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afternoon sunlight. The few hours had taken little of the day’s intense heat away, and Shane couldn’t wait to get out of it. He followed Catherine down the busy high street packed with shoppers all heading to one of two places; the bus station or the large car park that was now opposite it.
    The cut throbbed dully as they walked through the rows of bus lanes. Shane cursed one piece of regeneration that had happened to the old station. Throughout his childhood a colossal multi storey car park had stood directly above the bus stands, shading them from direct sunlight. He squinted in the bright sunlight, annoyed that he would have to stand in the heat, waiting for a filthy bus to catch back to Manningtree. Furthermore, he knew they would have to get yet another one from that disgusting little town to Brantham. He doubted the public transport was any more reliable or frequent than it used to be.
    “What’s that look for?” she asked, watching him. “Is this a bit of modernisation that you don’t approve of?”
    “Do we have to get the bus?” Shane asked, ignoring her question. Already, hordes of hyperactive children and their mothers laden with bags of shopping were waiting for the bus.
    “Yes,” Catherine nodded.
    Out of the corner of his eye he saw a taxi pull up outside the ancient greasy spoon café that still festered where he had last seen it. He waved his hand to the driver who shook his head.
    “Sorry mate, I’m on me break,” he shouted.
    “I’ll give you an extra twenty pounds!” Shane called back without hesitation. He was used to getting what he wanted and smiled triumphantly when the taxi driver beckoned him over to his cab. “Come on, Catherine, we’re getting a taxi.”
    Catherine rolled her eyes and reluctantly followed Shane.
    “I would have thought you would be familiar with public transport, what with all the underground and metro systems you must have been on.”
    “Yes, I have been on numerous metro systems all around the world, New York, London, Paris, even Kiev, and all of them, even Kiev, are more frequent, comfortable, and reliable than the bus services around here!”
    The taxi driver, a middle-aged man with brown-framed, thick-rimmed glasses eyed Shane with a hint of recognition.
    “Do I know you mate? Wait– aren’t you famous?”
    Shane wound down the window. The car smelt strongly of cigarettes. As he turned to answer the driver he noticed a ‘No Smoking’ sign.
    “No, you don’t know me, and no, I’m not famous. Brantham village please.”
    As they drove through the outskirts of Colchester and in to the Essex countryside, Shane thought about the image of the blind woman with her eyes sewn shut. He had a peculiar feeling it had something to do with his friends, but it was such an obtuse vision he couldn’t see why or how they fitted together.
    Whenever he came home or thought about his childhood, he couldn’t help considering what had happened to his friends twenty years previously. He was curious about the repercussions of what would’ve happened if he could remember.
    The story had been in all the papers years before he became a politician. Reporters swamped Brantham and quizzed the families of the missing boys but they only dredged up feelings of resentment and sadness.
    These days, if he remembered what happened, he would have to suffer a tremendous amount of sceptical media attention. What if it turned out he was to blame for their disappearance, or their deaths? Would he be willing to incriminate himself?
    The passing scenery didn’t change until they approached a village called Lawford, where long and tall glasshouses in rows upon rows, growing all types of fresh produce, filled almost every field. The only field they passed that didn’t have glasshouses in was covered in lettuces; Shane could make out the bright yellow waterproof trousers of a sole worker hacking away in the sea of green.
    The taxi drove through Lawford and down Cox’s Hill towards the