I grab my bag and make for the front door—walking, not running, though I’d like to. No one has ever said so, but I assume running would be forbidden in my brother’s house.

I wait for Melissa to call me back.

Nothing.

Pulling open the front door and breathing in the loud exhaust-fume air feels like being saved. It’s a good feeling.

I don’t want to die.

I’m halfway to my car when a familiar face stops me: the man from the school playground, with the streaked hair and the blue BMW. Smoking a cigarette and leaning against his car, which is parked opposite mine—directly across the road from Melissa’s house.

Flash Dad from Freeth Lane School in Spilling. In Highgate, North London. What the hell is he doing here? Did he . . . ? He can’t have followed me. Why would he?

I can’t think of any other explanation for his presence.

That’s when I notice his car registration . . . It’s the same BMW I saw behind me, too close behind, when I was driving home after crashing the side mirror off my car. That was him.

He’s getting into his car. In a hurry, cigarette dropped, half smoked, on the pavement.

I don’t think he expected me to reappear so soon.

Seeing him move quickly jolts me out of my shocked stillness. I start to run toward him. I might have changed my mind about throwing myself under a train, but I’d risk putting myself in front of his wheels if it’d give me the chance to ask him what the hell he thinks he’s doing.

I’m not fast enough. He’s gone in a screech of tires before I’m halfway across the street.

From: Mr. Jugs <[email protected]>

Date: Tue, July 2, 2013 15:47:08

To: <[email protected]>

Subject: Re: Distress signal

Nicki,

Forgive me. I don’t know if you understand, or misunderstand, the full extent of what I’m asking you to forgive me for, but . . . forgive me.

I would forgive you anything.

I will even forgive Damon Blundy for being a bad man, if you ask me to. Evil is a strong word, but I do believe he was toxic. I assume it’s all right for us to disagree about this?

The only person I know whom I can never forgive is my wife. I’ve never told anybody this, but shortly after we got married, I found out something about her that I couldn’t get past. (No, it wasn’t that she’d cheated on me. She’s never done that.) I pretended to forgive her, but I never truly could, and in my heart I knew things were irreparable between us from that moment on.

If she righted the wrong of her own accord, without prompting by me, then maybe . . . but I know she never will.