‘I’m not a fucking kid, either.’

Sam let the spoon fall back on to the plate.

Father and son sat in awkward silence.

‘Where’ve you been?’ Max asked finally.

‘The Stan,’ Sam replied quickly, grateful that the silence had been punctured. And then, more quietly, ‘You knew that.’

Max remained expressionless.

‘Nasty,’ Sam continued. ‘Taliban crawling all over the place like ants. Nail one of them and another two pop up in his place. We could have used Jacob out there.’

At the mention of his other son’s name, Max’s eyes closed briefly. In his private moments, Sam wondered whether it was Jacob’s disappearance that had sparked all this off. The doctors had said no – it was a purely physical condition, a gradual wastage of the muscles that would eventually leave him too weak to breathe. But Sam had seen it happen. When Jacob had left the country it had hit both their parents hard. Their mother had died two years later; by that time Max was already having difficulty walking. His subsequent decline was sudden and steep.

‘Jacob was a real soldier,’ Max muttered.

Sam didn’t say what came into his head – that if Max had only told Jacob that, just once after he’d been kicked out of the Regiment, his brother might never have done a runner. Instead he took a deep, steady breath. ‘We’re all real soldiers, Dad.’

‘Not like him. None of you.’ Max turned to look at his younger son again. ‘Especially not you, Samuel Redman. If it wasn’t for your brother, God knows where you’d have ended up, so you can stop talking about him like that for a start.’

Like what? Sam wanted to say, but he knew better than to carry on with this childish argument. Jacob had always been Dad’s favourite. Since his disappearance, he’d achieved almost mythical status in the old man’s eyes. ‘Look, Dad. I just wanted to see how you were, but you’d obviously prefer it if I wasn’t here…’

‘Don’t be so fucking touchy, Sam. Pass me a ciggie.’

By Max’s bedside there was an opened packet of cigarettes. His habit of smoking in the room infuriated the nurses, but they had learned not to complain too heavily. Sam placed a cigarette in his father’s mouth and lit it using the orange lighter stashed away in the packet. Max took several deep drags and appeared to relax a little. With difficulty he lifted his arm and waved the burning cigarette in the direction of a photograph in a tarnished silver frame that sat by the TV at the end of the bed.

‘Pass me that,’ he instructed. Ash fell on the sheets.

Sam did as he was told.

Max was in the middle, flanked by his two boys who stood on either side of him. Jacob and Sam looked younger there. Sam’s unruly blond hair was a little longer than it was now – this was taken before his Regiment days – and there was a heaviness around his face. Puppy fat, some people might call it. His eyes twinkled and he looked like he was not taking the whole thing entirely seriously.

Jacob was a different matter. His features were quite different to Sam’s, even though anyone would be able to tell that they were brothers. Jacob’s hair was jet black, his eyes gun-metal grey. His eyebrows were dark and heavy and he had a dimple in his chin that made him look not cheeky but intense.

‘Remember when this was taken?’ Max asked.

‘Of course,’ Sam replied. It was the day he’d passed selection for the Paras. It had been Jacob’s suggestion. ‘You’ll like them,’ he’d said archly. ‘Bunch of fucking lunatics, like you.’

‘He always looked out for you, Sam.’ For once, Max’s voice did not sound accusatory.

‘You talk about him like he’s dead.’

Max turned to look at his son. His tired eyes narrowed and they were suddenly piercing. ‘He probably is dead.’

‘Why?’

Max’s cigarette had burned to a stub. He awkwardly waved it in the air, not knowing where to extinguish it. Sam took it from his father’s shaking hands, stubbed it on the bottom of his shoe and threw it into the waste paper bin. ‘Why do you think Jacob’s dead, Dad?’

Max’s thin face hardened. ‘You know what those bastards are like,’ he replied cryptically. ‘Jacob was an embarrassment to them. We both know how easy it is to get rid of people who are an embarrassment.’

Sam closed his eyes. ‘Come on, Dad,’ he said softly. ‘Why would they bother? Jacob took the rap. He wasn’t going to blurt anything to anyone. None of us were.’ He paused. ‘You hurt him, Dad. You and mum. More than you think. When they kicked him out of the Regiment you refused to even see him.’

‘Shut up, Sam. You don’t know what you’re talking about. So we argued. Happens all the time. We’re arguing now – doesn’t mean you’ll never come and see me again.’ His breathing was weak and shaky. ‘If your brother was still alive, what’s the one thing he’d do if he knew I was cooped up in this shit hole, pissing into a pipe and wasting away to a fucking skeleton? What’s the one thing he’d do?’

Sam looked at the floor. He knew the answer, of course – argument or no argument, Jacob would come to his father’s bedside. Nothing would stop him. But he couldn’t quite bring himself to say it, because then he’d have to come to the same conclusion Max had arrived at. The conclusion which, in his darkest hours, had always nagged at the edge of his mind. Jacob dead? That didn’t bear thinking about. It would leave a hole in their life too big to be endured.

The silence was strained and uncomfortable. Max stared at the photograph in his hands and for a moment Sam felt as though his father had forgotten he was there.

‘I’d better be going, Dad,’ he muttered quietly. ‘I’m back for a bit. I’ll come again soon.’

Max didn’t answer. He was still looking at the photograph as Sam left the room and closed the door quietly behind him.

‘You never talk about your family.’

Kelly was fired up, ready for an argument. She’d been acting it out in her head all the way home on the Tube and before that – ever since lunch with Elaine. Ask him all the questions she wanted answers to and if he got shirty, confront him about the missing money from her purse.

‘Nothing to say.’

Jamie was sitting in his preferred position, lounging on the sofa with his feet up on the coffee table. The TV was on with the sound down and he was fiddling with his iPod.

‘For God’s sake, Jamie, there must be something to say.’ Kelly stood in the kitchenette area of the room throwing together some supper. She wasn’t a very good cook, but Jamie didn’t appear to mind. He ate anything. ‘What about your mum and dad? Am I ever going to meet them?’

‘Might be a bit difficult, that.’ Jamie avoided her gaze. She noticed, though, that his eyes twitched slightly.

‘Why?’

‘They’re dead.’

He said it quietly, his attention firmly on the screen of his iPod. To Kelly, he looked like someone who was doing his best not to let his emotions show. She let the salad servers fall to the side and hurried over to the sofa where she sat down next to him and put a hand on his shoulder. This wasn’t what she had expected – all of a sudden the road plan of her argument had taken a turn for the worse. ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered.

Jamie shrugged.

‘Do you want to talk about it?’

‘Told you. Nothing to say.’

They sat there in silence for a moment. Kelly felt a creeping sense of guilt about the light-hearted conversation she’d had that lunchtime. She had the urge to be more sensitive now. ‘What did they die of?’ she asked quietly.

‘Mum, cancer.’

‘What sort?’

Still Jamie wouldn’t look her in the eye. But she saw his face twitch as he spoke. Heard the catch in his voice. ‘At the end,’ he said, ‘everywhere. Started in the lungs. Spread to the… Oh, I don’t know. Ask a fucking doctor.’

Kelly’s wide eyes blinked; she felt herself holding back tears. She squeezed his shoulders gently, not knowing quite what to say. Only then did Jamie look at her. Kelly could see the hurt in his eyes.