Next Of Kin: Code Zero Series, #3

By TL Dyer

What happened before…

The Isaacs had everything. Parents to twin teenagers, a boy and a girl, a large house in a secluded spot, money in the bank, good looks, nice cars, holidays abroad. The perfect family. The perfect life. Sacha wished they were her family. She wanted to be a part of them. And for a short time she was.

 

What's happening now…

A single parent, Sacha thought she had struck the right balance between her career as a police officer and caring for her young son. Thought she was enough for him. But now that her father, her childminder to Jake, is moving over five hundred miles away, she's not so sure. Perhaps it's time to tell the truth. Except it's been years since she last spoke to the Isaacs. And that's a long time to keep a secret like the one she has.

 

What happens next…

There are three things that will tear a family apart. Lies, fear, and death. But for Sacha, more damaging than any of these is regret. Because regret will make her wish, with every single cell in her body, that she could turn back the clock. And stop history repeating itself.

 

Next of Kin is a moving story of family dilemma, conflict, and a return to the past, and is the third book in the emotionally fuelled Code Zero police drama series

 

"Kept me absolutely absorbed. It has everything: high drama, terrifying moments, tender moments."
"Few authors have the ability to tell a story with the intensity that Dyer does."
"Kept me reading into the early hours"
"Had me engaged from the start"

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Edge of the Roof Press
• Release date: Aug 28, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201017439

Book preview

Chapter 1

With the nailbrush I keep in my locker for this purpose, I scrub at the blood that’s drying beneath my fingernails. It doesn’t help that the water clanking through the old pipes and spitting out of the tap is a pathetic lukewarm drizzle. Nor that the fluorescent tube overhead snaps on and off every other minute as though it’s on a meter and the money’s about to run out.

I lean over the sink, blowing a strand of hair from my face, and examine myself in the mirror. Scrutinise every millimetre of my skin, from forehead to ear lobes to cheeks to chin, both sides. Tip my head back and tilt one way and the other to make sure there’s nothing on my neck, down to the base of my throat and the collar of my hoody. The sum total of my injuries is a small round red mark about the size of a two-pence piece an inch below my right ear, and a couple of much smaller pink patches down the left side of my neck.

Dropping the nailbrush into the sink, I shake the water from my hand and cup my palm over my throat, lining up my thumb and fingers in the exact same position of the marks. I have to press my palm right up against my windpipe and still don’t quite reach entirely. His grip, of course, was much larger than mine. Still, bruises I can get away with. There’s no blood this time, that’s the main thing.

I’m returning the nailbrush to the make-up bag, and both to the back of the locker, when there’s a quiet tap at the door and it cracks open an inch.

‘Are you still there?’ a voice calls in, echoing off the stone walls of the empty room.

‘I am,’ I say, rooting through the locker for the refuse sacks I’m certain are in here somewhere.

‘Can I see you before you go?’

My hand lands on the thin roll of plastic, and I pull it free. ‘I’m sure you could. Maybe try opening the door a little more, that might work.’

‘Sarky mare,’ comes the muttered reply. But as I tear off one of the black bin bags and shake it open, my visitor steps half into the room, the other half still pointing back towards the corridor. A glance up at him tells me even this much intrusion makes him uncomfortable. He coughs into his fist. ‘Just making sure you’re alright.’

I fold the soiled polo shirt I was wearing earlier and slip it into the bag. ‘I’m fine.’

‘It was a tough one. But I hear you did a sterling job.’

I hold up the cargo trousers. From a distance you’d think they were clean, but closer examination finds dark patches of dried blood down the right leg and some on the back pockets. After throwing them in the bag, I turn to my boots next. No forensics required for these bad boys, they’ve clearly taken the brunt of tonight’s damage. Dunking them in a vat of scarlet paint would have been less messy.

‘The team worked well together, got a good result,’ I say.

‘Did you get hurt?’ my sergeant asks, clocking the bloody footwear before I drop it in with the rest of my uniform. Or maybe it’s the skin of my hands, still glowing where I scrubbed at them, that’s caught his attention.

‘Superficial,’ I say, unhooking the stained utility vest from the locker door, balling it up and throwing it in with everything else. I gather up two edges of the bag to knot together. When I straighten, wiping the back of my hand across my forehead to push the hair from my eyes, Fred Dalston is still hovering in the doorway, but looking markedly more uneasy than he usually does. Somehow I sense his discomfort is about more than the fact he’s dangerously close to encroaching on the women’s locker room.

‘Honestly, Sarge,’ I say with a smile that at this time of the morning isn’t easy to muster. ‘I’m fine. We got the result, and with no harm done.’

He folds his arms and nods to the floor. It’s only later, as I’m driving home, that I consider even for someone as experienced as him, over two decades in the uniform, there’ll be nights when he’s haunted by thoughts of what might have been. Petty criminals are one thing, but then there are the others. The ones who mean business. Who really don’t give a shit. Who fear nothing and nobody, certainly not some copper waving the rule book around. They’re the ones who, when you meet them, you’d better be on your A-game, because every member of your team depends on it.

It took fifteen of us in total – eight from our crew and the rest from other wards – to bring the siege in The Mariner’s pub to an end. Fifteen of us, five of them. On paper it sounds easy. Until you factor in this is the most vicious bunch of five males you would rather you didn’t meet on the streets of Newport City Centre. TB-21, they call themselves, in a nod to ‘taking back’ what are purported to be their rights in the twenty-first century. But don’t be fooled by the pathetic nom de plume. They may not be the brightest bulbs in the chandelier, but they’re not new to this game either. This isn’t a bunch of kids throwing their opinions around, demanding everyone take notice. These are grown men in their twenties, thirties – pumped up, ultra-focused – who were brought into the group probably when they were still in school. It means that for more than half of their years on this earth they’ve been groomed, primed, brainwashed and radicalised into an extremist ideology that, by some tragic twist of irony, makes them feel like they belong to something, that they have a purpose.

So with all that going for them, it’s no surprise really that when they stormed The Mariner’s just after eleven o’clock last night in their matching white vests and black arm bands, swastikas tattooed on biceps and shaved into their cropped hair, cricket bats in fists which they used to clear the bar of glasses and make their point, the room half full with mid-week drinkers simply froze in fear. Unfortunately, when we turned up on scene soon after, freezing wasn’t an option available to us.

Taking one hand from the wheel, I touch my fingers to my throat. I don’t feel anything yet, so maybe I’ll get lucky and it’s just a scuff. Maybe when I wake tomorrow, there’ll be no bruising, no physical reminder of what happened. All the sooner for me to forget about my rookie error. It was so sudden, that’s the concerning part. One minute he was complying, the next he flipped, overcome with rage, breaking free of the four of us but targeting me when he spun around, his palm tight at my jugular, forcing me against the wall. The weakest of the bunch, the woman – perhaps that’s what he thought; I certainly folded quick enough, lost all momentum and the capacity to retaliate. Not that he had hold of me for long. The others were on him, doubling up on their efforts, taking the legs from under him to sprawl him over the floor. Then it was re-gather myself, save face in front of my peers, get back in there and finish the job.

The lights outside the windscreen lose focus, and I thump at the steering wheel before brushing the unwanted tears away. I don’t want to get upset about these things. I don’t want them to haunt me, or wallow in self-pity; there’s no room in the job for that. But I shouldn’t have got caught off guard. It might only have been for a split second, but right then he had me and he knew it. The man’s fiercely dark green eyes had burned into mine with a rage I’ve never seen before. A murderous fury. No other way to describe it. And I couldn’t look away. His breath and spit on my chin, his looming height, his broad build that blocked out the lights from the bar, his strength… If I’d been alone, I wouldn’t have stood a chance.

I shoot out a hand to flick on the radio. The haunting lyrics and gentle repetitive melody of Biffy Clyro’s Many of Horror filters through the speakers. Not exactly uplifting, but not too jarring for this early hour of the day either.

Dual carriageway and open spaces become single-lane roads and villages that intersect the mountains on either side of the valley, and the closer I get to home, the further I distance myself from the shift. At this time of year it’s still dark in these early hours, but before long I’ll be driving this way as the sun rises. Bathed in the silent newness of those first rays, even the most mundane of scenery can appear beautiful. That’s the thing about ‘the valleys’ – by design they’re a point of contrast. Terraced houses built a hundred-plus years ago to accommodate coal miners and their families, their roots working class, their very foundations a symbol of strength and earnestness, outlast newer builds even today. Rows and rows of the formulaic terraces are flanked by the natural beauty of the mountains, their murky, dust-ingrained bricks matching the shades of the hillside itself in the colder months, but the brightly painted stone window sills and doors provide a constant distraction. A splash of colour sends out the message that life exists here, full and vibrant, and we won’t be downtrodden, much as this world might try its hardest. That’s the valleys for you. Optimistic. Stubborn. But it’s home. It always has been.

The house is quiet, but the pint-sized red and blue Hot Wheels backpack leaning beside the shoe rack tells me I’m not here alone. I drop the bin bag of my bloodied uniform into the cupboard under the stairs, then stick my head around the living-room door. The prone body of my father lies on the sofa under the blanket I keep hooked over the armchair for this very reason. His soft snore means I haven’t woken him, so I back out and slip off my trainers to tread upstairs.

As always, Jake’s bedroom door is open, his soft night light seeping a warm glow onto the landing. Edging the door wider, I step inside where I can see him, but not so much that I’ll disturb him. He’s flat on his back, one arm tucked under the duvet, the other stretched out so that his hand dangles over the edge of the mattress. His head is turned to one side and his cheek rests on the crocheted blanket he calls Suzu, after the nanna who made it for him before he was born. I told him that when Nanna was making it she filled each stitch with a hug, so that every time he would clutch it, it would be as if she were hugging him.

The shape of his body seems small in the bed, the skin on his cheeks and his hair still that of a baby’s, but his approaching birthday is a reminder that he’s growing older all the time. Five now. Six in a few more weeks.

How old were they, I wonder, as I rest my head against the door frame. How old were each of those men we arrested tonight when they stopped being little boys who needed their comforters and instead became violent men? What paths did their lives take to make that happen? How much control did they have over that? Were they victims of their environment, their upbringing? Or was it simply wrong place, wrong time, and they just happened to be the most suggestible, meaning they were easily snagged?

Jake’s breathing is loud enough that I know he’s in a deep sleep. I cross the room to plant a soft kiss on his forehead, tuck his free hand back under the duvet. He barely moves, only to snuggle his cheek closer to Suzu, closer to his nanna who, had she still been here, would have loved all the attention he gives her. She had put love in every stitch. Because she knew that in the short time she’d have with him, it wouldn’t be anywhere near enough.

Back downstairs, I head into the kitchen to make breakfast and a coffee. No point going to bed now, Jake will be up in another two hours for school. Though I’ve closed the kitchen door, Dad’s bleary-eyed face puts in an appearance soon after I’ve sat at the table.

‘Sorry, Dad. I tried to be quiet,’ I say.

He waves away my comment and pulls out a chair opposite. ‘Already awake.’

‘He didn’t want to stay at yours?’ I ask over a mouthful of toast and strawberry jam. Breakfast of champions. Round these parts, anyway.

Dad quietly laughs, which I take to mean there was a wrangle. Jake can be a stubborn little bugger when he wants to be. ‘Wanted his own bed,’ is all he says, with a tired smile, rubbing at eyes that are trying to adjust to the harshness of the kitchen spotlights.

‘Why don’t you go home, Dad, catch a few more hours?’

‘Aye. Will do,’ he says, but doesn’t make a move to get up.

I’ve finished one piece of toast and started on the second, when he asks, ‘Tough night, love?’

My hand goes to my hoody and I tug the collar up around my throat, silently cursing myself for forgetting to let my hair down out of the bun at the back of my head. But Dad doesn’t seem to notice. He’s looking down at his left hand, which he’s scratching with the fingernails of his right.

‘Same as any other,’ I reply, dragging the mug of coffee towards me over the table and blowing on it.

‘Didn’t give you any trouble?’

I take another bite of toast, and over the top of it say, ‘Nope. No trouble.’

‘Good. Good,’ he says, nodding to the table. Dad must think Newport City Centre is a much safer place than he ever would have imagined. Or he knows that a great majority of the time he asks me that question, my answer is a lie. Either way suits me. The last thing I need is to hand him fuel for his argument that there’s some other job I could and should be doing. Not that it’s a spoken argument; it would kill him to come right out and say it. But he doesn’t have to. It’s written into the lines of his face. I often wonder if he’d be so uneasy with the profession if it was Shaun who chose this for a career instead of me. Shaun, a police officer – now there’s a peculiar thought.

‘Sacha, about this Scotland thing…’ Dad starts, and the sigh is out of my mouth before I can reconsider it. He clasps his hands together, rubbing his thumbs over the calluses on his knuckles where the skin is hardened. They’ve always been that way. For as long as I can remember, anyway. That’s what comes from years spent working with wood, and the hand tools that craft it into something either more practical or more beautiful to look at.

‘The last thing Shirl and I want is to leave you in the lurch.’

‘Dad—’

‘This was never on the radar. Never. I mean, Christ’—he puffs out a dry laugh—‘I’ve barely left Cwmcarn in fifty-odd years. Even then it’s only to go a few miles down the road to Blackwood.’

I raise the mug, burn my lip on the scalding coffee. All I want is my bed right now. Not this conversation. But Dad’s on a roll now.

‘Shirl hadn’t even seen this aunt of hers in donkey’s years. She never would have thought she’d leave her this… This sodding farmhouse.’

‘You don’t have to go,’ I say, lowering the mug, my top lip stinging.

Sharp brown eyes snap up to mine. Under the kitchen lights, his slim cheeks look more gaunt than usual, despite their colour. Dad’s back garden workshop means he works outside whenever he can, sat on the porch he constructed, soaking up the vitamin D. It leaves him with a year-round tan that never seems to fade regardless of the ropey Welsh weather. It also means he looks healthy and well even though his build is thin and wiry. Still, right now he looks like he should go to bed. And so should I.

‘She loves that boy as much as I do, you know?’ he adds, looking at me from across the table, imploring me to feel something for the woman he’s lived with for the past two and a half years, the one who moved in only nine months after Mam had passed, taking her place at the table, her place in the house.

‘I really need to get some sleep, Dad,’ I say, with as much diplomacy as I have left.

A soft sigh hisses through his nose, but he pins his lips into a forced smile. ‘Aye. Course, love.’ He pushes back the chair and gets up. ‘See you tomorrow then.’

He hasn’t gone far down the hallway when I force my aching limbs up from the table.

‘Dad.’ I drop my shoulder to the kitchen door frame. He turns just as he reaches the bottom of the stairs, taking his house key from his jeans pocket. ‘Thanks.’ I point upstairs. ‘Thank you.’

Weathered features attempt to loosen, but the brow is too tightly knotted. ‘You’re welcome, love.’ He looks to the keys in his hands, twists them between his fingers. ‘You know, if I could take you all with me… If you’d come…’

I slump against the frame, eyelids heavy. He already knows that’s not something that will ever happen. My life is here, my job. Jake’s school, his friends. Shaun’s work. Our whole lives. His life, until now.

‘Tomorrow, Dad, alright?’ I say softly. ‘We’ll talk about it tomorrow.’

He nods, puts his key in the lock and lets himself out.

After he leaves, re-locking the door behind him for the walk down the lane beside my house on Marne Street, through to the back garden of his on Chapel Farm Terrace in the next street over, I retrieve the bin bag from under the stairs and quietly close the kitchen door. I need to get to work on the bloodstains, removing all traces before my son gets up for school and sees them.

Chapter 2

We get to the school gates just as the last of the stragglers in the yard are making their way inside the building. I wait until Jake pauses at the door to wave, then once he’s disappeared inside I start back for home. Except I haven’t gone far when there’s a shout.

‘Wait a second! Miss Sanderson?’

One of the young teaching assistants is calling from the entrance and holding a palm skyward. A moment later, Jake reappears in the doorway.

I jog down the steps into the yard. ‘What is it, darling?’

He comes running over, bag bouncing on his back, cheeks flushed and fair hair flapping in the morning breeze. ‘I forgot,’ he says, wide-eyed.

‘Forgot what?’ I crouch to his level, mentally running through the possibilities. Is it mufti day? Was I supposed to give him money for whatever charity we’re supporting this week? Or are all the kids dressed in costumes and he’s the only one in his uniform?

‘Declan’s birthday,’ he says, hand dropping with a leaden thud against his side to show this is a disaster of colossal proportions. ‘It’s today. His party’s after school.’

Declan, Declan…

‘You remember,’ Jake insists. ‘It’s at his house, tonight. They’re doing an Easter egg hunt and everything, even though Easter was ages ago.’

‘Right. Course I remember,’ I say, though this is all news to me. ‘That’s fine, darling, I’ll take you. We just need to know where Declan lives.’

‘But we have to get him a present and everything,’ he says, out of breath.

‘Duh. That’s what I’m doing today, isn’t it?’

‘You are?’

‘Course I am. Chill out, dude, I’ve got it covered.’

His shoulders ease down an inch from his ears. ‘And a birthday card, though.’

‘Covered.’

‘And party hats. And cake.’

I tilt my head to one side. ‘Mm, I think his mam’s got that bit covered.’

‘Good,’ he confirms. And with the panic over, he turns so fast his backpack is only inches from clouting me in the face. ‘Gotta go,’ he yells to the wind, before tripping over the step back into the school.

I get to my feet and exchange a roll of the eyes with the teaching assistant before she closes the door behind them.

‘Sodding shit,’ I mutter to myself, as I trudge back up the steps to the school gates. And there I was hoping I could go straight home and under the duvet.

*

The good news is I find Declan’s party invitation, and thus Declan’s address, pinned to the fridge in the kitchen with a LazyTown magnet. The bad news is I still have to get him a card and a present. But the worse news is that Dad’s sent a text asking if I can pop round. I’m on the verge of wriggling out of it by using the excellent excuse I now have of Declan’s imminent birthday party when I get a second text, this time from Shaun, telling me the coast is clear. So in the spirit of ripping the plaster off in one go, I head out of the back garden, across the lane, and into my first ever home to face the inevitable. I can always deploy the Declan tactic if emergency withdrawal is required.

‘Fucking hell, you look like death reheated,’ my brother says as I step in through the back door and into the kitchen. He’s perched on the edge of the breakfast counter in nothing but a pair of joggers, munching from a bowl of cereal.

‘I think the phrase you’re looking for, Shaun, is death warmed up.’ I tug my hair around my neck to cover the marks that have unfortunately become a faint bruise this morning, then pinch a slice of buttered toast from the plate beside him on the counter.

‘Oy! Dad…’ he whines, as our father enters the kitchen. ‘She pinched my breakfast.’

‘Children,’ Dad says, in the same non-committal, weary, couldn’t-give-a-toss way he would have done twenty years back. Automated discipline.

I lean my hip against the counter while I polish off my second breakfast this morning, albeit Shaun’s rendition a little plainer and colder than my own was. My brother’s motto when it comes to food is keep it simple. For a twenty-eight-year-old he has a limited range of foods he likes and rarely deviates from those unless he really has to. It’s a trait of his Asperger’s. Swearing profusely and inappropriately is another. All things considered, he’s not too far along the spectrum, which means for the most part he functions in a way that would be described as neurotypical. Of course he also comes with many refreshingly positive neurodiverse attributes as well. Such as always telling the truth.

‘Shirley’s hiding from you,’ he says now, scraping the last of the cereal from the bowl.

‘She’s not hiding.’ Dad glances across the room at me as he sits at the kitchen table. ‘She’s gone shopping.’

‘That’s what I said. Hiding.’ Shaun picks up his last remaining slice of toast and tears off a quarter of it in one bite while curling his lip up at me.

‘What are you doing home on a Friday, anyway?’ I ask, taking a mug from beside the sink and half filling it with water from the tap. ‘Shouldn’t you be at work?’

‘Between contracts. Start a new one Monday. In the big fucking smoke.’

By which he means Cardiff. As a site manager for a solar panel firm, he’s rarely in the same place for long. The jobs are not small either, their client base is the big firms, the corporations and institutions, all those who need to be seen to be embracing alternative energy and taking climate change seriously. It’s a good job, pays well, and it’s satisfying that he makes a difference; not that he says as much, but it’s clear in the way he talks about his work, the commitment he gives it, the quiet pride that emanates from him whenever his team get praised for their efforts, and the bonuses he receives as thanks. It’s a long way from where he could have ended up. A long way from where he once was.

‘So,’ Dad says, thumping his clasped hands against the tabletop. He looks about as excited at the prospect of this conversation as we are to hear it. I glance at Shaun who slurps from his coffee, not a care in the world. Okay, so one of us at least doesn’t want to hear it. For some reason, this idea of his father upping sticks to leave Wales for a country hundreds of miles and no quick train ride away, doesn’t seem to faze him one bit. But then, neither did Dad’s shacking up with Shirley so soon after Mam left us. Sometimes it would be nice to have his backing now and then, but he can be so frustratingly bloody neutral.

‘If we go,’ Dad starts; then emphasises, ‘If we go, and if it becomes permanent, then I’ll be signing the deeds of this house over to the both of you.’

I glance again at Shaun. He nods, listening carefully, tongue digging the toast from his teeth.

‘I don’t care who lives here. If none of you do, or if all of you do. But this was your mam’s house too, and I know she’d want you both to have it.’ I sense he’s looking at me when he says this, but my eyes are on the water in the mug. ‘You can come to that arrangement between you.’

‘What do you mean, if you go,’ Shaun pipes up. ‘Thought this was fucking sorted.’

‘Aye, well. Few things to iron out, son.’

‘Like what?’

‘Anyone would think you were trying to get rid of them, Shaun.’ I fold my arm across my body and prop the mug near my mouth.

‘Huh? What have I bastard done?’

‘Nothing, son.’ Dad raises his hands, elbows propped on the table. ‘You’ve done nothing. Your sister’s teasing.’

Shaun looks at me with his eyebrows creased as if he’s about to unleash something else. But then his expression changes and all that confusion slips away. ‘And you are trying not to get rid of them,’ he says, with the same smug grin he’s always used as a weapon, and that still manages to get under my skin. ‘Because if you do get rid of them, who’ll look after Little Man then?’

I tut and turn to rinse the mug in the sink, while behind me Dad says, ‘There are lots of things to think about.’

‘No, there’s not.’ Shaun’s bare feet land on the tiles with a thump as he drops from the counter. ‘She’ll have to get a proper job, that’s all. Then she can have a babysitter.’

I turn from the sink. ‘A childminder. And, proper job, Shaun? I’ve already got one.’

‘Alright, that’s enough,’ Dad tries, but Shaun’s voice is louder than either of ours.

‘A nine-to-five. In an office or a shop or something. Like most mothers with kids do.’

My mouth drops open. Dad covers his eyes with his hand.

‘Bloody hell, Shaun,’ I say, trying to keep my voice on an even keel, because despite where this is going, he struggles with confrontation. But after the night I’ve had and the lack of shuteye, that’s not easy. ‘What sodding century did you crawl out from?’

‘What?’ he says, his hands outstretched. ‘It makes perfect sense. He’s your son, not Dad’s—’

‘Shaun…’ The chair grates over the floor when Dad gets up to issue his warning.

‘And don’t fucking look at me neither, sis. Sometimes I’ve got to be away for days at a time, I can’t have him.’

‘Son, I’m sure Sacha wouldn’t expect you to.’

‘No, I bloody wouldn’t.’

‘Or maybe you’d prefer it if Shirley went to the fucking farmhouse in the Highlands while Dad stayed here to mind Jake. That would suit you, wouldn’t it?’

‘Enough!’ Dad shouts, thumping his fist on the table.

It’s so unlike him, we both shut up immediately. But whatever is on the tip of his tongue, or wherever he had wanted this conversation to go, he reels it in, sucking his lower lip into his mouth. He crosses the room to the back door, yanks on the handle, and is about to leave when he hesitates. Shaun and I both watch him in silence. After a second he turns back. Looking to the tiled floor, he asks, ‘Are we having him tonight?’

My hip sags against the sink. Tempering my voice, I say quietly, ‘No. Thanks, Dad. I’m off for a few days.’

He nods once and goes out of the door. Through the kitchen window I watch him retreat up the path to the workshop, his head dipped to the floor, those things he wanted to talk about no more sorted than they were five minutes ago.

‘Shit,’ I mumble, rubbing at my tired eyes. There’d be no point going after him. Once he’s in his workshop, he’ll want to be left alone. After Mam died, he slept in there every night for a month. The only person he allows across the threshold is his grandson.

‘That went well.’ Shaun comes up beside me to put his dishes in the sink.

‘You’re wrong,’ I say, dropping my hands from my face. ‘This isn’t all about Jake. I’m not that selfish.’

‘I know,’ he says, opening the window and taking a packet of cigarettes from the pocket of his joggers. ‘It’s about Shirley.’

‘No. Not that either.’

I watch him light up, take the first puff and blow the smoke through the side of his mouth towards the window. When he catches me looking, he holds the cigarette out. Fuck it. It’s been that kind of night. I take a few quick drags, peering over his shoulder to make sure Dad’s not coming back for something he’s forgotten. Shaun quietly laughs as I hand it back to him.

‘You think Dad doesn’t know you smoke by now, Sach?’

I shrug his comment away, but waft at the air around my clothes. ‘It’s five hundred miles away. He’s barely left the village. He was born here, for god’s sake.’

‘All the more reason to get out.’

‘And what if he hates it?’

‘Then he comes home again,’ Shaun says, and just for once I wish I saw things as simply as he does. But I don’t. I see my dad, a man in his mid-fifties, uprooting his entire life – a life he’s been perfectly happy with until now, surrounded by his friends and family, everyone who loves and cares about him – to live on a remote and ancient stone-built farm in the middle of nowhere with barely any central heating, a patchy phone signal, never mind an internet connection, and none of the things he’s familiar with. It’s not just something different, it’s a radical change of lifestyle. Shirley’s even talking about livestock. Livestock? My dad? He couldn’t keep Archie alive, and he was just a sodding rabbit.

‘What if something happens to him up there, Shaun? Think about it. How quickly can we get to him? What medical care will he have access to? What if he gets ill—’

‘And what if he doesn’t?’ Shaun butts in, talking over me. ‘What if he’s healthier up there than he’s ever been? What if he loves the outdoors, the fresh air, the miles between him and everyone else? What if he’s happy because it’s just him