Elliot saw the cottage as he rounded the bend and it looked as miserable as ever. Cynthia Hughes never felt she had the authority to sell the place, so she had rented it out, but it had stood empty ever since her death. Elliot wanted nothing to do with it and had abandoned it, perhaps as pathetic retaliation for his own abandonment. As he neared the building, all the old feelings surged. He wanted to feel his mother’s loving embrace and hear her tell him everything would be OK. He longed to be with his father and ask why he’d abandoned his only son.

A lump grew in his throat as he thought of all the things he would say to his parents, all the moments that were stolen from him, and how fate, ill fortune, or the malevolence of one man had conspired to leave him utterly alone.

Elliot parked on the lane and jogged towards the cottage with his hood up, trying to shield himself from the worst of the rain. He pushed open the creaking gate and hurried up the drive. The dead house exuded loss. There were times when Elliot wondered whether he should have it torn down, but now he thought there was no need. The years and the elements would do the job. The windows were intact, but the pointing in the brickwork was crumbling and coming away in places. Any paint had been attacked by the seasons and was faded and flaked, and there were splits in all the door and window frames.

Elliot walked around the back of the house and took out the keys he’d retrieved from Cynthia’s – his – kitchen, but he didn’t need them. When he reached the back door, he saw it was ajar.

Where else would a recently released prisoner go? Elliot asked himself.

Something had told him Ben would come here. He prayed the man was still inside. A confrontation was overdue.

He pushed the door and crept into the damp utility room. He entered the large kitchen and found only empty units, a rusting Aga and the ghosts of his past, bubbling memories of the weird lectures Ben used to deliver over hastily prepared meals of beans on toast.

Elliot went on, and moved through the rest of the house, but it was empty and there was no sign of Ben Elmys anywhere. Elliot lingered in his old bedroom at the front of the house. It had been converted into a study by one of the former tenants, but was now empty. His eyes welled up as he imagined all the family moments that were fading with time. Of his mum and dad tucking him in, reading him bedtime stories, a tender happy history being consumed by passing seconds. His strongest memories were of his months with Ben, and even they seemed faded, patchy and unreal.

There was always one interaction he could recall clearly; the night his dad had given him his mother’s necklace. He pulled it from beneath his hooded top and studied it now, tracing the embossing with his fingertip. Elliot remembered how he had tried to be brave when his dad had given it to him, but once he was alone, he’d clasped the necklace and cried most of the night. He had put it on the next day and hadn’t taken it off since. It was a permanent connection to his lost parents, and for all the faded memories, Elliot thought the night his father gave him the necklace was something he’d never forget. The following morning was the last time he’d ever seen the man.