so rare that the blood still ran and congealed on his plate, and fish only in the form of sushi. He enjoyed jugged hare, if the local butcher could provide one complete with blood. (When the butcher did, Penny had put her foot down and told David that he must cook it himself.) No vegetables whatever; no fruit or cereals or grains. Oh, and the daily breakfast of raw eggs and black pudding, of course. Alcohol wasn't a problem, though he had a marked preference for the heavier red wines, and he did not get drunk no matter how much he put away.

Tonight, with two of David's kind to cater for, Penny had forced herself to provide fillet steak (cooking omitted), with a creamy and plentiful pepper sauce that she could pour on before serving, to mask the look and the smell. Vegetables would also be served, but only she herself would touch them; ditto the tiramisu she had prepared for dessert.

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