All his life, for almost as far back as he could remember, Victor had
had a phobia. In prison, inevitably, he reflected on the grotesque way
it had begun, about the panics and violent anger. He asked himself, too,
why the child of happily married, middle-class parents should have
needed to make motiveless and unreasoning attacks on women. Holed up in
that house with the girl, he had not meant to pull the trigger. It was
panic. Panic, which came over him like a second skin, prickling him all
over, crawling on him.... An attempted murder not only brings Victor
Jenner face to face with himself, but also involves him in a strange and
doomed triangular relationship.