Dedication

To my three

PART ONE

Saturday, 7 March 2020

Look at him. I mean, just look. Baggy, out-of-date jeans with brown leather brogues that have not seen shoe polish in years, shirt untucked over his spreading stomach. It’s pathetic. No effort at all. Shabby. Second rate.

I’m doing nothing wrong. He deserves everything he gets.

Out he climbs, his car – not washed, of course – parked on the road outside under a flickering streetlamp. He pauses, checking over his shoulder that everything is all right.

It’s OK, he thinks, everything’s fine. He looks at the car. The kids are arguing in the back seat. One of them puts the interior light on, then off, then on again.

He hesitates outside the local shop. He’s about to go back and tell them, Stop it, you’ll break the light, but he pushes the door open and steps out of the early spring dark and into the shop.

He can leave them there, for a few minutes. The car’s unlocked – he doesn’t want the alarm to go off – but no harm will come to them. He won’t be in the shop long enough. His three-year-old daughter is buckled into a car seat, so she’s going nowhere. His five-year-old middle son is erratic and wilful, but he won’t get out of the car. He’ll be too scared, and if he tries his big brother – all of seven years old – will stop him. He’s sensible; a typical, rule-following first child.

So they’ll stay in the car. Safe.

Brother, brother, sister.

Daughter, son, son.

The lights of his life, no doubt. Annoying, at times, and hard work, but he loves them. He and his wife are blessed. Their children are the most important things in the world to them.

Yet he leaves them in a car on the road, unattended.

It’s not illegal. He probably knows that. He’s probably checked. The law allows you to leave children in a car provided there is no undue risk.

Which is exactly the point.

He thinks the risk is acceptable, so small as to be easily dismissed. He won’t be long, the kids won’t get out of the car and they can’t start it as he has the keys.

There are other sources of danger, of course – a runaway truck careering into the parked car and crushing it. An earthquake opening up a rift in the road underneath the car. A flash flood washing it and his children away.

All as near to impossible as makes no difference.

So he is right. The risk is small.