A magic eye picture. A jigsaw finished wrong. The feeling you get when you see identical twins dressed in different clothes. That jolt of the eye at seeing something that the brain cannot process.

Roland is scared. Terrified. He is walking into the sea to die with all the emotion that brings but this man walking towards him is broken beyond compare. Fear and misery etched into every line of the man’s face. A young man too. The jawline. The hairline. The colour of that hair. The way he walks. The voice.

With a wrenching drop of his stomach, Roland makes the sickening connection of recognition of something that cannot be possible. He staggers back. His hands slap the surface of the sea. His eyes wide and unblinking.

‘No . . .’ Roland whispers, flicking to the blue square of light then back to the man he knows so well but not as a man. As a child. He knows him as a child. His own child that is at home in his teddy bear pyjamas.

‘I broke it,’ the man sobs. ‘I need you . . . help me . . . please, Dad . . .’

One

One

2015

‘Steph,’ Ben shouts up the stairs. ‘Steph? I’ve got to go . . .’ He checks his watch then heads up, muttering under his breath that he’s running late. ‘Steph?’

‘Huh?’ She drops the phone on the bed as he walks into the room. ‘You off?’ she asks with a sudden beaming smile of white teeth and blue eyes that flutter as she walks towards him. Wet hair hanging down on slender shoulders and a soaking wet towel cinched tight over her breasts.

‘Yeah,’ he replies and glances again at his watch as she comes in for a kiss. ‘I might be late tonight—’

‘You said,’ she cuts him off and leans in for a peck to avoid pressing her wet body against his clothes.

‘Did I?’ he asks, bending forward at the waist.

‘Underground? Electrocution?’ she says, pulling her head back and staring at him before blinking and looking away quickly.

‘When did I—’

‘Last night,’ she interrupts with that beaming smile and quickly pulls the towel off to stand naked.

‘Shit,’ he mumbles, staring at her perfect breasts and down to her long legs. She comes in for a hug, filling his nose with the womanly scents of shampoo, conditioner, deodorant and creams. His mouth finds her neck, kissing down to her shoulders. She murmurs in pleasure but pulls away.

‘Your train,’ she says, placing an open palm on his chest. ‘You’ll be late.’

‘I’ll be late then,’ he says with a grin.

‘No,’ she laughs, ‘sod off . . . go on . . .’

‘You’ve turned me on now.’ He reaches out but she’s gone to grab the towel, which gets wrapped round her body with one deft movement.