No Eden.

Debating which route to take, he decided on travelling east along the busy Old Shoreham Road, checking his phone for a message at every traffic light he stopped at. All the time thinking. Wondering where, just where she could be.

Nevill Road was almost a mile long, on the outskirts of the City of Brighton and Hove, running north from the Old Shoreham Road, passing the Greyhound Stadium, skirting the border of Hove Park, up to the edge of the city near the South Downs National Park.

Niall turned left at the lights, drove up past the school, then turned left again onto the driveway of their red-brick semi opposite the stadium. He pulled up a couple of yards in front of the motorcycle storage container which housed his Honda Fireblade – which Eden refused to ride on – and his equally cool Trek road bike. Checking his phone yet again – still no word – he climbed out and walked up to the brilliant-white front door, which he’d repainted, along with all the outside woodwork, during the plentiful free time he had these days. He went inside and called out, ‘Baby! I’m home!’

He was greeted by a pitiful miaow.

‘Eden?’ he called again, louder.

Another miaow. Even more pitiful. Reggie peered accusingly at him from the kitchen doorway. They’d named the platinum Burmese cat after the gangster Reggie Kray because the cat was, in their view, a vain bully but with huge charm and an insatiable greed. He also had a damned annoying miaow. Didn’t seem to matter how much or how often they fed the increasingly plump creature, he always wanted more. Some while back, Eden suggested they should have called him Oliver Twist. But that was lost on Niall.

As were the cat’s cries now.

But not the stench that greeted him.

Weren’t cats supposed to get the hang of peeing and pooping outside? Another thing he had blamed Eden for. She’d refused to let Reggie out for months after he’d had his jabs and his nuts removed, because they lived on a main road. When she’d finally allowed him out, it was strictly just in the back garden which they’d had cat-proofed as much as possible. As a result, Reggie now went out for hours on end, then hurried back indoors, through his flap, whenever he needed to do his business.

Hence the need, still, for cat litter.

Ignoring the creature’s cries, he checked out the living room, which was separated from the dining area by an archway. The chess game they were in the middle of sat on the coffee table, a white sofa either side. Suspiciously, he glanced at it, just in case she’d sneaked home to cheat and had removed another piece. He was already a rook down. But it was pretty much as he remembered. She was winning, as usual.

Calling out again, he hurried upstairs and into their bedroom, with its tented ceiling. Eden’s idea, when they had first moved in. She’d seen it in some designer magazine and thought it would be romantic to sleep in what she thought felt, sort of, like a Bedouin tent. Except you could now see dozens of dead flies through the fabric when the lights were on.