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your dead-end job can support you in the real world.’
    Is that the best you can do?
    He looks … old.
    â€˜Yeah, you’d like that, wouldn’t you? Leave you here with Momma, so you can bully her into submission without anyone to stop you. You’d better get used to it, General. I’m not going anywhere. Unless you think you’re strong enough to throw me out.’
    He stares at me for a moment longer, then turns and leaves the room.
    My mother stands looking at me, shaking her head.
    â€˜Oh, Cain,’ she whispers, then follows him out of the room.
    The clock in the hall chimes seven, and in the street outside, Dusan’s SX squeals to a halt. I listen to the engine bubbling and the music thumping until he kills the ignition. The car-door slams and the alarm activates.
    I grab my jacket from the coat-rack by the front door as I leave the house.

Eight
Debris
    Two o’clock.
    The moon is brilliant, almost full and suspended halfway between the roofline and the top of the sky. For once the stars shine sharply against the backdrop of the night, defying the ambient glow of the city.
    Staring out of the window, T.J. lies propped up on three pillows, waiting for sleep to come but knowing it is hopeless.
    In the next room Ty lies sleeping and she fights the instinct to go and check that he is still breathing. Two years, and still at times the irrational fear surfaces, usually at night when the house is quiet and the chaos of the day subsides, so that there is nothing to distract her imagination from its darkest machinations.
    But this time it is not Ty who keeps her awake.
    Unconsciously, she touches her lips with the tips of her fingers, remembering his kiss …
    The noise, when it comes, is slight – a soft scuffing of shoes on the boards of the veranda, a chair moved a fraction. Not enough to wake a sleeping person, but in the silence of the early dark it is distinct, and a sudden fear closes like a cold hand around her chest.
    Sliding silently out of bed, she makes her way carefully out through the bedroom door and down the passage to her son’s room.
    In the light from the moon, Tyson is sleeping, his thumb in his mouth, his tee-shirt gathered up around his chest and his back exposed. She takes a step towards the cot, then freezes as the shadow passes in front of the window. A tearing sound and she is galvanised into action.
    Without removing her eyes from the direction of the threat, she reaches behind her for the switch and the room is suddenly alive. Then she is at the cot, picking up the sleeping child, who stirs but doesn’t wake.
    Holding him close to her chest, she stands, staring at the window. The shadow has moved away from her line of sight, but she can hear his footsteps on the floorboards outside. He is no longer attempting to be quiet. One of the veranda chairs topples with a crash into her mother’s planter-stand, as the intruder leaps the rail into the garden beneath. His retreat is accompanied by a chorus of barks from the dogs next door.
    T.J. releases the breath she has been holding. Her legs are frozen to the spot and she fears she has squeezed the boy too tightly, but he sleeps still, undisturbed by her fear, wriggling into a more comfortable position against her shoulder.
    â€˜Mum!’
    The voice is hers, but she hears the scream as if from a distance. The child in her arms jumps with shock. Tears are spilling from her eyes and her vision is blurred.
    â€˜Mum! Come here … Please …’
    Outside, a single cloud drifts across the face of the moon and the barking chorus is picked up by a dog across the street.
    As her mother appears in the doorway, hair sleep-tangled, eyes struggling with the light, T.J. turns towards her.
    â€˜He was here. I heard him. Mum, he was coming for Ty …’
    *
    T.J.’s story
    The police were there in minutes. They were sympathetic, comforting and totally helpless to do anything.
    Did I see his face?