“Of course they did.” I could hear Cassie’s smile. Could see her perfect, ivory teeth, which were impervious to stain. I wondered if her cravings were still as bad as mine. If so, she hid them well. Seemed to get high off motherhood instead. Her fix coming from morning cuddles, nightly baths, and innocent ‘I love yous’.

For me, fatherhood had felt more like a constant come down.

“I’m so happy you were able to do that,” Cassie said. “You needed it.”

The fog of cigarette smoke was thick, but not enough to account for the stinging wetness in my eyes. “Yeah, well.…”

“So, how much later will you be out? I mean, how are you holding up?”

I peered through the dregs of soda water to the bottom of my glass. The burgundy floor was a dime-shaped blur. A hungry black hole with a gravity field that would never stop pulling until it sucked me back in, leaving only a burp behind.

I uncupped my mouth and spoke louder than necessary so that Caspian could hear me. “Yeah, I can shut it down. I’ll be—”

His hand shot out like an angry mongoose and snatched the phone. “Is this the lovely Cassie Wheeler? How are you, my dear?”

The prick’s smile looked menacing. Abusive, if such a thing could be said of a smile. He had tried to fuck Cassie twice that I knew about. The first time I decked him in the mouth, starting a fight that lasted twenty furious seconds and left us both lumpy and smeared with blood. We went out boozing the following night and ended it with our arms around each other. The second time Caspian had just shrugged as if to say, ‘What do you expect?’ We skipped the brawl that time and went straight for the reconciliatory booze – on Caspian’s tab. It was his backwards way of saying he was sorry. He’d probably tried more times than that, and Cassie just hadn’t said anything. With men like Lance Caspian, there wasn’t much point. He did it less out of lust than spite.

Caspian’s eyes glazed over while listening to whatever Cassie had to say. “Look here, love. The dead don’t rest. This is a once-every-decade deal we’re working on right now, and I got to break the ball from the chain. Your boy’s doing lovely, you have nothing to worry about. We’ll send him home safe and sound and you two can get back to the exciting, spontaneous life of raising toddlers. Okay? Ciao.”

He disconnected the phone and stuffed it down his back pocket.

“Dude,” I said.

Caspian held out his hand and shook his head. “Nope. Mate, I’m saving you from yourself.”

The girl who had flashed me walked up then. And, with a sixth sense acquired at birth, Caspian moved aside and let her through.

Chapter Three

Chapter Three