‘Let’s,’ said Marlowe. ‘I feel as if I might be eaten alive any minute.’
They slipped away as discreetly as they could – endless goodbyes and Christmas wishes would only hold up the jollity. Marlowe started up the car and turned on the heater, then drove carefully through the blizzard, windscreen wipers at the double. The carol service from King’s College Cambridge played on the stereo. It was as if they were in cosy bubble, tucked away from the outside world.
‘A white Christmas,’ sighed Emilia, as the landscape around them transformed into a winter wonderland. Their first, she smiled to herself, and thought about waking up in his cottage the next morning, and the stocking she had filled for him hanging by his fireplace.
As they came into Peasebrook, Marlowe stopped the car just on the hump of the bridge and Emilia looked at Nightingale Books, the light from the windows still glowing inside, the roof already covered in white, and in her mind she said ‘Merry Christmas, Dad,’ and then the car rumbled down the other side of the bridge and up the high street into the oncoming snow.