21/12/07 Last night I had dinner with Christine and Muriel. My sister still hasn't finished her shopping. For what seems like the tenth successive year, I had to remind her that preparation is the key to a successful Christmas. No-one has ever said, "Isn't that Hamilton Coe over there desperately hunting for last minute gifts?" or "That's the last time I drop in at Hamilton's at Christmas. I didn't get so much as a cracker!" My Christmas accoutrements are bought (half-price) the preceding January while my gifts are wrapped, tagged and stashed in the attic by mid-November at the latest. Whatever unexpected contingencies might arise can be confronted without being allowed to develop into crises. "If I didn't have a job then I'd probably be able to start thinking about Christmas in October, too," snapped Christine, failing to take my advice in the spirit in which it was intended. I suspect that she was still riled by the film club debacle. The fact of this year's unexpected contingency, unfortunately, proved an added impediment to a speedy reconciliation.

I'd hoped that the family might present a united front in opposing the impending arrival of Colette. Had we not been at loggerheads, I'm sure Christine would have concurred with my 'potential risk assessment'. Instead she chided me for even using the phrase and questioned my authority to evaluate Colette's state of mind. There was no point reminding her that I've spent a life time peering into the abyss while she is really only qualified to reassure depressives and common or garden neurotics. If anything, the reiteration of our respective credentials only seemed to harden her stance. "Stop over-reacting," she said. "Colette's still Spencer's wife. Anyway, it's not as if he's a child." Again, I had to disagree. Spencer, who remains frozen in a state of perpetual adolescence, should, in fact, be treated by exactly the same criteria applied to children and mentally challenged adults. His hare-brained decision to invite a knifewoman to share his living space shouldn't be allowed to impact on everyone else's Christmas.

While the overall problem incorporates minor issues such as where to seat Colette and what, if anything, to give her, it's essentially a matter in which the party planner must largely defer to the forensic psychologist. As I fulfil both roles in this case, consultation, thankfully, is unnecessary. All that remains is to secure the co-operation of peripheral guests which is why I spent this afternoon preparing a guide to socialising with victims of personality disorders. Over the course of my investigative career, I've had to communicate with variety of potentially dangerous misfits and sociopaths. My guide briefly outlines basic methods of assertion and, where necessary, appeasement. Rather than bamboozle the reader with a crash course on criminal psychology, it remains specific to methods of dealing with Colette.

"Always use a calm, authoritative tone?" quoted Christine when I gave her a copy. "She's not a dog, Hamilton! Why not just hit her with a rolled up newspaper?" Irked by her dismissive tone, I reminded her of the stabbing incident. This was dismissed as "a storm in a teacup." My sister persists in referring to what amounted to attempted murder as if it was some kind of comical mishap. "If you hadn't been peering through the window," she added, "no-one would have even known about it. For God's sake, he didn't even have to go to hospital." The fact that Spencer didn't go to hospital doesn't mean that he shouldn't have. His violent resistance to my calling an ambulance can be attributed entirely to the fact that he was too drunk to assess the severity of the situation. It was left to me to staunch the flow of blood and apply sticking plasters to the wound. Spencer and Colette, meanwhile, continued to exchange insults, sporadically finding a common purpose in lambasting the very person whose intervention had averted catastrophe (i.e. me).