With that, the two women dissolved into giggles. ‘Seriously though, love,’ Elaine said when their laughter had subsided. ‘Don’t let the geezer take you for a ride. You know what men are like. Bone idle, most of them. He should be taking you out a bit, treating you right. And I’m not just talking between the sheets.’

Kelly blushed for a third time. She eyed Elaine over the brow of the cup. Her friend was right. Jamie Spillane had some explaining to do. She wasn’t going to be taken advantage of. Not by him, or by anyone.

She would bring it up with him, Kelly Larkin decided, that very night.

For the first time in weeks, Sam felt clean. The second he’d got back home he had stripped off and walked straight into the shower. The Afghan dust seemed to have soaked into the very pores of his skin and a once-a-day wash with a few baby wipes in the field hadn’t made any difference. There was black shit under his fingernails and his hair was matted in thick clumps, glued together with blood and sweat. Fuck Afghanistan, Sam thought. I won’t be going back there on holiday any time soon. He scrubbed himself vigorously, but no amount of soap would get rid of the dirt of his latest operation. Only when the water started to run cold did he step out. The mirror in his small bathroom was clouded over. He wiped away the condensation, then smeared shaving gel over his dishevelled beard and started to hack away at it. It took a good half-hour for his face to become smooth-skinned again. Looking in the mirror as he shaved he was surprised to see a tightness around his eyes. In his mind, Sam was still the fresh-faced kid who had signed up at seventeen at his brother’s insistence, more to keep him on the straight and narrow than anything else. But that was a long time ago and the mirror didn’t lie: Sam looked a lot older than the mental picture he had of himself.

Looking down at his torso, he saw that it was cut and bruised. Out in the field you never noticed stuff like that. It was only when you got home that the scars of a mission became apparent. He slung the razor into the sink, grabbed a towel and used it to wipe his face, before stepping back into his bedroom and finding a clean shirt and a pair of jeans. Only when he’d put these fresh clothes on did he really feel like he was home.

His car keys were just where he’d left them before he’d gone out to Afghanistan – in a little wooden box in the front room. The room itself was largely bare – a sofa, a TV, a few shelves with nick-nacks on them. It was the space of a person who didn’t spend much time there. A space that lacked the softening touches of a female influence. It wasn’t that Sam’s flat hadn’t played host to plenty of women. It had. They just hadn’t been given the opportunity to stay around long enough to get stuck into the soft furnishings. As Sam took the keys from their box his attention was caught by a photograph. His brother looked young in the picture. To his side was the black Labrador that had been his constant companion whenever he was at home. More than once he’d heard people wonder out loud if Jacob preferred dogs to people. Sam hadn’t seen him for six years and the photo had been taken some time before that. It seemed like a lifetime ago. Sam missed his brother, but he was angry with him too. Not a word for all these years, nowhere to be found – and Sam had certainly tried. For all he knew, Jacob could be dead.

Sam suppressed a shudder at that thought. Clutching the car keys he turned and left.

Sam’s flat might have been small and barely furnished, but he had not applied the same restraint to his choice of car. The black Audi was parked up outside his front door, gleaming and immaculate. He clicked the doors open, climbed inside and drove off without bothering about the seatbelt. Normally he’d drive hard, but today he was in no hurry. Far from it. He had been dreading this little trip ever since they touched down at Brize Norton. Out on ops, he could forget about what he had left back home; back on British soil he knew what his duty was, even though it was a chore to have to fulfil it. It took twenty minutes to reach the institutional building he was headed for – even the slowest old granny in a Robin Reliant could have made it in fifteen.

It didn’t matter what part of the world Sam had been to or for how long; nor did it matter what had happened while he’d been away. This place never changed. The red brick of the building was always immaculate; there was always a fair smattering of cars in the car park that surrounded it; and as he walked into the main reception there was always that faint, hospital-like smell of antiseptic.

This wasn’t a hospital, however. At least not quite. It called itself a residential care home and the brochure made it look like a place of great luxury; the reality, however, was quite different. With places like these, Sam had found out, you get what you pay for. And on a military pension with precious few savings, Sam’s father couldn’t afford much.

The nurse sitting behind the wooden reception desk recognised Sam as he entered. ‘He’ll be looking forward to seeing you,’ she said pointedly. ‘It’s been a while.’

Sam grunted and hurried on, down the institutional corridor and up the stairs which clattered and echoed as he climbed them. He walked past the emergency exit, doing his best to ignore the old lady who tottered along with the aid of a frame. The very fact of her presence there made him scowl. It just brought home to him the reality of the place where his father was forced to live. The reality of his condition.

The door to his father’s room was closed. He knocked, but didn’t wait for a reply before opening it and stepping inside.

Very little had changed since his last visit. His father lay in a hospital bed with high sides staring blankly at the television. His pyjamas hung loosely from his body. Sam remembered, when they were growing up, thinking his dad was the strongest, most muscular man in the world and he probably wasn’t far wrong. Now he looked like a scarecrow that had been dressed up in clothes too big for him. Hanging to the side of a bed was a colostomy bag, half filled with deep brown liquid.

The small room smelled of the uneaten lunch that sat on a tray by his bed: a perfect sphere of mashed potato and a pool of brown stew. It was bland and barely furnished, with just one threadbare armchair for visitors and a small table for the kettle and tea-making facilities that were checked every morning by unenthusiastic care workers. Not that they had to replenish the supplies very often. Dad never had visitors. Just Sam. He’d lost count of the times his doctors had said that visitors would do him good, help keep him alert; but Sam knew his father better than that, and he accepted that the last thing the old man wanted was for anyone to see him like this.

‘Hi, Dad,’ he announced as brightly as his glum mood would allow. ‘It’s me, Sam.’

Ever so slowly, his father turned his head. ‘I might be a fucking cripple,’ he replied, ‘but I’m not blind.’

Nobody who knew Max Redman in the old days would ever have been able to imagine him in this state. A giant of a man with a personality to match, there was a time when he filled the room with his personality and his stories of a life in the Regiment. He had travelled the world and seen things only a soldier could see and his name still came up in conversation among some of the older guys back at base.

‘No, Dad,’ Sam replied, trying to keep his voice level. ‘I know you’re not blind.’

‘Well that’s something, I suppose.’ Max weakly turned his head back to the television.

‘You should eat some lunch.’ Sam dug a teaspoon into the mashed potato on his father’s plate. It had a dry crust around it – Sam started to raise the spoon to Max’s mouth, but his father raised a bony wrist and pushed it away.