Her skin felt good against mine as we lay together in the sunlight, the warm afterglow of the sex we had been having wrapping us both up in a bubble of happiness.

“Did I already wish you a happy birthday, Baby?”

Her cheeky smile made me feel incredibly happy. I pushed her hair out of her eyes, cupped the side of her face and kissed her softly, eyes open looking right at her, and then;

“You did, Sara, and you are the reason that it is so happy, so soon in the day.”

She laughed, her eyes shining in the morning light;

“So that’s all I have to do to make you this happy?”

She was joking and so I went with it;

“Well, yeah, but the truth is that the more you do it the happier I will become.”

She laughed again, and then became a little more serious for a moment, squeezing me just a little, just to tell me that I should answer truthfully.

“It is more than that, isn’t it? I mean we have that, and it’s great, but that’s not all you want from me is it?”

I squeezed her back, fixed her gaze and replied;

“I love you Sara, all of you.”

“This space is amazing. I just know that Andrea is going to love it. Can you show me around the backstage area as well please, Tony?”

Tony smiled to himself, inordinately happy that he had sold the place well enough that Andrea’s assistant was asking to see the facilities; the front of house had made the right impression.

Ever since he had taken the job, Tony had been looking for a big name performer or act to come to the chapel to ‘put it on the map’ as they say. Andrea was more than big enough as a star and a singer to really draw the crowds in over the Autumn run; “if Andrea McCormack played there it must be a serious venue” and that sort of thing. Now here he was a few moments away from signing the deal that was likely to save the Chapel from its owners worst impulses.

The tour around the backstage area went off without a hitch, and twenty minutes later Tony was waving goodbye to a taxi containing a very contented tour manager, and trying to contain his glee at having saved the Chapel as a live music venue.

There is no end to any of it, there are only new beginnings. That is the koan which my master left me with on his deathbed, and even now, three years later, I find no peace in it. Nonetheless as I stand over the grave of perhaps my closest friend this so-called wisdom offers me no comfort. No, instead it sticks in my mind like a cruel taunt; what ‘new beginning’ could possibly be here for Tessa or for me?

Her grave looks like a wound in the Earth. There is nothing even remotely natural about burial, about placing the dead in the ground. People say that we become one with the ground, food for worms and beetles, but embalming and coffins lead to that future being unlikely. Tessa did end; there is no new beginning for her, not even organic recycling.

Some might say that her new beginning is the afterlife, others might say it is re-birth or reincarnation, but standing over the dark trench of her final resting place, looking down at her coffin I am so completely certain that she is gone; there is no comfort here.

“There are too many names there, don’t you think?”

Leonard looked across the cloister, curious to see who was speaking. He did not expect it to be an old friend. Greg had been one of a small handful of people that Leonard had counted as friends in his seven years at the school; they had neither of them been mainstream people back then, and looking at him Greg had not joined the mainstream quite yet, but then neither had Leonard.

“You know that is just what I was thinking, uncanny that! How are you old friend?”

They crossed the intervening space and embraced in a way that they never could have done whilst pupils. Leonard could not contain his curiosity any further, and so he asked;

“What on Earth are you doing here, Greg? I mean I surprise myself by being here, but you?”

Greg smiled;

“I’m speaking at the same event as you. I imagine someone more conventional dropped out at the last minute and I was the only remaining alumnus with any kind of success in their life, albeit not strictly within the bounds, so to speak.”

“Just relax Sally, you’re going to do fine, I promise.”

She fixed him with a look that was somewhere between resolve and fear and nodded that he should begin.

“So, to begin with, can you describe the first memory that you are aware of when you first discovered that you could give yourself pleasure by touching your own body?”

“You are sure that this will remain anonymous?”

He nodded and smiled reassuringly;

“Yes Sally, I am sure. This session is not being recorded in any way, and as your interviewer I do not know your surname, and I am not resident in the same state as you. Every precaution has been taken to make it entirely safe for you to be completely honest with me, thus assisting the research team as a whole to gather the most accurate detail.”

She gathered herself, and nodded once again, then took a deep breath before she began;

“Well it was not until I had been married for four long years that I first learned about my own pleasure, and it was actually through an indiscretion that I uncovered this private joy.”

“Would you like another drink?”

Her smile confirmed Patrick’s assumption that she was in no rush to leave, even though George was waiting for her at home. He moved slowly, enjoying the ritual of putting ice into their glasses, of gently pouring the precious amber liquid over the ice and hearing it float and strike the sides of the glasses.

“Here you are; you should enjoy this, it’s a special edition from the Islay Distillery, I was lucky to find it.”

They sat there, gently sipping their drinks, the silence hanging between them was not quite uncomfortable, but it was not a familiar or welcome one either.

“Patrick, why did you ask me to come here this evening?”

He took another sip of his drink and then placed it on the desk, before rising out of his chair and walking over to Serena’s chair. She looked up at him as he took her glass from her hands and put it aside as well.

“Patrick?”

He placed his hand on her cheek and moved closer, intending to kiss her. She thought about it for a moment, and then she let it happen.

The campfire was crackling away, flames rising a couple of feet off the floor and everyone was crowded around enjoying the heat and the spectacle, as they often did on nights like these on patrol. There was no reason to hide from the enemy tonight, as none of the twilight scouts had reported any movement in the surrounding hills for twenty miles in any direction. For now at least they could relax, albeit with the usual watches posted, and enter into the “campfire way” as they all referred to it. There would be storytelling, perhaps a joke or two and then when the mood naturally took them that way, there would be at least one song before the first to sleep would say their good-nights and head for their tents.

As was often the way, the young men encouraged Inigo, the old armourer who tended the men’s weapons and chain, to go first. He stepped into the firelight, put one foot up upon the hearth and began to weave a tale as old as the hills, that they all knew only too well. Of course the joy was in his telling.

The beach was teeming with people and activity when Greg finally made it down there. Not only was there a Capoeira group having a exhibition style match come demonstration just a few yards to his left, but there were any number of what he liked to call ‘activity people’ getting ready to go.

Canoeists with their surf kayaks, dingy sailors rigging Mirrors. Lasers and the odd one or two more uncommon types, and power kiters getting ready to fly, up and down the beach. One or two hang gliders were being packed away, and looking away towards the far headland Greg could see several more still riding the updraught from the on-shore breeze.

It was basically as he had remembered it from the times a few years before when he and Dana had spent their weekends out there, looking for some peace and beauty away from the hustle and bustle of London. When they had drifted apart he had known it, in part, because she stopped asking him to go down there with her on the weekends. Now he was, oddly, happy to be back without her.

As Lucas bent down to enter the low door of the teepee he caught a waft of incense and felt the warmth coming from the brazier in the middle of the floor and he was immediately taken back to his days of LARPing, and the Burgundian that Hector had offered up whenever the nights got too cold.

A chorus of ‘come in’ shook off his memories of times past and he clambered in through the door hole, covered the opening with the weighted canvas door, and he settled himself down on a pile of cushions.

They were all strangers, of course. The reason for doing this retreat had been to meet new people. Instead of organising it as a group outing for his friends, he had booked a singles trip to the lake.

There was a joint going around that he refused and a bottle of something going in the opposite direction, which he discovered was toffee vodka. As he looked around at all the other happy faces, and the candles and pillows and rugs he decided to relax and enjoy himself; Danica would have been so happy to see him that evening.

“Thanks for meeting me. I know it wasn’t what you wanted to do, I mean I know it’s hard for you to see me, and well, thanks.”

Karl looked up from the menu and nodded, fixed Susan with an assertive gaze;

“Well clearly you have something to say to me and I think the three years we were together have bought you this much indulgence from me, but I will be honest and tell you that I’m not feeling patient. I mean it’s bad enough that you cheated on me six weeks before the wedding, but to do what you did… No groom to be should walk into a room to see his best friend’s wife eating out his fiancée who is screaming her pleasure without even thinking about how much more likely it must have made the possibility of detection.”

Susan’s shoulders slumped a little and she quickly shot glances left and right to see if they were overheard by the other diners and then turned back to her former partner;

“I’m so sorry, Karl. Still I know that you don’t want another apology so i’ll get to it. You see, the thing is I am pregnant, Dear.

Of course the doorbell went just as I was getting into the shower, I mean when else does anyone come to your door? So there I am, wrapped in a couple of towels trying to sign for some package that I don’t even remember ordering without showing the delivery guy everything I got, and the water’s getting in my eyes from my hair and well, by the time I got the damn thing inside and the door shut I was in a foul mood.

So I’m stood in the hallway, dripping onto the rug and staring at this package that’s about the size of a small dog andwondering what Earth it can be. Is it those speakers I am waiting for? No they were not due for another week. What about a gift from someone, out of the blue? Unlikely, my birthday was still three months awat, and besides I wasno longer at an age for pyhsically large gift giving.

I decided to put off the grand unveiling and get back in the shower, but as I turned to walk away there was a tearing sound and what felt like a feather duster being run over my legs, as a cat shot past me.

The wind fel good in Faran’s hair and face. Climbing to the top of the East Tower had left him tired and flushed, but the cooling wind was, along with the spectacular view of the bay, the perfect tonic.

It had been ten years of war that had laid the foundation for the tower he was now stood atop. Once the Garlanians had been beaten back into the sea it was Faran’s grandfather Retief the Bloody that had commanded his people to raise up a tower overlooking the three bays, from which the guard could keep a weather eye for sails on the horizon.

Of course the Garlanians had since become allies and partners in trade, and the war was far back in history, but the East Tower still had its uses. On hearing her footsteps behind him he wheeled round and grabbed her waist; Hiera had been trying to sneak up on him, even though he was there at her request and he had known she would be there somewhere. She squealed with delight, then rained kisses down on his face as she wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him closer.

Winding the tapes between his fingers was the ritual that took him out of the world and placed him mind and body into the bubble of the bout. From this point onwards nothing else would matter until his opponent was out, or he was.

On the edge of his awareness he could hear Frank checking his bag; best cut man in the business, and the oldest, but he still checked the bag three times before any match. The noise finished and he felt Frank’s hand on his shoulder; a silent encouragement, a notice that Frank would be by his side.

The tapes were wound, and without fanfare Jerry was holding out the first glove, always the left first.

Gloves on, quick warm-up, hood up and start for the ring.

He stepped out into the gaze of the arena and the crowd went wild. His heart skipped a beat, just as it always did, and then he raised his right hand and started to jog down to the ring, hood falling back just as planned.

Into the ring, gently hopping from foot to foot, adrenaline now at full effect.

In the other corner; smiling.

Shit.

The sounds of the carnival were ringing still in her ears when she awoke in the morning. Starting from her sleep and flailing around madly at the canvas that seemed to be all around her she realised that she was not trapped, but was merely between two tents that were standing very close to one another.

As she sat up she could feel that the wet ground had soaked her blouse and skirt right through; her clothes were so wet that they felt like wet tissue paper against her skin. It was at about that point that Lena started to wonder why she could not remember why she was there, on the ground. Why was she not at home in her bed, with her lover. Where was Helena?

And so it was at that moment that she became scared. She felt her breath start to quicken, the beat of her heart coming more quickly and then she was on her feet and running, hopping over tent pegs as she went. She burst out from between the two large marquees to find such a scene of devastation…

All those bodies and all that blood, and so she began to scream.

The truth is that the very last thing I had expected was to become a father. The recent past, well the last ten years at any rate, have not brought much actual love into my life. Of course there have been lovers, but no one who stayed very long or really got inside my armour.

No one could get close to me after what had happened, and so when Serena came along I was not expecting to find myself in love. In fact it was such a surprise that the last four months have passed almost without my noticing.

Without my realising I have a beautiful, intelligent woman living in my home, sleeping in my bed and sharing my life, and now she’s pregnant. There is a part of me that wants to slow it all down, that is terrified that nothing that can last can happen this fast. That thinks men who have children with women fifteen years their junior are often chosen for their money, not their inner being. When she tells me that she loves me, that little voice becomes very, very quiet indeed, and all I see is the mother of my child.

“There’s a story here, I can feel it!”

Damian was already getting excited, gesturing wildly and flitting around the table, picking up memos and invoices from the pile of documents that his contact had posted through his door early that morning.

“Come on! There are hundreds upon hundreds of transactions here that are nowhere to be found within the annual accounts of Foliginan, the parent company.”

I watched him, enjoying his infectious enthusiasm, wondering where he was going to take me, as I had not yet looked through the documents and he had spent all day with them. I decided to spur him on;

“So what you are saying is that this anonymous informant is telling you to follow the money, that the answers to our more interesting questions about the shooting at the retreat are actually answered by a money trail?”

His eyes lit up and widened with the rush of joy that I fed to him by following his line of thinking.

“Yes! Yes, absolutely. I am starting to think the Police assumptions about an angry employee are way off.”

“Load!”

“Loading!”

“Fire in the Hole!”

“Firing!”

BOOM

Everyone on the gun team stopped for a moment and enjoyed the fruit of the last forty seconds’ labour and then they began to move like a well-oiled machine to cycle the gun’s breech, bring up another shell, load and fire; all in the same forty seconds.

Lieutenant Peabody was calculating the impact of keeping her most senior pilot on the rotation as well as the entire gun crew, as she worked the team through the orders and watched for opportunities to improve their performance. She wondered if warfare had always been about ‘cost-per-round’ and activity targets, budgets and spreadsheets, but only as much as keeping her mind on the battery protocol and her real-time budget would allow.

Off to one side, O’Hare, the pilot that was costing her forty units more than anyone else, was completely in the zone, guiding shell after shell into the target margin as if he was born to be a shell-jock.

Only time would tell about the budget, but the old man would like the hit profile.

The late evening train was not as busy as Felipé had expected, as he climbed aboard the westbound train after an extended day in London. Few people expected to meet a Columbian who lived in Swansea, but he was intensely proud of his adopted country. Most of the time he was happy in partial obscurity there at the University; still the occasional trips up to Town were just enough of a tonic for the urbanite in him.

Renata had brought him to Wales. She had captivated him, and when after three magical years together in Buenos Aries she had come to him and said that she wanted to go in search of her Welsh ancestors he had been more than willing to follow her across the globe to a place famous for rain, choral singing and being subjugated by the English.

It had seemed a natural move for both of them to apply to the University in Swansea, and for the next ten years they had been happy there. Now he could not bring himself to leave. It had been four years since she had left him, and still he was unable to break away.

“Mr. Todd is not going to make it through the night, I’m afraid Gina.”

Gina looked up as Freddie wandered into the nurses station and delivered this inevitable yet depressing news as he picked up a drywipe pen to update a different patient’s status on the whiteboard. She was a seasoned Ward Sister, she lost patients every week, people too broken to live, but they had all found a friend in Mr. Todd . Every now and again a patient came along who was just playful enough, just enough fun to really grow attached to without their becoming a nuisance, and he had been the latest in a short list over the last couple of years.

“What makes you say that, Fred?”

Gina asked with a noticeable note of concern and worry in her voice.

Freddie shook his head, clearly he did not want to give voice to reason; and yet he steeled himself and answered her;

“He’s been anuric for fourteen hours now and his oxygen sats are dropping as well, we keep having to up his mix. It’s just the end, the end we’ve all seen before. I’m sorry, Gina, I didn’t mean to sound flip about it.”

She nodded and smiled; she understood the need to be “all business” about the ones that they all became attached to.

The only thing that I can see is the single red light on my monitor. I can’t even see the microphone; it’s so dark in here. I tap the button on the desk beside me, I know where it is by touch now, and the instrumental track comes up in my cans.

My foot starts to tap silently on the thick carpet as I start to slip into the music, counting with my body not my mind, and then I begin.

The song slides out of me like smoke at first, trickling softly, quietly towards the microphone, skating across the melody like a bug on the surface of a pond. The verse builds and my voice picks up weight and power; now the vocal is starting to grab hold of the lead part, pulling its way towards the crescendo of the chorus, exploding into the refrain and then I am silent once again.

I take a deep drag on my cigarette as the music winds its way from the bottom of the chorus to the start of the next verse and so I am stepping back into the stream.

I lose all sense of time; letting the song scratch and claw its way out. Done. It’s over.

Hitchiking was always discussed as “the one thing you don’t ever do” when Hugh was growing up, and yet here he was in the passenger seat of a sweet Mercedes convertible, having scored a lift all the way back to London. The guy who had picked him up was apparently called Roger, an older guy but a good looking one, and thankfully he didn’t seem to be cruising. Of course his apparent disinterest made him seem all the more attractive, but Hugh had already decided to leave that well alone. Coming on to this guy was only a potential risk vis à vis the lift, and he needed to get back to Shepherds Bush even more than he needed a blowjob, even if it was a close call.

He fumbled around in his pockets for cigarettes, eventually finding them in the very last one that he checked, naturally. He looked over at Roger, trying to catch his eye, and then motioned with the pack;

“You mind if I smoke, man?”

Roger laughed;

“Sure, go right ahead. In fact, can I get one of those?”

Hugh lit two smokes and passed one across to his driver.

The cold water from the walls was seeping through Geris’s cloak, his torch was sputtering in the draft. When Derral had suggested that they go adventuring, Geris had not really expected cold, wet, dark passageways; never being dry. No that had not been his expectation at all. He had been looking forward to ancient temples, treasure beyond imagining, heroic deeds and perhaps the odd hapless maiden, but nothing had prepared him for reality. He shifted his weight, trying to rest his aching legs; not that it really helped. There was no part of his body that was not soaked and he was fairly sure that he would have given anything to be in a hot bath instead.

The sound of footsteps approaching up the tunnel snapped Geris out of his damp-based melancholia. He closed his hand around the hilt of his sword and raised his shield, waiting, ready for whoever was approaching.

As the approaching torchlight started to get closer, Geris tensed up, trying to steel his nerve. He had been in fights before, but that was no comfort.

Her lips did not really taste of anything, but kissing them made him feel so transported, so excited that it really didn’t matter one way or the other. She let out a soft moan as she opened her mouth and started to tentatively offer him her tongue, her fingers snaking through his hair. He reciprocated and as their tongues danced across each other and darted urgently into each other’s mouths he let himself slide away.

It could only really have been moments, but they kissed for what seemed like an age, hands traveling everywhere that did not have an overt next-level about it, their shared passion rising as if from nowhere to fill the whole room. Then, on instinct, he let his hand gently cup her breast, his thumb seeking out her nipple through the thin layer of fabric, and she let her head fall back as she pressed her hips against him, pulling his mouth onto her neck.

As he rained kisses down on her neck and the top of her chest he felt a hand slipping over his waistband and then her hand closing around his cock.

The lights came up and he felt the familiar heat bathing his face, and let the applause wash over him. He let the audience bathe him in their welcome, using the time to remember his opening, and then once he was ready he took a big breath and made an overblown ‘cut’ motion.

“So… Thanks for coming down here tonight. Yeah, thanks so much. I can’t tell you how many people you are proving wrong just by being here. Anyway, it’s good to be back in London…”

As he paused for the cheers that would always predictably come from the name-drop on the town he caught a glimpse of movement in the wings, stage right. There should not have been anyone over there and knowing that there was somone darting about on the edge of the stage really threw his rhythm. He nearly didn’t pick up the line after the cheers petered out, but just caught it;

“So a local crowd, then? Excellent!”

He paused for a moment and then unleashed it;

“So who here saw Watchmen? Yeah? A few of you, good. Let me ask you, did the blue cock bother any of you too?”

“Wipe those fuckin’ tears away yer shallow bastard! You didn’t give a fuck about her, so what are you cryin’ for, eh?”

David was wide eyed and terrifying as he screamed at Tony. The whole room fell silent and turned to watch the confrontation. David sensed he had an audience and addressed the room;

“Yeah, yer may all look, you bunch o’simperin’ arseholes! Not man one o’yer gave a shit about her and yet here you all are, sipping tea and sayin’ how she’ll be missed. Fuckin’ tea! For the love o’ all that’s Holy, where’s the damn whisky? I mean is this a wake or what?”

People shuffled their feet, nervously looking about whilst trying as hard as they might to not make any eye contact with anyone. The room was silent in response; no one dared to disagree with David, in fact they did not so it was easier to stay silent.

David relaxed a little, took a deep breath and then in a more calm and measured voice;

“G’wan, leave. Go. Yer none of you helpin’ an’ frankly yer make me sick.”

Five minutes later he and Tony were alone.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, nothing at all. Really.”

She cocked her head on one side, frowned and then;

“That’s bullshit, and I don’t deserve that. Now come on, what’s wrong?”

Daniel sighed. He had really hoped that he had covered effectively enough, that she would not see through him and see the conflict between his happiness and his disappointment.

“You enjoyed the concert, yeah?”

She nodded, her frown turning into mild concern; suddenly she had no idea where this was going.

“Well I did too, so much in fact, but now we have to go back to reality.”

Still confused she motioned for him to continue.

“Here we are, together, seeing a band that means so much to both of us, at a time in that band’s story that is going to be very important, and I am so happy about that. I’m happy about getting to share this with you, and now it’s over and in another hour we’ll be getting off the train and heading back to our respective homes and neither of us will be able to explain to the people waiting for us why this night was so special.”

“Is it always like this?”

I look around to find a young fellow who looks a little familiar standing next to me on the crowded platform. I am still trying to place him when he intervenes;

“You don’t quite remember me, do you? I’m the fencing club’s, vice-president’s boyfriend. We met at a party at the weekend.”

It all comes rushing back, and I am slightly embarassed by the fact that I probably did not quite remember him because I was off my face; as usual. It’s no secret that I don’t fence, or that I only really hang around with the University fencing club because of a social coincidence years before, but I imagined that this guy was wondering what on Earth I had been doing at that party.

Again he intruded on my inner monologue;

“You remember? I’m Ted?”

I decide to go with it;

“Yeah, Ted. Sorry about that. Monday morning you know? Yeah, Gina’s chap, I do remember. Just about anyway. Was I very drunk?”

He nodded and chuckled; I kept my face together, but inside my heart was sinking.

“So, anyway, is it always like this?”

What I have always hidden from my children troubles me in these, my last hours. I have long since been certain that what I have told them about their mother and the way in which she left our lives is the only truth that they perceive, and that they have no reason to doubt me. Even so, I am suddenly moved to question my decision.

It was the long hot summer of 1976 when I lost her, when our Lottie was three and her brother Peter was only eighteen months old. Her work often kept her on campus long after I had left. The real beauty of my life as a mathematics fellow is that I have always been able to work anywhere, and so I could easily be present in our children’s lives where her requirement for laboratories made a very different impact on her time at home. I still remember the first night that she returned home, somewhat in a daze, her sentences filled with mentions of someone called Alec.

It took two gin and tonics and the dinner I had kept warm for her before I was able to decode that Alec was a new colleague.

As Horace moved the blade back and forth in a gentle circular motion over the oiled stone he allowed his thoughts to drift to happier places and kinder times, trying to push from his mind that the morning would bring naught but blood and death.

Unlike many of the men under his command he was no longer enamoured of war. A lifetime of killing the enemies of Rome had left him more than jaded, it had genuinely damaged him. He had not seen his wife and sons for nearly two years, and the last time he had been free to spend time with them he had felt no peace whatsoever, constantly haunted by the faces of men with whom he had held no real quarrel and yet he had put them to the sword without a second thought.

It was of no comfort, even, that they would have just as soon run him through if he had not fought with all the fury and cruelty that he could muster. In the heat of war it was not hard to simply survive, but the ghosts that followed him around in the quiet between battles were starting to weigh heavily upon him.

The house band was playing a rather dirgey tango as Tito walked into the hotel bar. A handful of couples were dancing, most of them American tourists gamefully attempting to tango rather than pulling it off, while most of the tables were occupied by local business men and their Friday night girls.

He made for the bar, cutting a swathe through the lazy clouds of cigarette smoke, feeling his heart quicken to the beat of the music, memories of dancing with Connie swirling around his mind, distracting him from his purpose.

He took a seat at the bar and nodded at the barman, who recognised him and moments later placed a mojito in front of him before gliding away to serve drinks for an impatient looking waitress. He stirred the drink lazily and waited; Sanderson was late, as ever.

He turned on the stool and placed his back against the bar, scanning the room for DIPA, sadly they were easy to spot. Satisfied that there were no faces he recognised, and no suspect new ones, he turned his attention back to his cocktail.

It felt odd to be there, even though he had often frequented churches in his childhood. Paul was sitting near to the back of the nave, trying to keep a low profile without seeming reticent. This was his first attempt at passing in the Cathedral, and he was conscious of the intelligence that he had received concerning one of the Canons and his ability to spot Keystone members.

Suddenly cued by an unseen nod or gesture the organist tailed off the soft incidental theme he had been playing as the congregation filed into the pews and then struck up a vibrant and powerful piece that Paul did not recognise as the choir entered the church.

The pomp and circumstance of the Anglican High Church no longer held any mystery for Paul, particularly after an assignment in South America the year before, but he did notice that having experienced Catholic congregations had fitted him well for the trick of seeming involved whilst actually observing. Finding those who were ripe for intervention amongst the worshippers was his goal.

“What happens now?”

The young boy that I had known only for a short time, but whose face I already knew I would never forget, had the beginnings of tears in his eyes as he interrogated me.

“I mean will I have to go into a home or somethin’? I don’t to, I want to go home.”

I smiled, trying to reassure him and buy myself some time while I framed the most honest and yet kind response to his entreaty;

“The thing is, under the circumstances you are going to need an adult or two in your life. Do you have any grandparents?”

His eyes lit up, suddenly there was hope;

“Well, you know that my real Dad died in Iraq?”

I nodded,

“His mum, my real gran, is still alive. I haven’t seen her for about six years, and I don’t know where she is, but Mum told me only last week that she’d had a letter from her, with money in it for me, to hold until my birthday.”

I nodded again;

“Do you know her full name? We will probably be able to trace her anyway, but it may help.”

He pondered for a moment, then;

“I’m pretty sure it’s Fenella Cartwright.”

“I hate to say it, but it feels like earthquake weather.”

The groans around the bar were quite audible. It was not like we hadn’t heard Harry’s crazy predicitons before, but then he never let us forget that he’d been right in ’89.

He sauntered over to the bar, and laid down five bucks, as always. I fetched him a Bud and a shot and went back to cleaning glasses. Everyone else went back to their conversations, newspapers and so forth; everyone except for the woman sitting at the other end of the bar. She was clearly not local; the look on her face when Harry so glibly referenced earthquakes was enough to tell that.

I wandered down the bar to ask her if she needed another drink. As I approached she looked up, quite startled;

“Is there really a kind of weather that makes earthquakes more likely? I mean that old guy said it was ‘earthquake weather’ and then everyone just went back to their business, as though it was the most natural thing in the world.”

I chuckled and put the glass I was polishing on the countertop.

Yet again the train was just sitting at a station between Reading and London. The PA carried the familiar grey monotone of an employee with all of the microphone technique of Napalm Death;

“We apologise to passengers for the delay to this service, which is due to unforseen circumstances on the track between Ealing Broadway and London Paddington. We hope to have you on your way as soon as possible, and once again thank you for your patience.”

Not a single person sitting on that train with me had any doubt what “unforseen circumstances” meant. Since the US had bombed Tehran in 2014 Britain has become one of the major targets of Islamic extremist terrorism, but then that would be because it was no secret that we let the American Air Force refuel, use our airspace unhindered and on top of that everyone simply assumed that British aircraft were involved. The war had been short and brutal, no doubt that ‘The Allies’ had won, but the aftermath? Well, I was glad to be late for work; better than being on a train bomb.

The night is cold and dark here, alone. I lie under the stars, by virtue of a skylight, and all I seem to be able to do is stare up at them and count them one by one. No matter how hard I try to sleep, nothing but more wakefulness comes.

At first I thought that it was sleeping alone that drove me so far from the arms of Morpheus, but last night there was someone in my bed with me and I passed the night watching her sleep, and then dozing for a couple of hours before dawn when I could finally close my eyes. You might wonder if it is more specifically being without a certain someone in my bed, but seeing as last night was a one-off return match with ‘the one that got away’ I am not sure that she really is the cause of my insomnia.

It does not seem likely that I am anxious about work; all is well, and I am financially secure.

No, having examined all of the other possibilites I can only conclude that I cannot sleep on account of some latent guilt, or perhaps just the fear of being caught. Murder is so stressful.

“Mr. Jefferies, I’m afraid I have some bad news.”

Peter’s shoulders slumped, he seemed to be able to sense the weight of what was coming. After a moment he simply nodded.

“Well, the thing is that as I said I have some bad news. There has been an accident, and I am sorry to have to tell you that your wife and daughter have been killed, Sir.”

Peter made no sound as his entire body started to shake; his entire frame exhibited wave after wave of tremors, each moment the amplitude growing and then subsiding. As the convulsion reached its height it seemed to me that he was about to scream out, keening for his family, but each time he swallowed his grief down and the shaking would subside for a moment or two and then start again.

I wanted to reach out and put my hand on his shoulder, or say something, but confronted with my brother’s grief like this I was suddenly powerless, speechless, and I realised that I had no idea how to reach anyone, let alone him, who was in that much grief. I sat beside him, confused and lost.

The sun was warm on Henry’s face as he stepped out of the patio door onto the deck. Breakfast was all laid out; fruit, granola, pastries, and the smell of bacon was wafting out from the kitchen. Looking around, he could not see anyone else out in the garden, so he settled at the table and started to serve himself some of the fruit.

It was good to be back in Cape Town, he could feel himself relaxing back into the pace of life and the sweet, succulent guava and mango were definitely helping to make his first morning feel as real as can be. The mountain was the other part of that anchor to memory and familiarity; ever present, always magnifying the character of the city whether clear and bright like that morning, or shrouded in its ‘tablecloth’.

He was musing on the view and finishing his fruit when Isabella appeared, as if by magic, and laid a plate of scrambled eggs and bacon in front of him.

“Welcome home, Henry. We’ve all missed you.”

Henry smiled up at her, happy to see her, and then he started on the fry up.

Time has all of the power in our lives. Time enough to work, but not time enough to play; time enough to lose as much as we can win. It has been said that time is the fire in which we burn, and yet it is also the cooling spring in which we cleanse our souls. It is everything to us.

When the lightning struck the streetlight I can remember seeing time almost stop. As the power of the heavens surged down the pole and into the ground not four feet from me, seconds seemed as minutes, and I was completely aware of not only what was happening, but what was yet to come.

The pressure wave came surging towards me along the sidewalk, as the residual charge in the air made every hair on my body stand on end, and I knew that before another second had ticked by I would be launched into the air, backwards away from the streetlight.

I want to be able to say that I had a witty thought, or a great insight in that split second, but all I really thought about was Frannie. Then just the word ‘bugger’, large at the front of my mind.

“Morning, Cal!”

I wave from behind the counter. Jimmy, like many of my customers, is almost always jolly when I see him. I often wonder if he and the others are quite so jolly after they have left the shop with their papers and their cigarettes and other sundries that I provide to their lives.

“Turned out nice again, eh Cal?”

Molly never says anything different, and after having her as a customer for nearly ten years I know to simply add a ten-pack of Marlboro Lights to the total for the copy of the Guardian and the pack of sugar free gum that she has placed on the counter as an accompaniment to these unchanging, empty words.

Shopkeepers know all too well that the greater share of human interaction is fleeting and meaningless, but I always try to remember how precious it is to me when I have a regular customer that will actually step beyond platitudes and linger for a few moments to share an opinion or better still, really care about mine.

As Molly and Jimmy leave I tidy the counter and wait for Susan to call in.

“What do you mean you’re not on Twitter?”

David was staring at me, slack-jawed and wide-eyed as he finished the above question. His reaction was as if I’ve just told him that I don’t enjoy having a woman blow me, or that even though I’m a meat eater I think that bacon is crap. The thing is that it’s a no-brainer to me; I don’t need to broadcast my every thought every moment that I thought it. Sure I’m working in “Web” and I blog, and I’m on Facebook, or Farcebook as I like to call it, but why is it beyond belief that I don’t have a Twitter account?

David got himself together and tried again;

“I mean how do you stay in touch with everything, man?”

This was not the first time I’d heard this, and I already had a stock answer;

“What did you do before Aprl 2007? Were you in a desert of solitude without any sense of human connection? Seriously?”

He didn’t get it, he went on for about another hour, so guess what? Yeah, I have a Twitter account now. Now the only thing left to do is to work out what the Hell to do with it?

I ran my fingertip along her shoulders and slid my other hand around her waist, pulling her gently against me, letting her know that I was there. She laid a hand on top of mine and gently squeezed it as she relaxed back into my embrace. She turned her head a little and whispered;

“Hello, Baby. Did I wake you? I’m sorry.”

I rolled my palm over her shoulder, cupping it and massaging it softly as I let her know that I was happy to be awake by starting to lay kisses around the nape of her neck.

“I see. You’re quite happy to be awake then?”

She asked the question in such a way that I had a distinct impression that she was playfully raising an eyebrow, but there was no brush off there; I could tell that as I felt her other hand gently running up the inside of my thigh.

“I love you, Baby. Take me to bed, or lose me forever.”

We laughed together; it had been such a long time since one of us had quoted the movie that had brought us together all those years before. I scooped her up in my arms, and carried her back to bed.

“Wake up.”

Fran was shaking me hard, her hands gripping tightly onto my shoulders. I clawed my way out of my sleeping state. Just as I was about to ask her what in the Hell was wrong with her she clamped her hand over my mouth and whispered in my ear;

“Listen. Do you hear that?”

I strained to hear whatever it was that she wanted me to hear, but the silence was all I could detect. I was about to tell her she was crazy, that it was just the wind, or the cat, when I did hear something. Someone or something knocked over something breakable, because there was an almighty crash from downstairs; something glass or china broke against the floor. The fear that ran through me at that moment was electric; someone unwelcome was in our house. Our son was sleeping down the hall from us, and the stairs separated us from him, so my thoughts immediately turned to his safety. I turned over and whispered to Fran;

“Wait here for me; I’m going to go and get James before he makes any noise.”

She nodded and I slipped quietly out of bed.

“And what is the purpose of your stay, Sir?”

I smile at the immigration official;

“Some business, some vacation. You know how it goes.”

They nod and smile back, then hand my passport back to me and I’m in. Even someone like me, with no nefarious thoughts, with money in their pocket and with no plans to out stay their welcome, entering the United States can be a nerve-wracking business. Still now that I had passed the test I could make my way into the City and focus on the meetings that were the genuine justification for flying half way around the world, and even with that pressure hanging over my head, that was a relief.

I headed across the bridge from the terminal to the BART station and having bought myself a ticket waited on the platform for my high speed ride into the heart of downtown. London could learn a lot from San Francisco on this front. This was my second visit in just over a year and I was still impressed by how simply, efficiently and cheaply the airport is connected to the main part of the City.

“Hello there.”

Oh God, she’s grinning in that way; you know what I mean, the way that your scary aunty did when you were a child. It’s been a constant stream of them, horny fifty-something widows and divorcées, ever since I boarded the boat. I really am starting to wish I’d listened to my friends who had warned me about the dangers of holidaying alone, on a cruise liner. Don’t misunderstand, if I was less than fifteen years younger than any of them then I would be happy of the attention, but not only am I still in a place where I want my lovers to at least be capable of having children, but I am on holiday alone not to find a replacement for my last one, but to simply get away and forget. Still, I am not able to simply ignore her or anyone else; we are on this relatively small ship together for ten days after all, though thankfully four of them were done;

“Hello. Taking the air?”

She nodded and sat down next to me, unbidden.

“I’ll be honest, I saw you head this way after dinner and I wanted to talk to you.”

My heart sank, the last conversation that had gone this way – after lunch – had been very depressing.

Hot, too hot. Mouth dry, throat hurts. Eyes open? No, too bright.

“Are you ready to tell us what we wnat to know, Mr. Devlin?”

That voice… Who is that?

“Your current level of discomfort is not the end of the road. There is more to come if you don’t give us the information that we want.”

Have to focus. Is that the one who was called Ignatius by the tall one? Yes, the voice of Ignatius, I recognise him.

“Mr. Devlin?”

Open eyes; slowly. So bright in here. Can’t see him, must be a PA system. Sit up, straight back. Show him strength; resolve. Try to speak;

“N… Noh.”

Throat so dry, can barely make a sound.

“Would you like a drink, Mr. Devlin?”

This is how they start. I say yes to anything and then I might say yes to more things. Have to fight the temptation, but so thirsty.

“How can that hurt, Mr. Devlin? Surely you can accept a glass of water?”

“No th… No thankyou.”

“What are you doing here, Vic?”

Her smile sent a shiver through Paul, he remembered the time long ago when he would wake up to that smile. Having been put back out into the field, Paul had been given no information on his handler beyond the protocol and the eight meeting places. When he had picked up the location instruction he had wondered if it would be Harrison again; the last time in London it had been Harrison, but he had never thought it might be Victoria.

“Hello Paul. How’ve you been?”

Paul shrugged, still reeling internally while trying to come across as at least professional.

“You weren’t told it was going to be me, were you?”

“No, but it’s fine. I’m fine. How have you been Vic?”

She smiled again, and then suddenly she was all business;

“Well, we want you to infiltrate a new group working in and around Southwark. Their activities have started to become a little too out in the open, and we need to understand what their wider objectives are, so that we can plan the correct approach to frustrate their plans.”

The lights on HMS Belfast were like searchlights, illuminating imagined enemies or intruders, rather than being placed by design to showcase her odd, fading beauty. Paul looked out across the river, towards Tower Bridge; he took another pull on his hipflask, now only half full with the cheap whisky he had taken from Grant’s flat. “For the cold.” he told himself, but was it really?

He heard footsteps approaching, but in a move planned to suggest nothing but impeccable cool he continued to count the lights on the buildings on the North Bank, and refused to turn and acknowledge the approaching stranger. The footsteps stopped close by. He heard a low, gentle cough and then in a soft genderless voice;

“Excuse me, but do you know the way to Borough Market at all?”

It was his contact, and so Paul paused for a moment to frame his practised answer and then turned;

“I am afraid not, I am just visiting from Baltimore.”

He spoke as he raised his eyes, only realising that it was Victoria as he finished the protocol sentence.

The polished wood feels good in my hands. It’s funny the things that put us at ease, they are so rarely the same from person to person. In fact there are no other people in my life that feel even comfortable with firearms, let alone comforted by them.

Please don’t misunderstand, I am not a violent person, and I certainly do not relish the idea of shooting someone, but I have done just that in my past, just as many soldiers have. I suppose that the frightening truth is that if you spend long enough in the field you come to see it as the status quo, and ridiculous as it may seem to anyone else I am sitting here by my open fire, practically cradling my fathers twelve bore and thinking of the past.

If the shrink assigned to help with my re-entry into civilian life saw me here without the context of my true feelings I’m sure that he would immediately assume that I am contemplating suicide, but the weapon is not loaded. I don’t have ammunition in the house, it really is just that it is a touchstone to times gone by.

The lights of Oxford were streaming past the train window as I awoke from an odd dream. The particulars of the dream were already lost to me, but I am left with a definite sense that I was frightened and confused. Judging from the looks of surprise on the faces of the two people sitting opposite me I had shuddered awake in some odd fashion, and I was left feeling incredibly self conscious.

The train was nearly back at Reading, so I started to put away the laptop and check my pockets, trying to remember eveything with the dim cloud of this unremembered dream.

The older chap across the table looked up at me;

“Are you ok there?”

I nodded, my embarassment rising, trying to break eye contact with him rather than acknowledge my odd outburst that had piqued his interest.

“It’s just that you were muttering a name under your breath. I mean, who is Deirdra?”

Suddenly the dream came rushing back to my mind, and I was lost in the dark calling out ‘Deirdra! Deirdra’, and I could smell the distinct odour of fresh blood nearby.

As I pass down the aisle, lurching from side to side as the train shudders and jolts on every join in the track I dispense a litany of ’sorry’ and ‘terribly sorry’ and ‘oh do excuse me’ to the various people whose seats I bump into or whose newspapers I snag as I pass by.

When I finally reach the train’s buffet, after three carriages of offences against the peace and tranquility of my fellow passengers, I am greeted by a smiling face that already I can tell is softening me up for a disappointment.

“Could I have a coffee, please?”

The smile broadens, and the eyes widen in an almost undetectable act of supplication;

“I’m sorry, sir, but we are not currently able to serve any hot beverages.”

For a moment I consider launching into a comical rant about the fact that there is no one on the planet who uses the word beverage apart from the people who work in transport-centric catering, but in the end the poor woman’s visible anxiety encourages me to forbear. I nod and turn on my heel, plunging back into the morass of the three carriages between there and my seat.