ank Redemption, Apt Pupil and The Body in Different Seasons, 1982) is a story within a story, opening with the initial narrator, David describing how he came to be part of a gentleman’s club in New York. The club is outwardly unassuming and tame – a place where mature men can share a brandy, read a newspaper or a book, and swap stories. However, this club also harbours mystery and intrigue with a drop of foreboding that remains unresolved by the rest of the short novella. About halfway through the novella, Dr. McCarron takes over as a narrator having elected himself as the teller of the Christmas story in the club, the one time of the year that the story is required to be one of the uncanny. McCarron tells a tale from his early years as a general practise doctor and a particular female pregnant who intrigued him. Sandra Stansfield came to the doctor as a single pregnant woman in the 1930s, at the time, a truly unacceptable state for a woman to find herself in. Enamoured by the woman’s poise and dignity in the face of social ostracisation, he becomes her friend as well as her doctor. Over the course of their relationship, McCarron realises that Miss Stansfield is determined to give birth no matter what.