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as he crossed the threshold and left the family home. He’d been in a hurry. He hadn’t even checked his reflection in the hallway mirror. Dean had watched the exit from the top of the stairs.
    Dean was having trouble reconciling the shrivelled physical presence of this old man in front of him with the stories, hopes and hates that he’d carefully cultivated for a lifetime. The shadowy threat was a dying human being. There was no sign of horns. Dean resisted the urge to edge up the hospital sheet and check for claws or a tail, or any other physical manifestations of the Devil.
    As he’d turned from boy to man, Dean had stopped hankering after his father in the same pointless, heartbreaking way. He had been left with a void that he couldn’t fill with small details, so instead he stuffed the hollowness with the one big fact he was certain of: Eddie Taylor had left his wife, son and daughter and never contacted them again, not once in twenty-nine years. The longing had turned to resentment and then congealed into pure hatred.
    What was he doing here anyway? If Dean hated Eddie Taylor, it made little sense that he was here. If he didn’t hate him and was now indifferent towards him, it made even less sense. He hadn’t meant to come. It was all down to his PA, Lacey. After that nurse had called, he’d put down the phone and then sat at his desk intending that business should carry on as normal. Thank you for the information, but the life or death of Edward Taylor was of no interest to Dean Taylor.
    But Lacey, terminally bored with her job, had latched on to the crisis and made it into a full-scale, high-cost drama. She’d dashed into his office the moment the line went dead.
    â€˜I listened in,’ she’d stated, without any embarrassment or apology. Lacey was tiny; less than five foot. Everything about her was diminutive: her waist, her legs, her arms, the two notable exceptions being her big green eyes and her huge boobs. She was a walking, talking Manga cartoon, a doll every man wanted to play with, and as a consequence she’d never had to pay too much attention to details such as rules or propriety, as she was always met with indulgence. Indeed, Dean would have given her a quick go himself, if they’d met anywhere other than work. ‘I heard that nurse say your pop is, like, dying. I’m really so, so sorry.’ Her eyes had stretched an unfeasible fraction wider. Dean felt caught in headlamps.
    â€˜Right.’
    â€˜That is so awful.’
    â€˜If you say so.’
    Lacey paused; she’d watched enough trashy reality TV shows to recognise this moment. She hurried back to her desk, returning to Dean’s office just ten minutes later.
    â€˜OK, I’ve booked you on today’s 16:05 flight out from O’Hare. You’ll arrive at Heathrow at 5:55. I didn’t know which hotel to book. The usual one in Covent Garden, or would you like something nearer the hospital? Where is the hospital anyway? But England’s small, right? London’s even smaller. Wherever I book for you is going to be reasonably convenient, yeah?’
    â€˜What?’ Dean had gawped at his PA in bewilderment.
    â€˜The 16:05 gives you plenty of time to go home now, throw a few things in a holdall and get over to the airport.’
    â€˜I’m not going to London.’ Dean had turned purposefully back to his screen, no longer able to hold Lacey’s gaze.
    â€˜Of course you are. Your father is dying.’
    â€˜He doesn’t need me for that.’ Dean could not stop himself adding, ‘He didn’t need me for living.’
    If he had thought about it for a moment, he might have guessed that Lacey would relish this insight into her boss’s more sensitive side. She knew more about his private life than was strictly professional; she’d often had to take calls from disappointed women who had hoped Dean really would call them as he’d said