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of the dancing mat like he’ssquashing an insect the size of a locust. The paused dragon on the plasma jerks into life.
    I leave to the strains of early Take That. I don’t see Maria. By the side of the front door there’s a big photo of the late Callum, framed in black. I didn’t notice it on the way in. Callum – big-boned, prominent jaw and brow, with a shaved-sides haircut uncomfortably close to a mullet and wearing a padded check shirt that looks like it’s been ironed – stares out at me with a sort of leery scowl.
    I let myself out.
    Somewhere in the house, a tiny-sounding dog is barking hysterically.

3
 
     
    It’s only ten minutes from Hill House to my mum and dad’s. I like driving the wee Ka, even though it does seem a bit small now; I passed my test in one of these all those years ago and it’s sort of nostalgic.
    I say all those years; it’s eight going on nine, but while that feels like half my proper conscious life – you’re not fully formed when you’re a kid, are you? – it’s starting to feel like not all that long really. Maybe this is because I spend a lot of time around older people. Secretaries and office juniors aside, the other guys in the firm are all senior to me. Anyway, it’s funny how your perspective changes as you age.
    There are some frankly embarrassing tears from my mum when I get to my parents’ place, and a fairly long hug from my dad. I am heartily congratulated on my promotion to partner level, though I make clear it’s just junior partner level, not equity. My folks – Al and Morven – live in Nisk, just outside the old town, in a granite semi somewhere between modest and comfortably off, on a leafy street largely the territory of Mercs and BMWs. Dad always used to drive a Saab – for the engineering, apparently – but these days he’s an Audi man.
    ‘Andwhat have you brought, eh? Something flash, eh?’ he asks, going to the lounge windows to see what’s in the driveway, once things have settled down a bit and the tears and hugs are out of the way. Mum’s gone to clatter some tea and cakes out of the kitchen, still sniffing (it’s not as though they haven’t seen me since I left; they’ve been to London loads over the last five years and they stayed in my flat this summer when they were flying out to Orlando). ‘Oh,’ Dad says, when he sees the boring blue Ka. He looks at me. ‘You gone all green or something?’
    ‘Yeah,’ I tell him. ‘Thought I’d save the planet personally so you guys don’t have to.’
    Actually I did think of hiring something bigger at the airport, something people would be impressed with as I swept into town, and I was all pumped to get a Mondeo at least, maybe even a Jag or something, but then I thought that might look a bit too flash in the circumstances. I’m not really rich yet, though I get to live like I’m rich, on expenses and with a mortgage on the flat in Stepney. Plus there’s that thing about flaunting it; people are still a bit old-fashioned that way up here, despite everything. Still a bit old-fashioned about a lot of things, frankly. Plus I had to think about what people like the Murstons might think if I looked like I was rubbing their noses in how I’d landed on my feet after getting run out of town. Mr M especially. Five years ago this would never have occurred to me, but I’m mature now.
    Anyway, when I landed at Dyce this afternoon, the Ka is what I went for. Aberdeen looked even bigger from the air than I remembered, and you could see the line of the new bypass. Dyce was the usual cramped chaos, and very helicoptery.
    Dad just makes that sort of huffing, snorting sound he does, which is his equivalent of ‘Aye, right.’ He’s a ginge, like me, though he’s a good bit shorter, sort of bulkier, and his eyes are brown, not green like mine. His hair’s gone darker and straighter over the years and he keeps it shorter than he used to. Beginning to lose it on top, but then what do you expect in your