Then he told her that he loved her. That everything was going to be okay.

He meant the first part. Robert Hills had never loved another person the way he loved his wife. But as for the second... he knew that this couldn't have a happy ending, that things would be far from okay from this moment on.

~

He watched them from the shadows on the stairway.

A frozen image for so long, neither of them speaking, neither of them talking. He knew he must have caused it, however indirectly. Beth's words haunted him, just as surely as he was haunting this family: "You come back here and you expect people to just take it in their stride----your mother, your son, your widow----to deal with it like it's something that happens every day of the week. I hate to break it to you, but that's not normal. None of this is normal."

Then Caroline, hisCaroline----but at the same time not----begged the man to say something, to tell her he loved her. And when she began crying all he wanted to do was burst in and take her in his arms, tell her what she needed to hear, that hestill loved her----had never stopped loving her in all the time he'd been... away. He even rose slightly. But then the man----Rob, her new husband----had got up and he'd gone to her, taking her in his arms and holding her so close.

That was when the realization finally hit him: although time had barely moved on for him, it had been seven long years for her. She'd had to struggle on without him, had to bring up their child alone. And she'd finally met someone else that she could love. Not the same, never the same, but it was blatantly obvious that she did. He could never turn back the clock and have what he had then.

So he cried too. Cried because this never should have happened, cried because all this had been taken away from him. Cried because none of this had been his fault.

It had been someone else's. Someone who he now felt compelled to visit.

But first, he had something to do.

~

The TV was still blaring away from its position on the side unit, even though the light was off and Jason was fast asleep on the bed, covers half over him, half kicked off.

The black and white images on the screen projected themselves into the room----a man and a woman in a graveyard----and he heard tinny voices coming from the speakers. "They're coming to get you Barbara. They're coming..."

He flicked off the set and walked across to the sleeping boy. For precious moments he looked down on the lad, taking in the features. He had his mother's eyes but definitely his father's nose. He bent down to kiss him on the forehead. "Sleep well, son," he said.

Then as he rose he saw the toy car on the bedside table. He stood stock still, staring at it.

Jason rolled over in the bed, and said something, his dream broken. The man withdrew from beside him, just as the boy opened one eye a crack.

Jason thought he saw movement in the corner of the room, thought he'd heard someone talking to him. Not his mum or his 'dad' (his other dad, not his real one). But must have been mistaken; there was nobody here now. Except... except hadn't the TV been on when he'd dropped to sleep?

With tired eyes, he rolled over to the bedside table and reached out for the car that had been given him that afternoon. It was gone. His hand searched the table, fingers like spider's legs on the surface. Jason turned on the bedside light, squinting at its brightness.

His room was empty. Nobody in sight.

With a puzzled frown he sat back against his pillow. And although he wondered where his new toy had gone, it wasn't too long before his eyelids felt heavy again.

Then he settled back down in the bed where he fell back into a long, deep sleep.

Chapter Thirteen

Douglas Knowles was nowhere near drunk enough yet.

But he'd run out of money some time ago, nursing his last short for at least twenty minutes. And the more kindly patrons of The Bull's Headwould only stand you so many rounds without seeing any bought back in return. Sometimes Phyllis the barmaid would let him finish off the last dregs of drinks that had been left by punters, but not tonight. Tonight she was being watched very closely by the landlord after he'd found a fiver missing out of the till.

(It had actually dropped down the side when she'd been putting it in the register, but neither of them would find it until the following morning when the cleaner came in. That didn't help Phyllis right now. And it didn't help Douglas either.)

So he had no choice but to return home, or the dingy little one bedroom flat he called home. He kidded himself that maybe he'd find a bottle or two of unopened spirits in there somewhere, but he knew he'd finished off whatever he'd had in the flat when his benefits had first gone in.

He hadn't resorted to drinking that bottle of meths yet. The one he'd bought originally to clean his brushes when he'd thought about redecorating. That had been after the last time he'd gone to AA, turned over a new leaf----yet again----in an effort to encourage Jane to let him see his two daughters. It hadn't worked, neither coming off the booze, nor convincing his estranged spouse. Tonight might just be the night he tried that meths. It depended on how desperate he was when he got back in. He looked at his watch, a cheap digital one with fading numbers.

Christ, it was only just turned ten. He'd be home by ten thirty, and then what? A night of not being able to sleep ahead of him, a night of remembrance when all he wanted to do was get completely smashed and forget everything. Not have to deal with reality.

It hadn't always been like this. He could remember the better days, the great days----when he had a good job working for an insurance firm, when Jane had looked up to him and the kids weren't ashamed to be seen with Daddy. He'd had a career with flexible hours, a nice car----

But then the problem had slowly crept up on him. At first it was only social drinking when he met up with clients. It was okay, he told himself, he'd gone out and got hammered most nights when he was younger, before Jane had come along, so he could handle a few every so often now. The only thing was that 'every so often' became more and more frequent. Slowly but surely the drinking started to take over his life. He began to crave that fix, the warm tingling you got whenever you were getting nicely merry. Some of his friends in the trade even slipped him soft drugs now and again; nothing hard, he insisted on that, just some coke or cannabis. What could it hurt? What harm could it do?

Plenty.

Especially that one night, the night he'd been at a late dinner with a couple of colleagues. Jane was at her folks with the kids that week for the holidays so he was in no rush to get back, not that it would have bothered him anyway. So it ended up being gone twelve when he'd climbed into the car, more than a little the worse for wear after two bottles of wine between them, some cocktails, and a few trips to the bathroom. One of the men had suggested taxis, but the other insisted that taxis were for suckers and why should he pay twenty quid to get back home when he had a perfectly good Audi sitting in the all night multi-storey across the road.

Sadly, Douglas had sided with him.

They'd said goodnight and gone their separate ways, Douglas climbing into the front seat of his souped-up maroon Sierra. Once out of the city, he'd taken the dark and lonely back roads to avoid any police traps that might be waiting for him----he wasn't that stupid! He'd enjoyed the drive, slipping in one of his favorite CDs and just cruising along the country roads that would skirt the town where he lived and take him into the suburbs. Take him home. He'd opened her up a little then, singing along to the rock tracks and pretending he was in one of those adverts where he had the whole road to himself.