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sort this out for us, sweetheart. Don’t you worry.’

THREE
KATE
    T he bomb dropped from above, a direct hit that crushed my ribs and expelled the air from my stomach in one painful gasp.
    ‘ Dadeeee! ’ the bomb cried, slithering off my belly and snuggling with a wriggle of limbs into the warm gap between my left arm and now-aching torso.
    Before responding I drew in an experimental lungful of air and slowly breathed it out again. I was surprised and relieved to discover that everything seemed to be working normally. With sleep-gummed eyes I squinted at the squirming creature in the crook of my arm, its fan of tousled, chestnut-brown hair shaking and bouncing as it burrowed into a more comfortable position.
    ‘Morning, trouble,’ I murmured.
    The tumble of chestnut locks suddenly jerked upright to reveal a sleep-creased little face. ‘I’m not trouble!’ a voice piped up indignantly. ‘ You’re trouble!’
    ‘I don’t dive-bomb people when they’re asleep,’ I pointed out.
    The face pushed itself into mine. ‘It’s time to get up,’ it argued. ‘Time to get ready for school .’ Then the face recoiled, its nose crinkling. ‘Poo, Daddy, you smell .’
    Reaching across to my bedside table, I grabbed my phone, which I was using as an alarm clock. After talking to Candice the night before, I’d come home and – armed with a three-quarters-full bottle of Jack Daniels and a packet of Marlboro Lights – had sat out for God knows how long on the narrow balcony of the third-floor flat that I shared with Kate, my youngest daughter. Barely feeling the cold, I’d demolished the whisky and smoked most of the pack while staring unseeingly over the spiky, uneven Chiswick skyline, my conversation with Candice (and more to the point the promise I’d made her) circling in my head like some mad, clockwork toy. Finally, my guts acidic with alcohol and anxiety, and my throat raw and aching with tobacco, I’d staggered to my little bedroom next to the bathroom and collapsed into a restless, semi-drunken half-sleep, which I’d known even as I crawled under the duvet would leave me feeling more exhausted than rested.
    Sure enough, as my senses slowly returned, I became aware of just how groggily hungover I was. Kate was right; I did stink. Even I could tell that my breath smelled like a fire-bombed distillery. I needed several pints of water, a bucket of painkillers, a hot shower and about a gallon of coffee before I’d begin to feel even remotely human again. I could have done with another twenty minutes to groan myself out of bed too, but there was no chance of that with Kate around. My five-year-old daughter was like a mad, clockwork toy herself, full of frantic energy, especially first thing in the morning when she’d just had her batteries recharged with ten or twelve hours of the kind of blissful sleep that only kids can enjoy. In a minute she’d be bouncing up and down, demanding her breakfast, after which I’d have to coax her to wash her face, and get dressed, and brush her teeth and hair, whilst at the same time trying to get my own thoughts in order for the day ahead.
    Every week-day morning started like this. It was stressful, frustrating and madcap, but even with that day’s added misery of a dozen pneumatic drills hammering in my skull, I wouldn’t have changed it for the world. Kate was a handful, but what she took out of me in terms of energy, time and patience, she gave back a million times over in love, joy and laughter. I don’t want to sound like a soppy, gushing idiot, but the bottom line is that she gave my life meaning in all sorts of ways – any parent worth their salt will know exactly what I mean. There’s nothing as fierce as the love you feel for your child, and the fact that I was effectively the only parent that Kate had, that I was her sole guardian and protector, intensified those feelings still further.
    Checking my phone, I saw it was 6.53 a.m., only seven minutes before my alarm