He watched her heading inside. Despite the bizarre outcome of their journey, he felt a contentment he’d never believed he’d recapture. In fact, as he imagined her in her own small space, mouthing those words she found so calming, he began to feel a happiness greater than any he could remember. He restarted the playlist and lowered the volume to no more than the comforting embrace of long-loved sounds. He wound down his window a few inches to allow the night air of early summer to gently fan him, switched off the interior light, lay back in his seat and closed his eyes.

Twenty-five minutes later, she headed back towards the car, a skip in her stride and a gladness in her heart. Yes, he was fun – and gentle. Perhaps over-protective but she’d drum that out of him. It would be good to wipe the slate clean and spend more time with him, whatever disapproval she might face – though, she was somehow sure, not from her father. As for anything more, the stars above and the river of time below would decide.

She neared the car, hearing faint strains of Roy Orbison’s soaring voice and thought back to Patrick singing along in the morning. She smiled.

She opened the door, slid in beside him, and sighed with a warming tiredness. She’d allow him a minute or two more in the darkness to sleep. Only faint echoes from the motorway services broke through the silence. Time to rouse him. ‘I found a nice little spot,’ she said. He didn’t answer. ‘Time to wake up and go, Patrick.’ Still no answer.

She stretched out the back of a hand to stroke his cheek and nudge him – allow him an easy awakening. She felt an odd softness, some kind of liquid oozing through her fingers. She pushed her hand harder against his head; it seemed to drop, the flow of liquid to increase. She recoiled, felt for the internal light, switched it on and turned back to him.

‘No… no… no,’ she whispered, shuddering.

She closed her eyes for a second, then forced herself to open them. He was slumped, his neck and head propped on the right top of the seat back, wedged against the window. A livid, blackened oval hole disfigured his left temple and cheek, blood leeching from it. Pink and red fragments were scattered over his clothes and seat – bloodied flesh and bones. She felt her hands and looked down at her clothes. The blood was seeping over her and her seat too.

She leapt out of the car, repeatedly screaming ‘Help!’ in the darkness, and walked round to the driver’s door, hoping that if she opened it, some miracle would show that most of him was intact. As she pulled it ajar, his body started to lean outwards. She pushed herself against him. In his right temple she saw another hole, smaller, neater, the entry point of death.