Текст книги "Jessica Daniel: Think of the Children / Playing with Fire / Thicker Than Water"

Автор книги: Kerry Wilkinson

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Текущая страница: 38 (всего у книги 56 страниц)

A FEW DAYS EARLIER

Garry Ashford looked up from the newspapers. ‘Are you saying what I think you’re saying?’

‘That depends on you,’ Jessica replied.

‘You know it can’t be him.’ The journalist was wide-eyed with shock and Jessica could see his hand shaking.

‘Why not?’

‘Because . . . well, why would he?’

Jessica shuffled onto the floor so she was sitting next to Garry and took the paper from him. She opened it at the relevant page and spread out the rest of the stack she had isolated, finding the articles she was looking for.

‘I went to see my friend Izzy the other day,’ she said. ‘She’s just had a baby. She’s not had much sleep and she’s hardly stopped since the birth but she looks amazing. She’s younger than me but it feels like she’s the grown-up. While I was busy trying to figure all this out, I’ve been fussing over other things and allowing my own personality to get in the way. But she asked the simplest of questions. It was the one we all should have asked at the beginning – but we were so caught up in the pace of everything and the things we thought were obvious, that we ended up missing that one issue.’

She paused, not for effect, simply because she thought she might cough. Garry asked the obligatory ‘what?’ as Jessica allowed her throat to settle.

‘Who gains?’ Jessica replied. ‘And Iz was right. Who gains from all of this? Martin didn’t, he lost a house. Anthony had already lost his son and could have lost his liberty. Ryan got his dad back but could have lost him again. What about Harley? He lost his daughter and then his house. I couldn’t see past that – because I couldn’t understand how the two things couldn’t be connected. No one is that unlucky. It was too much of a coincidence.’

She picked up one of the papers. ‘When you look at these, though, you realise it didn’t happen by chance – because there was always one person at the centre of it all. One person who gained.’

‘But what kind of person would go that far?’

Jessica pointed to the picture byline underneath the story about the fire at her house. ‘This guy,’ she said, pointing to the photograph of Sebastian Lowe.

34

Izzy grinned at Jessica. ‘You don’t have to hold her if you don’t want to.’

Jessica held out her arms and cradled Amber to her body, relaxing back into the sofa. ‘They’re not too bad after all. She still has big scary eyes but at least they’re closed.’

Izzy sat in the recliner and curled her feet underneath her. ‘Can you stop saying my only child has enormous body parts, please?’ she said with a smile.

‘Okay, let’s just say she has her mother’s eyes.’ Jessica looked up at her friend and grinned.

‘Come on then, let’s hear it.’

‘Is Amber going to mind if I say it all in front of her?’

‘Well, firstly she’s asleep and secondly she’s a tiny, tiny baby, so I think she’ll be all right.’

Jessica hugged the baby closer to her. ‘I know Dave’s spoken to you about the case a bit but, in the end, I figured it out by working my way back to what you said. It was so confusing because we were looking for the link from Harley and his daughter to Martin and his son. There was no way it could be a coincidence but we missed the obvious connection – Sebastian.’

‘He’s the reporter, yeah?’

‘Exactly. To be honest, I think things just got out of hand. We went through all of his stories. There are around a dozen crimes we think he may be responsible for, which he then reported. There was this old lady bashed over the back of the head three days after he started at the paper. He got the story before anyone else because he somehow knew where the woman lived. At the time no one there questioned him. After the assault had been reported, we didn’t pay much attention to the coverage. It was only going back now that we could see there was no obvious reason for him to know her name and address – we only gave out the woman’s age. We assumed she had approached him about the story but she says he came to her.’

‘What else have you got?’

‘A few things we’re not completely sure of but which seem likely. There’s a shop robbery where the person was wearing a balaclava. The physical description matches Sebastian but we would never be able to prove it. But then the fire stories started. He wrote something about this disused off-licence being set on fire a couple of months back. It wasn’t even something on our radar and we never put out a press release, yet he wrote about it. When he stumbled across the legitimate story about Martin, it gave him ideas. When Anthony made those threats, that meant there was a motive. The attack on Chadwick in that alley kept it in the news – and kept them on edge over each other. When the first attack on Martin’s house happened, we went straight to Anthony’s. We found a paint tin and petrol can which I guess Sebastian left there. I unscrewed the shed door to get in, so he may well have done the same.’

‘So he set the fire at Martin’s?’

‘I think so. Sebastian is in hospital with burns. He set fire to his own feet. The doctors don’t know if he will ever walk again. He hasn’t been talking. I think he literally just wanted to light the fuse and see what would happen between the two men. To us, it looked like Anthony waging war and Ryan or Martin fighting back. Really it was just one guy attacking both sides.’

‘But why would he want to burn down the house of that girl who killed herself?’

Jessica pulled up the blanket to cover Amber’s ears, just in case the baby could somehow understand what was being said. ‘I reckon he got the bug after that. When I spoke to Martin in hospital he talked about the addiction he had to the flames. For some people it’s booze or fags, for him it’s fire. I wonder if that’s how Sebastian felt after he tried it the first time? My theory was that he was just targeting people in the news, which would then generate bigger stories.’

‘And that’s how you found him?’

‘Pretty much. I’m mates with this private investigator guy. He followed Sebastian over a couple of days and saw him leave this petrol can in a wheelie bin opposite Peter and Nicola North’s house. We had to be careful so we made sure there were fire extinguishers around. We wanted to catch him doing it, of course. I waited in the house, Andrew was just around the corner, and our other lot were at the end of the road out of sight.’

‘Wow, he was really going to target those poor people?’

Jessica nodded. ‘Horrible, isn’t it.’

‘And why you?’

It was something Jessica didn’t want to think too deeply about. ‘Same reason, I guess. Think about the coverage it got. Everyone was reporting it.’

Izzy reached onto the coffee table and picked up her mug of tea, interlocking her fingers around it and taking a sip. ‘When you arrested him, were you scared . . . after what happened to you?’

Jessica ignored the question. ‘The stupid thing is that, in the end, I don’t know how much more he was going to gain. He got a promotion, he looked good among his colleagues, but what else was he going to do? With me, everyone reported it so there was no personal gain to him. I think he started by doing this to make himself look impressive but, by the end, he was addicted to what he was doing.’

‘Dave told me you put the flames out when Sebastian was on fire.’

Jessica shrugged. ‘Yeah.’

‘Did you think about . . . ? I dunno. After what he tried to do to you . . . ?’

For a few moments, Jessica said nothing and then she changed the subject. ‘Did you see the story about the teacher who had the affair with the student who killed herself?’

Izzy stared at Jessica, pausing before replying. ‘I saw.’ she replied. Amber wriggled gently in Jessica’s arms and gave a slight gurgle. ‘Just rock her,’ Izzy said. Jessica began to bob the girl delicately up and down. ‘You’ll want one of your own soon,’ Izzy concluded.

‘Did you hear that Dave split up with Chloe?’ Jessica asked, again deliberately changing the subject.

‘Yes.’ Izzy shook her head. ‘He said it had just reached a natural end and tried to laugh it off but I think there’s something more. They were living together and talking about marriage and stuff. You don’t just do that.’

‘Did he say anything else?’

‘Not really. I got the impression there was someone else.’

Jessica had been trying to catch some time alone with him but it was proving elusive. ‘Who?’ she asked.

Jessica thought she saw her friend’s eyebrows raise but, if they did, it was only for a moment. ‘No idea,’ Izzy said. Her tone sounded unconvincing but, as Jessica softly rocked Amber back to sleep, she didn’t think it really mattered.

35

Jessica tapped her hand on the top of the steering wheel in frustration. ‘Lorry drivers really are knobheads,’ she said.

‘What’s wrong with them?’ Adam asked, although Jessica suspected he didn’t particularly want to know the answer.

‘It’s just one dick overtaking another dick for five miles, and meanwhile we’re all backed up trying to go around.’

Although she was watching the road, she could sense Adam rolling his eyes. ‘So where are we going?’ he asked.

Jessica eased onto the brake to let a car pull out in front of her. ‘Wait and see.’

In the week since Sebastian Lowe had been arrested, Jessica had been trying to convince herself that the reason she had been picturing him in her dreams so often was because it was her subconscious trying to tell her something that, deep down, she already knew. When she thought about it like that, she could almost feel justified for the way he consistently intruded into her thoughts.

She figured that it might eventually feel true if she repeated it enough times.

As she finally accelerated past the lorry and pulled back into the second lane, she eased off the accelerator. ‘Are you all right?’ Adam asked.

‘Yeah, you?’

She heard Adam breathe in deeply before he finally spoke. ‘Why did he do it, Jess?’

Jessica could feel the anguish in his voice. ‘I’m not sure you’ll ever get the answer you need if that’s the question you ask.’

It was something she didn’t know the answer to, despite telling Izzy and her other colleagues what her suspicions were. Adam said nothing for a few moments as Jessica indicated and moved to the inside lane, ready to exit at the next junction. ‘What should I ask instead?’

‘You should ask when I want to get married.’

‘Um . . . okay. When do you want to get married?’

Jessica indicated again, this time crossing the dotted line and slowing as she entered the bend of the slip road. ‘What sign did we just pass?’

‘The airport.’

‘Yep. Guess where we’re going.’

Adam made an ‘um’ sound as if ready to play along and then said in a panicked voice: ‘I don’t have my passport.’

‘Don’t worry, I’ve got both of ours. It’s a good job we kept them at the bottom of the wardrobe. Anyway, hurry up and guess.’

‘Er, I dunno. Paris?’

‘Nah, further. The other way.’

‘America?’

‘Well, yeah. But it’s a pretty big place. I don’t think they’re going to drop us out somewhere in the middle and see where we land.’

‘New York?’

‘Further.’

‘Er, Orlando?’

Jessica laughed. ‘Hang on a minute, do you want to go to Disney World?’

Adam snorted. ‘I’ve always wanted to get in a fight with one of those mascots.’

‘You want to get in a fight?’

‘Not really. I just fancy rugby-tackling one of them. You know the guys in the big furry suit things.’

Jessica was trying to focus on the road but, considering she had never known Adam display anything approaching a violent side, she sneaked a sideways look at him. ‘Why?’

‘I dunno. Just one of those things.’

‘Right . . . And you say I’m the weird one. Anyway, we’re not going to Disney World.’

‘Texas?’

‘Too hot.’

‘LA?’

‘Nah, we would both be mega-fat there.’

Adam paused for a moment and as Jessica waited at the traffic lights to turn into the airport car park, she knew he had the answer. ‘Oh,’ he said.

‘So are you going to ask me again when I want to get married?’

She turned to face him as the light hovered on red. ‘When would you like to get married, Jess?’ he asked with a smile.

Jessica turned back to the road but couldn’t stop herself smiling. ‘As soon as we get to Vegas. And you better get ready to carry me over the threshold because my back has been bloody killing me.’

Afterword

I’ll start by saying that if you’ve skipped to the back without reading the story, you should really stop reading now to avoid spoilers.

Honestly, stop reading this sentence and go back to the part you were at before jumping to this bit.

Have you done that?

Really?

Honestly?

You’re going to spoil the story if you don’t stop here . . .

All right, good. There are sections of this book that are far more personal to me than the other stories I have written, largely because I have been in a house fire. It was nowhere near as serious as the one described here but a lot of the after-effects were similar. For instance, I inhaled a large gulp of black smoke and felt that moment of confusion and dizziness where your head just won’t clear. For anyone who has experienced it, you’ll know what I mean. I spent weeks coughing up little bits of black ‘stuff’ and simply became used to that heavy feeling in my chest. That was from one gulp.

At the time, I was living in a large house which had been converted into flats. I lived on the top floor in the attic, while beneath me were three apartments on the ground floor and another three on the first. The fire started in the kitchen shared by everyone on the bottom floor. The electricity in my flat went out and, for some reason I’ll never know, I went to the window to see if there might be an explanation. What I saw was around half-a-dozen people pointing and staring at the house.

Obviously that wasn’t a regular occurrence.

I went down the stairs, where there were small amounts of grey smoke and a young Polish girl screaming and crying. She pointed to the kitchen door and said she had put some chips on to fry and then gone back to her bedroom and fallen asleep.

No, I’m not making that up.

Stupidly, I shunted open the kitchen door, which is when the thick cloud of black smoke poured out into the hallway. It took me a few seconds to clear my head and it’s only since then that I’ve been able to understand why people say it’s the smoke that kills you. You can feel it inside you, like a parasite. Your breathing feels heavy, your voice doesn’t sound right and you simply can’t stop coughing.

Luckily, the door was the type that swings back into place, so it closed itself. I managed to call 999 and told the girl to get out and then left the house myself. With the fire brigade on their way, it only then dawned on me that others might still be inside, so I went back into the building and knocked on every door.

At first I thought it was fine but in the flat directly below where I lived another Polish woman, who was around twenty or so, answered the door. You might think that ‘fire’ is a universal word. Either it isn’t, or she simply didn’t understand my dulcet West Country tones.

Some people have told me that they think Jessica sometimes doesn’t appear to take things too seriously. That maybe a fair criticism – but then I am a person who has stood in a burning building playing what can only be described as a piss-poor game of charades with a half-asleep woman in her pyjamas who didn’t speak English.

Either way, through a combination of me waving my hands around and saying the words ‘fire’, ‘flames’, ‘hot’ and ‘out’, I somehow managed to convince her it was a good time to leave the house.

What has that to do with the story? I’m not sure. Perhaps this is just my public safety message telling you all to check your smoke alarms?

In any case, I hope you enjoyed book five in the Jessica Daniel series.

Kerry Wilkinson

Contents

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

29

30

31

32

33

34

35

Afterword

1

Cameron Sexton’s finger hovered over the standby button on the television remote control. He thought about calling upstairs to see if his wife was almost ready but figured if he kept quiet he might at least be able to watch the kick-off before having to leave the house.

He glanced at the teenager fidgeting nervously in the armchair across the room.

‘Are you all right, Ollie?’ Cameron asked.

The young man looked up from the television, nodding a little too enthusiastically. ‘Yes, Mr Sexton,’ he said. ‘Thanks for calling me.’

‘It’s Cameron and thank you. It’s always nice to have a reliable babysitter. How are your mum and dad doing?’

Oliver nodded, offering a vague ‘all right’, which Cameron thought could mean either ‘they’re absolutely wonderful, never been better’, or ‘they’ve split up and are living at opposite ends of the country’, depending on which way the teenager’s hormones were raging.

The sound of a whistle and an overly excited commentator took Cameron’s eyes back towards the television screen. If he had remembered that the football was on, he would have suggested a different night to go out for a meal with his wife.

Cameron leant back into his seat as the commentator’s voice plus the oohs and aahs of the crowd broke the uneasy silence between him and Oliver. He tried to focus on the screen, resisting the urge to tug his suit trousers into a more comfortable position. They were feeling a little tight around his waist, although he tried to tell himself it was because they must have shrunk slightly at the cleaners, as opposed to his forty-something stomach being less forgiving nowadays.

The match was dull and Cameron felt his mind wandering. It was strange to be leaving your child at home in the hands of someone else, especially a person you didn’t know that well and who wasn’t technically an adult. Using Oliver had been his wife’s idea. Eleanor knew his mother and, because he was about as polite and sensible as a teenager could be, they had asked him to look after Lara for an evening a few months ago while they went to the pub around the corner for a meal.

That had now become a monthly event that was both enjoyable and tentative. If anything, Cameron would have thought his wife would be the one nervous about leaving Lara – but she kept saying they were going to have to get used to it, which was true but also a bit of a shame.

Cameron squinted so he could read the match time in the top left corner of the screen and was surprised to see the game had already been going for five minutes. He stifled a sigh before standing and reaching across to hand the remote to Oliver.

‘Here, you take this. We should be off out any minute. Well, whenever Eleanor is ready. You’ve got all this to come with girls and the like . . .’

Oliver took the control, shuffling in his seat, clearly uncomfortable with the topic. Cameron didn’t know if the teenager had a girlfriend, or possibly even a boyfriend. The young man didn’t seem overly confident but Cameron knew from his own experiences of being that age that very few seventeen-year-old lads had the bravado to talk to girls first. The ones that did were usually the biggest prats going, covered in gel and too much deodorant, not realising they were a couple of years away from ending up in some dead-end job for the rest of their lives.

Wondering when exactly he’d stopped knowing how to talk to the younger generation, Cameron offered a weak-sounding ‘you can watch what you want’, before adding: ‘I’ll go see where she is.’

He headed out of the room, moving quietly up the stairs until he saw his wife standing in the doorway of their daughter’s room, her outline silhouetted by the night light from inside. Cameron stepped towards her, placing his hands on her hips and pulling her tightly as she gave a yelp of surprise.

‘You scared me,’ Eleanor said with a smile, playfully slapping his chest.

Cameron waggled his fingers in her face. ‘Oooh, yes, I’m really scary.’

Eleanor giggled and turned around, pressing her back into him and resting her head on his breastbone. They stood silently in the doorway, watching their daughter’s chest rise and fall, her eyelids twitching. Cameron found himself breathing in time with the young girl before his wife spoke softly.

‘She’s okay, isn’t she?’ Eleanor said.

‘Well, she has got my genes. Let’s just hope she ends up with my looks, intelligence, charm and charisma.’

Eleanor suppressed a laugh, spinning around, snaking an arm around her husband’s waist and butting his shoulder gently with her head. ‘As long as she doesn’t have your head size.’

Cameron hugged his wife with one arm, using the other to pull the bedroom door until it was almost closed. ‘And are you okay?’ he asked.

‘I can’t believe she starts school in September. It only seems like yesterday we were in the hospital. Tomorrow she’ll be dyeing her hair black and refusing to speak to us.’

As he smoothed down his wife’s hair, Cameron tried not to laugh. ‘Is that what you were like as a teenager?’

‘I never dyed my hair but basically, yes.’

‘At least we’ll know where she gets it from then.’ Cameron loosened his grip, kissing his wife on the top of the head. ‘Come on, let’s get going, or we’ll never leave.’

Eleanor peered up at him wearily. She looked as tired as Cameron felt. When they had talked about having a regular ‘date night’, they’d agreed that regardless of his job, or how exhausted either of them felt, they would ensure they had one night a month for each other.

‘Is Ollie all right?’ Eleanor asked.

‘I left him in charge of the TV and he knows where everything is. I made sure the baby monitor was working earlier, so he’s all set. I even put a pizza in the oven for him.’

‘Wow, my hero,’ she mocked with a grin. ‘Let’s hope Lara grows up to have your culinary skills as well as your giant head.’

Cameron glanced at his watch as discreetly as he could, not wanting to let on that he was in any way concerned about the time.

‘How long ago did we order?’ Eleanor asked.

Realising he had been caught, Cameron tried to reply in a way that didn’t betray how annoyed he was. ‘Around forty-five minutes,’ he replied, knowing it was over an hour.

‘I’m tempted just to say “sod it” and get a burger on the way home.’

Cameron failed to suppress a grin. ‘Classy.’

Eleanor was trying to stop herself smiling too. ‘You’re the one checking the time.’

‘I was checking out the back of my hand actually.’

She rolled her eyes. ‘They’re still hairy and clumsy, if that’s what you’re worried about.’

Before Cameron could respond, a waiter appeared over his wife’s shoulder. ‘Risotto?’ he asked, before placing the plate in front of Eleanor and offering the steak to Cameron. ‘Any sauces?’

Cameron couldn’t avoid his wife’s disapproving stare. ‘No, fine, thanks,’ he said, before waiting for the man to walk away. ‘What?’ he added innocently, looking at her, even though he knew exactly what she was thinking.

‘You don’t ask for ketchup in a restaurant,’ Eleanor said.

‘I didn’t.’

‘No but you were thinking about it.’

Cameron shook his head but could not stop himself smiling. ‘What are you, the thought police?’

‘When it comes to you, yes.’

Cameron cut into the meat, feeling his stomach rumble as a small amount of juice oozed onto the plate. Despite the time it had taken, he did have to admit the steak looked perfectly cooked and he had no doubt the thick, chunky, skin-on chips would be excellent too.

‘Is it nice?’ he asked his wife, nodding towards her bowl.

Eleanor chewed with her mouth tightly shut but nodded.

‘Worth the wait?’ Cameron added as he put a forkful of meat into his mouth.

She swallowed, taking a sip from her glass. ‘Maybe.’

‘What is a risotto anyway?’

He looked up to see Eleanor narrowing her eyes in the way that made the top of her nose crinkle. A strand of blonde hair fell across her face. Cameron thought she looked as gorgeous as ever as she moved it away. ‘How old are you?’ she asked.

‘Forty . . . ish. What’s that got to do with anything?’

Eleanor swallowed another mouthful. ‘It’s a rice dish. How can you not know that?’

‘I don’t know, I’ve never had it.’ Cameron picked up a slice of steak with his fork and held it in the air. ‘I eat man food.’

His wife smirked. ‘Is that why your trousers are too tight?’

Cameron pulled a face of mock indignation, trying to think of something funny to respond with.

‘Forty . . . ish,’ Eleanor reminded him.

As they ate and chatted, Cameron risked another glance at his watch. They weren’t running late as such but neither he nor his wife wanted to stay out any longer than they had to. He remembered the first time they had left Lara with Oliver, they had wolfed down a main course and then rushed home barely an hour later to find their daughter sleeping peacefully and the babysitter watching a film.

They had stayed out progressively longer on each subsequent date night. Somewhere at the back of his mind, Cameron expected to arrive home each time with the house a mess and Lara nowhere to be seen. It wasn’t that he distrusted Oliver in any way, just that the irrational voice in his head always seemed to have more prominence than it should. They never went to the cinema because neither of them wanted to have their mobile phones on silent just in case they missed something. Even when they went to have something to eat, Cameron would make sure there was good phone reception and ensure Oliver had the restaurant’s landline number just in case. He knew it was overdoing it but nothing would stop that little niggle that told him he should not leave his daughter.

He drifted back to the present as Eleanor put her fork down, picking up her napkin before starting to dab at her mouth. ‘Are you okay?’ she asked, apparently noticing his distraction.

‘Fine, just thinking about dessert.’

Eleanor clearly wasn’t taken in. ‘She’ll be fine.’

‘I know.’

She tilted her head to one side, smiling widely. It was the exact expression that had made Cameron fall in love with her. She had a way of both grinning and chiding at the same time, one eye twinkling, the other attentive. ‘I’ll go phone the house while you look at the puddings,’ she said, standing up. ‘I’m not letting your trousers out for next time though.’

Cameron watched her walk away, her hips swaying, wondering if she would still be awake by the time he had managed to give Oliver a lift home. With those thoughts in mind, he was considering if dessert was a good idea after all. It wasn’t often he saw his wife dressed up nowadays; the months of maternity wear, sensible shoes and breast pumps had become a necessary – albeit not too appealing – part of their lives.

As he took a cursory glance at the back of the menu, Cameron kept an eye fixed on the direction Eleanor had gone in. He had expected her to be barely a minute or two but began to feel something building in his stomach completely unrelated to what he had just eaten. Putting down the menu, Cameron watched the doorway. After a few minutes more, Eleanor finally emerged but he could see immediately that something was wrong. The smile from a few minutes before had disappeared as she walked quickly, the sway absent from her stride as she stared at her mobile phone. She didn’t sit as she arrived back at the table.

‘What’s wrong?’ Cameron asked, standing himself.

‘No one’s answering.’

‘Did you try the house phone?’

‘Of course.’

‘What about Oliver’s mobile?’

‘That too – no answer.’

Cameron started patting his pockets, wondering which one he had put his car keys in. ‘Shall we call the neighbours?’

Eleanor spoke with a forced calmness. ‘No, let’s just go. I’m sure everything is fine.’

The wait to pay was excruciating and Cameron could barely tolerate the silence during the car journey home. Each red traffic light and delay to give way at a roundabout seemed to occur in slow motion. He cursed any driver in front of him who was not going at least 10 m.p.h. over the speed limit. He could sense Eleanor in the passenger seat holding her breath as she tried to call the house. Each time, he could hear the phone ringing without being answered until his wife would hang up before trying again.

Neither of them spoke.

When they first moved in, Cameron had spent months struggling to reverse his car onto their driveway each time he arrived home. The thick brick pillars on either side seemed to have been placed deliberately to make life difficult and Eleanor would make jokes about his parking ability. Without even thinking, he drove in front first and switched off the engine, opening the door in one fluid movement. Eleanor was out of the car before it had stopped, heels clip-clopping across the tarmac as Cameron watched her climb the steps two at a time to their front door. He reached the bottom as she got to the top, a small cry escaping her lips.

‘What?’ Cameron asked, louder than he intended.

Eleanor was standing still as he joined her on the top step. She didn’t have to say anything because he could see it himself – the front door was unlocked and open. Cameron looked at the fear in his wife’s eyes. He was too scared to speak, in case saying it out loud would make it more real.

Gently, he eased the front door open, not knowing what he would see on the other side. Cameron realised he had been holding his breath and exhaled loudly as he stared into the hallway to see everything exactly as it should be. Eleanor’s bright pink coat, which he so hated, was still hanging from the row of hooks on the right-hand wall. Lara’s wellington boots and trainers were neatly placed on the floor underneath.

Cameron felt Eleanor pushing past him, heading for the stairs. Lara’s bedroom was the natural place to visit first but, for some reason, he felt drawn to the living room. As he heard his wife’s shoes ascending the wooden steps, Cameron slowly opened the front-room door, peering around it.

The room was bathed in a bluish haze with the glow from the television creeping into the darkened corners. Cameron stood for a few moments, staring at the screen, before remembering where he was. He blinked rapidly, glancing around the empty room which was, apart from the absence of Oliver, exactly as he had left it. Cameron noticed the house phone undisturbed on the side table, before he picked up the remote control and switched the set off, allowing darkness to engulf him.