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the way to the hospital. He wouldn’t pass it on his normal
route but a detour was in order while he agonised about calling in.
Lynn’s shift at the hospital wouldn’t start for another couple of
hours, there’d be time enough for them to talk before Amy came
home, neither of them wanting to expose her to more raised voices.
He pulled up at the kerb and lit a cigarette for courage.
    One stupid mistake. That’s all
it had taken to send his marriage into free fall. Not a day had
gone by that he didn’t look in the mirror and cringe. He’d never
meant to hurt Lynn, yet all it had taken was 10 minutes of flirting
and he’d scampered after Adele like a dog with two dicks. Lynn was
convinced that they’d slept together, refused to believe his
protest that it’d been one drunken kiss. Even so, she’d countered,
it was obvious he’d been tempted, that if the opportunity had
presented itself he would’ve happily shagged her. The annoying
thing about Lynn was that she always had a point. If he’d thought
of a good enough excuse to get a pass out for the night he’d have
gone back to Adele’s without a care in the world. And now? Now he
was banged to rights anyway: a wife convinced he’d been unfaithful,
and a mounting resentment that if he was doing the time he might as
well have committed the sodding crime.
    He stared up at their bedroom
window as Lynn pulled back the curtains. She looked out onto the
street below, her gaze settling on his car. If she was surprised he
was parked out front, she didn’t show it, her eyes found his and
seemed to lock onto his soul. He’d been about to open the driver’s
door when his phone rang breaking the silence. He was tempted to
leave it, but he’d asked to be kept informed of any change in Ricky
Wilson’s condition. He picked up his mobile and grunted a reluctant
greeting.
    The control room operator’s
words sent his heart sinking to the pit of his stomach. He
scribbled the call out details into his pocket book, reading it
back in the vain hope he’d misheard it. He rubbed the inner corners
of his eyes with his thumb and forefinger, already focussing on the
carnage he’d been summoned to. He threw his cigarette out of the
driver’s window and started the ignition, looking once more to
where Lynn had been standing watching him from their bedroom
window.
    She was gone.

It used to be said of
certain women – I remember my father saying it – “she’s a good
little home-maker”. But can you make a home? Or even make yourself
at home? Isn’t home some place you have as a child, and spend the
rest of your life running from…..?
    - As if, Blake Morrison.

4
    The house was set back from the
road, obscured from view by a bank of Leylandii planted years
before the current owners had moved in. Mock Tudor in design, it
had a solid oak front door flanked either side and above by leaded
windows, with an adjacent detached garage. The circular driveway
had space for several vehicles. Today, it accommodated easily the
two private ambulances and squad cars that were parked outside.
    A child’s bicycle lay abandoned
at the side of the house. It lay awkwardly on the gravel, silver
racing stripes glinting in the sunlight. As Coupland approached the
front door he noticed that the uniformed constable on the doorstep
looked about twelve years old, making him wonder briefly whether
he’d ever looked so young. Over the years a cautiousness had set
in, an over awareness of the frailty of life – a general acceptance
that he was passing through, that in the grand scheme of things
what he tried to achieve on a daily basis would amount to sod all.
There were positive days of course, days where he knew he made a
difference, but as he walked towards the house of horror as it was
already being dubbed, he found it nigh on impossible to recall any
of them.
    The front door was open; being
dusted for prints along with all the other entrances to the
property, although early indications suggested this