It has been 18 months in the making, but I can feel the novel coming together. The third draft is underway and recent work has involved the painful cull of my first chapter (too laboured), weaving some of that chapter’s better bits into later narrative, and replacing it with a new prologue (below). Any views on the new prologue are welcomed!

[Prologue]

A monk draped in ochre swept the earth surrounding the ancient fig, the gentle rush of the broom providing comfort in the pink dawn. At the centre of the temple complex, the tree, broad and gnarled, stretched its twisted branches and roots. Prayer flags on white rope draped around the tree’s girth and lotus flowers lay at the feet of the jumbled trunk. Once his task was done, the elderly monk gathered the offerings and moved them out of harm’s way while the breeze played among the leaves above.

The ceremony by which four cuttings were to be taken from the old fig would begin at dusk. Nascent, healthy branches no more than a few inches long would be selected by the head of their order, cut from the tree and planted in clay pots painted the colours of the compass. In time, the cuttings would take root and start their separate journeys across the land. The Bodhi tree had brought the monastery, and the community it served, good fortune; it was hoped its progeny would also bless the temples for which they were destined.

The night’s gifts of leaves, twigs and dead cicadas brushed aside, the monk allowed himself a few moments of stillness. This was his time, after first prayers and before work began in earnest, when he was alone with the great tree. For most, the tree was an unchanging presence at the centre of temple life and a towering symbol to be revered. He remembered entering the courtyard as a novice, a child of five years rescued from the streets by a kindly, old face, and seeing the tree for the first time. In that moment the tree grew until he was aware of nothing else in the world; it was the start of something new, something good. From that day they were silent companions, and as time turned the monk observed changes in the tree no one else was able to see. When the winds rose, as they often did, the tree held itself close so as not to surrender its thick leaves. In his tenth year, a great fire scorched the temple reducing everything that wasn’t stone to ash, yet the tree survived: its bark was soaked although no one had thought to water it. The survival was proclaimed a miracle, but the monk believed something different.

On the morning before the cutting ceremony, the tree appeared taller and fuller, its leaves bristled with static, and the branches that now hung within easy reach had been inaccessible just the day before. When the leader of their order came to cleave specimens from the tree, his choice had already been decided. A bell tolled from within the shadows calling the monk away from his task. After he disappeared through a dark doorway, macaques of various sizes tumbled across the courtyard to investigate whether he’d left anything worth collecting behind. Above them, the tree’s leaves and limbs shook in the wind. The ancient fig started its life as a sapling full of promise planted in foreign soil. Now it was time for another journey to begin.

The man lounged unpleasantly in a low armchair, the seat’s buttoned-tweed just visible beneath his considerable form. A cummerbund of pale flesh lay above what was once a waist, leaving his mustard shirt tails to flap like spaniel’s ears. He cupped the back of his bald head, thrusting his belly further into the room, a posture that, we agreed later, was almost certainly designed to intimidate the three of us crowded together on the opposing sofa.

Professor Perkins, celebrated tutor, college fellow, esteemed academic, had spoken just two words since we knocked on the door to his attic room at the top of the narrow, wooden staircase. We were bidden, monosyllabically, to ‘Enter’, by his disgruntled, disembodied voice, and then to, ‘Sit’, by the man now before us. In staggered silence, we each removed from our backpacks pads of paper and binders of notes diligently taken over the course of the week, while he watched with an expression of haughty surprise, as if our presence was an ongoing, personal affront. Our preparations complete, the Professor dabbed at a glaze of sweat on his brow and consulted the lined notebook that lay open on the table to the right of his chair.

‘I take it that you are Campbell, Flint and Harvey’ he said, piggish eyes moving between us.

We confirmed in unison that we were those unfortunate individuals and waited to be asked to speak again. The room was too warm, its bolted windows permitting no relief from the late summer heat, which was celebrated by our peers reclining in the quad below, their voices and laughter audible through the glass, drinks in hand, rousing conversation darting back and forth, smiling faces bathing in the warm sun. Such glorious freedom was not for us, at least not for the next two hours while we faced our first tutorial. I’d completed the required reading and knew the elements of a crime as intimately as those new friends made hastily over the course of the last few weeks; the new concepts had been chewed, swallowed, digested and regurgitated many times over and the Latinate terms rolled around the mind and mouth as I tried to avoid any mispronunciation that would expose my ignorance, my background, and cast doubt on my right to be an Oxford student. It was a feeling that fluctuated during my years within those hallowed walls, but never entirely went away.

The mass across the room shifted and sheaves of paper were extracted from some recess hidden from view. He glanced down at the pages, our essays, hand written and held together, as requested, with treasury tags, and emitted a snort before casting the work at our feet and uttering the unforgettable words,

‘Flint, read your essay aloud until I tire of that Northern accent.’

After I lay down in bed at night, in that fractional moment between wide-awake and the onset of sleep, that’s where I saw her.

Her features were clear and, from the very first time, familiar, as if they belonged to the face of my own sister. I didn’t recognise her, and I still don’t know her now, although I’ve seen that face almost every night for over six months. She isn’t a friend, current or long-lost, or a colleague; and, I’m pretty sure she’s not from the internet or the TV.

I thought about whether she was simply an amalgamation of random features plucked from the multitude of faces I see every day; just a construct. That, if you took the button nose of the Romanian girl who made my coffee down by the river, and added the mouth of that woman who bit her lip as she read on the tube, and then cobbled them together with the slightly pointed ears and tiny lobes of that girl wearing sneaker-shaped earrings at that club (or was it that gig?), you’d end up with her face. I can’t accept that. She’s not a facsimile. She’s real. And for so long she wanted to tell me something.

When it all started, I confided in my boyfriend.

‘You saw what?’ he said.

‘A girl’s face, just as I closed my eyes. She looked right at me.’

‘You were obviously asleep; dreaming or something.’

‘I wasn’t dreaming and I don’t really know about the “or something”.’

I see red when he doesn’t believe me.

‘How can you know you weren’t dreaming?’

‘Because it has happened more than once. Actually, it has happened almost every night for two weeks now.’

‘Recurring dream. Definitely. Had tonnes of them when I was a kid. Listen to this one: there was this monster, your stereotypical alien, right, green, weird frond-like hands, bulbous eyes on stalks, used to live in the back garden of the girl who lived across the street. In my dream, now listen to this, it is fucked up, I had to visit the garden every night, once my family and neighbours were asleep, and tickle him, tickle his feet, or else he’d eat me, and everyone else. I can still hear his dirty chuckle. It was so weird. I had that dream for months. Fucked up, right?’

I stared at him, blankly, and took a slow breath before responding.

‘That is weird. You should speak to someone about that. But you’re not listening to me. I’ve had my share of recurring dreams and crazy nightmares. I remember an outstretched palm hovering millimetres above a hypodermic needle, set against a neon pink sunset, no movement, downwards or otherwise, just the threat of it. Had that one for weeks, but I’ve never had a fear of needles: what’s that about? I am not talking about the shit our subconscious spits out, Mike. When you were a kid you knew that your pervert monster was just a dream, even if you believed that monsters might exist, before later even ruling that out. That’s the difference: I know I’m not dreaming when I see her; I know she exists.’

It was his turn to stare back at me.

‘So, what, this girl is, like, hovering over your bed at night, fluttering her lashes, nightgown quivering in the breeze?’

‘Hardly,’ I said, starting to lose my patience, ‘you know what, it doesn’t matter. Forget I said anything.’

After the first few weeks, I moved from having a vague impression of her face to seeing the whole and then noticing its subtler details. For a start, her eyes were violet. Now, I’d never seen a girl with eyes like that before, outside of a club: I started to doubt even my own sanity. But they were there the next night, still unmistakeably purple, and scrutinizing me from below raised, slender brows. Her hair was dark, brown or black, I could never tell for sure.

Once it was clear that she wasn’t going anywhere, I asked what she wanted and why she had chosen me. When I say “asked”, I mean I posited the questions in my head each time she appeared with a vague hope that she’d be able to read my thoughts. She too tried to reach me, her eyes blazing with the effort and frustration of wordless communication. Her mouth was always shut, voice and words trapped within. Eventually, I decided that something or someone was preventing her from speaking out and my imagination crawled over every disturbing scenario, picturing dank basements and serial killer captors: I couldn’t stop thinking about what she might be going through.

As the months passed, so the desperation behind her eyes increased, but lying in the comfort of my bed I was helpless in the face of her struggle. I wanted to see her, to offer any support I could, even though the nightly encounters started to take their toll. And then, about a month ago, where there had been once been fight and anger, I saw resignation in her eyes.

It broke my heart.

She hasn’t appeared for over two weeks. Darkness, each night. She’s never stayed away this long before. I don’t know what to think or even what to feel. Perhaps she’s simply moved on, abandoning me in the hope of reaching someone else. I want that to be true, but I can’t shake that worst-case-scenario feeling.

How do you grieve for someone you’ve never spoken to, whose name you don’t even know? I can’t rationalise the loss, but I still feel it. I’ve left her down. I should have done more to help, but what could I have done?

Last night, as I closed my eyes in readiness for sleep, a new face appeared, where once there was only her.

My novelette, February Sun, is now available to purchase on Amazon Kindle! 

Here’s the blurb:

Leaving all that you know behind and reaching for the life you want is rarely easy. Eddie and Kate wanted to start a new life together, away from the town they had outgrown and the family that wanted to keep them apart. But once you’ve moved on, there’s no going back, no matter what happens. 

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Many thanks to Postcard Shorts for publishing my piece of flash fiction inspired by the anniversary of the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami: http://www.postcardshorts.com/read-2048.html

His death made all of the front pages, the headlines dripping with hyperbole regardless of the paper’s supposed quality. I arranged for copies of the morning’s papers to be gathered for review over breakfast and read the stories with barely concealed pleasure. Of course, they all differed in the telling, some had managed to glean additional information from the investigating officers or members of the family, others speculated wildly about potential motives. But whatever the angle, they all got one key fact wrong. It wasn’t a bungled burglary: our father was always meant to die that night.

My name is Charles Alexander Kindersley, son of the late, great Sir Rupert Kindersley, and, with my twin sister Rebecca, joint heir to his fortune. Prior to recent well-publicised events, you wouldn’t have heard of me or my sister, you’d even be forgiven for not knowing that Sir Rupert had any children. In public he scarcely acted like he had any family at all.

For those of you privileged not to know my father, I offer a few details of his life and innumerable accomplishments. Son of the British ambassador to France and his American wife, Rupert Kindersley was born in Paris in 1950. After attending prep school at a prestigious international academy, Rupert boarded at Marlborough College where he excelled academically and, amongst other impressive extracurricular triumphs, captained the first eight (a feat I could never hope to emulate). Like his father before him, Rupert went up to Caius, Cambridge, and took a First in Classics. After four fruitful years at university, my father joined a leading merchant bank in London and climbed the corporate ladder with easy success. He later obtained an MBA from Princeton and went on to establish his own, eponymous, hedge fund, drawing on financial support from the right sort of contacts across the City, and within a few short years made his first billion. Knight Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire followed. Most impressive.

Business leader, government adviser and committed philanthropist: all worthy epithets used to describe my father during his life and after his death. To the list, I’d add the following: serial philanderer, borderline alcoholic and absent father, although you won’t find such labels in The Times obituary. My father, the man credited with saving the lives of a generation of Ugandan children following an endowment of the Kindersley Africa Foundation, worked every Christmas Day for the first ten years of our lives. My father, special envoy to the UN on entrepreneurship and fiscal policy, refused to eat at the same table as my sister after she told him that she’d fallen in love with a woman. My father the man who, after launching an apprenticeship scheme at his company for underprivileged children from inner London, got so drunk that when he got home and tumbled into bed his flailing fist broke my sleeping mother’s nose. It was her birthday and he’d missed dinner.

I wish I was making this shit up.

My sister Rebecca and I were always close, despite our parents’ various attempts to keep us distanced. We had different nannies, were sent separate boarding schools, even holidays in Europe taken apart. I still don’t fully understand why they sought to drive a wedge between us. Despite this, or perhaps because of it, we took every opportunity to feed and strengthen our relationship. We wrote every day during the school term; long, agonisingly detailed letters recounting the banal events of our tiny days. Over the years, letters were replaced with texts and emails, making our task easier. We learned to conceal this closeness from our parents, giving them no reason to think we were other than sibling acquaintances. Satisfied that their goal had been achieved, their attention to this task waned and we grew ever closer. After school, we went off to university. Against my father’s wishes, I read English Literature at York (he barely spoke with me after I made this choice), whilst my sister went to London to study Social Policy. We took turns visiting each other almost every weekend.

If you caught any of the news coverage, you will know that Rebecca and I are uncommonly similar in appearance, even though we are, of course, non-identical. We are tall, lean and strong-jawed like our father, but with our mother’s warm-toned skin and auburn hair. Our father’s pallor and bristled black hair made for quite a contrast in the few family portraits that were taken during our childhood as his corner of the picture looked to have been taken using black and white film. Aside from our looks and love for each other, as siblings we shared very little in common. When we were about eight years old and home at the same time, we snatched a rare moment of play and found an injured field mouse by the lichen-spotted stone sink in a darkened corner of the garden. I was frightened and wanted to kill the mouse, but Rebecca stopped me and nursed the creature back to health with nuts and milk taken from the pantry. When we were young, she always had an innate sense of justice and couldn’t help but intervene when she saw a wrong to be righted. I used to envy her those traits, but later I saw it for what it really was: weakness. I always thought that I was chosen for our father’s attention because I was stronger, somehow more able to cope.

For all our father’s money, we lived quite modestly. Although I can’t remember going without anything, and I’d seen much of the world by the time I was fifteen, I don’t believe we were spoiled. Rebecca, however, couldn’t understand why our father was so willing to compromise his family life if we didn’t see the pickings of his hard work. I couldn’t reconcile this sense of entitlement with my vision of Rebecca the do-gooder. Whatever the project, building an orphanage or helping a strapped-for-cash friend, she always expected our father to act the banker and time after time my father indulged her. I don’t know what made him respond to her that way, what she did for him that I didn’t.

When Rebecca met her girlfriend Miranda everything changed. For months I had been avoiding both of my parents scrupulously, leaving calls unreturned and ignoring callously my mother’s plaintive texts. My father had been away for much of the year on business, although his more expansive definition of the term included time with his mistress in New York, and the helpless woman was lonely. However, my sister summoned us for dinner at the family home under the pretence of celebrating her birthday, just the four of us. My first reaction had been to turn down the invitation, but Rebecca pleaded with me to attend and I relented. I hadn’t been to my parents’ house in several years. In fact, my last visit had been to take our dying grey tabby to the vet and I scarcely put a foot over the threshold when I collected the pitiable creature. The detached Georgian townhouse had been the family home, the place where we grew up and would return to during the school holidays, but my memory of the house never quite matched its reality.

My father was running late so Rebecca and I took turns mixing cocktails and exchanging pleasantries with our mother who seemed a little overwhelmed by our combined presence. The food was delivered before father got home (none of us had the slightest interest in cooking), so we kept the carefully wrapped parcels of food warm in the oven. Sir Rupert arrived a little after 9 p.m. and after a couple of quick, large tumblers of whisky in the seclusion of his study, he was ready to face dinner with his wife and children. We ate at the long dining table, one of us at each point of the compass, all of us picking at our food while we took turns at keeping the threadbare conversation ticking along. I’d been suspicious of Rebecca’s reasons for gathering us together and as dinner tailed on I realised that she was building up to something. And then my father, rather uncharacteristically, asked about Rebecca’s work.

‘So how are the depressed and down-trodden of London, Rebecca?’

‘Well, they’re usually more than just a little down-trodden, father. They tend to be homeless and most of them face issues daily that we around this table could barely understand. But, work at the shelter is going very well. Thank you for asking. Actually, my work is sort of the reason I wanted you all to be here tonight…’

He didn’t wait for her to finish.

‘As I’ve told you many times, if the charity needs more funding please speak with Charlotte at the foundation. I might by your personal bank, but I am not the charity’s. There is a procedure in place for dealing with such requests, Rebecca. You of all people should know that.’

‘I am more than aware of that, thank you. And I am not looking for money. I wanted to talk to you, to all of you, about someone I’ve met. Someone who has become very dear to me recently. I want to tell you about Miranda.’

So my sister told us how Miranda had joined the charity just under a year earlier, that they’d become great friends and had, in time, fallen in love. To me, the news didn’t come as much of a shock: my sister had never expressed more than a passing interest in boys and had never had a serious relationship. In our early twenties, I thought she was asexual and would simply end up an old maid. I was pleased for her when she made her announcement. Our mother had, up until that point in the evening, been a passive presence at the dinner table, her eyes constantly wandering into empty space just beyond the edge of my vision. But she was listening now, her dark eyes glittering and trained on Rebecca, her face grey. My father squirmed in his high-backed chair, his face red and contorted.

‘And what do you expect me to do with that information? Just sit here and accept it? Accept that you are a homosexual?’

My sister was visibly crestfallen and there no sign of the animation that had, just a minute or two earlier, lit up her eager face. I don’t really know why she had expected anything different. My mother started a series of questions beginning with the words why, what, when, but failed to complete any of them. We then sat in heavy silence broken only by the sound of rapid, heavy breathing. I didn’t know where to look and I certainly didn’t know what to say. I gave my sister a wry smile that I intended as a show of support. Approximately 10 minutes passed before my father issued his ultimatum.

‘You are confused. This Miranda character has misled you. I want you to abandon this foolishness.’

‘I can’t do that, father; it’s not possible for me to just fall in line because you order it.’

‘You’ll do it, my girl.’

‘I’m not your girl, Dad. I have a job, a life, a partner: everything that you encouraged me, us, to achieve. I cannot live any other life.’

‘Well, if you’re so convinced that you can stand alone, then so be it. You’re on your own. No allowance, no donations, nothing. You understand that? And I can’t be in the same room as you if this is the choice you are making.’

He made to get up from the table. Rebecca’s response was characteristically instinctive and naïve. She folded her napkin and told him, calmly, that her choice was made and that he could keep his money. Then she left. I followed shortly after, hoping to catch up with her on the platform at Highgate, but she was nowhere to be seen.

I went back to my flat and slept. Over coffee the next day, I thought about the night before. I admired her stance, and understood that my father’s reaction was bigoted, irrational even, but I also knew that she was almost completely reliant on our father’s money and, despite her declaration, hadn’t yet figured out how to make her own or exist without it.

Initially she appeared to cope well, a budget was drawn up and she embarked upon her first hunt for a real job, one that would pay the bills and not just satisfy her childish quest for a just world. I knew something was wrong when, a few months later, I hadn’t heard from her in over two weeks. Not even a text. I couldn’t remember the last time we’d gone for so long without speaking. I was, of course, worried and clogged every conceivable inbox with increasingly panicked messages. Eventually she surfaced, arriving at my door just after 11:00 pm on a Sunday evening.

Over tea stirred with honey, Rebecca broke the news about her latest good cause. Until that night I knew very little about Miranda. We hadn’t spent any time together and I, for some reason, hadn’t questioned my sister’s reticence to share any details. I had also believed the version of events that Rebecca fed our parents over that ill-fated dinner. However, whilst it was true that Rebecca met her girlfriend through her charity work, the actual circumstances of their courtship had been concealed from us all. Miranda was, in fact, a recently recovered addict who had been staying at the shelter. They’d met over 20p toast. How quaint. I listened carefully as she explained what Miranda had done to feed her habit and nearly choked on a piece of dry shortbread when the extent of her financial indebtedness was finally revealed. Of course, Rebecca was adamant that those days were now behind her and all they needed was one hundred grand to move on with their lives.

This was an expensive field mouse.

I studied my sister’s face as she talked under the lamplight of my living room: I’d never seen her look so tired. She was utterly defenceless. It was at that very moment that the idea came to me. Now don’t get me wrong, I had often fantasised about the ultimate result of my plan, but a real world answer had, until then, never arisen. The plan appeared with absolute clarity. After a short pause, I explained that, unfortunately, I didn’t have the money to help (which was technically correct), but there was a way that she could get the money. And so I told her how.

As she was aware, our father kept cash at his office, locked in a personal safe: he’d drunkenly gloated in the dark that the figure was over a million pounds sterling. He’d whispered the password to me once, late at night when I must have been fourteen and home from school for the holidays. I remember the numbers being traced with a finger on the inside of my arm. I suggested that my sister arrange a final meeting with my father, at his office, a chance for them both to clear the air, after which she would leave him alone forever. I knew that my father wouldn’t be able to turn her down.

I also knew that he’d be drinking when she arrived. When she was much younger he had allowed her to pour his whisky when he returned home from work. She was fascinated by the heavy crystal glass and emitted whimpers of joy at the sound of the thick ice cubes chiming as they were churned by the pouring whisky. After she arrived at his office, she would offer to refill his inevitably empty glass, for old times’ sake. He’d indulge her request and at this moment she would add a sleeping tonic, which I would supply, to his drink. Within five minutes, he’d be drowsy and malleable: she’d be able to say what she pleased. Within twenty, he’d be asleep. The money would then be hers for the taking.

I remember her excited gratitude as she sat in my arm chair, lost in an ill-fitting and oversized sweater. I’d saved her, saved them both. She didn’t know how to thank me. I smiled. Later that night, I congratulated myself on coming up with a fully realised plan and so quickly.

Rebecca contacted my father the next day and the meeting was scheduled for the following week. I told her come by the flat during the afternoon before the meeting to pick up the sleeping tonic as I didn’t have any left. I ordered the poison from one of the darker corners of the internet. It hadn’t been difficult to find and it was as easy as any other on-line transaction. When she arrived she looked happier than I had seen her in years.

‘Let’s get a drink at the Duke of Wellington. Pints of ale and salted peanuts, just like when we were at uni.’

‘Don’t you think it would be better to keep a clear head? You don’t want to cock it up.’

‘A couple of pints won’t hurt. And anyway, I’ll still be more sober than Daddy Dearest.’

We sat on a wooden picnic table outside the pub, sipping our drinks and watching people file past on the pavement. In the distance, several kids were playing on a climbing frame and a small white dog ran around them in a tight, repeating circle. She did almost all of the talking, overcompensating for her nerves. Then afternoon drew to a close and we said our goodbyes: she practically skipped down the street towards the station after receiving the ampoule. At that moment, I think I pitied her more than ever before.

I only heard what actually happened that evening during the trial (although the end result was clear). According to her testimony, the meeting went as we planned it and Rebecca took over £80,000 from the safe before heading back to the flat that she shared with Miranda. She also gave evidence that there had been an element of reconciliation during their meeting, but that could have been the guilt talking. I’m sure my sister was grateful for any crumbs of affection that my father tossed her way.

His body was discovered by night security shortly after 1:00 am. He’d been slumped over his desk for hours, but no one had dared wake him. I had stayed in that night. I couldn’t find any distraction in books or film and made countless cups of tea that went untouched and cold. I knew that if all went as I intended, my father would be dead by 8:00 pm, but there was an element of uncertainty, like Schodinger’s famous experiment. When the time came, I expected to feel something and had hoped for elation. But that evening, I felt nothing.

The news of his death broke in the morning. Initially it was being reported that he had suffered a heart attack, another cautionary tale for those contemplating working for an investment bank in the City. However, by the end of the day the nature of the story had shifted and there was talk of foul play. One news channel were informed that my sister had been seen in the company’s reception area at the end of the working day and, after a little digging, the fact of her estrangement from my parents was pulled into the open. Rebecca was arrested the next day and I followed her into custody a few hours later.

Many people have suggested that I hoped not to be caught. I suppose I did harbour an idea that the poison would not be detected during the autopsy, but I had done my research and knew that was highly unlikely. Others, not a single intelligent mind between them, even suggested that I had hoped that Rebecca would take the blame for me. Ridiculous. My sister only cares about her own survival. She didn’t give a first thought to me, why I did it, or why I used her as my instrument, rather than killing him myself. She knew what he did to me all those years. She held me when I couldn’t sleep in fear that he’d wake me up in the middle of the night. She knew, or at least, knew enough to speak out for me when I couldn’t find the strength.

Her tearful protestations of innocence at the trial were predictable, but I still cannot understand her expressions of love for a man who had so utterly rejected her. She didn’t feel his loss, she just felt sorry for herself as she was inescapably a thief. But what did she really have to be sorry about? At least he loved her enough to leave her alone.

My sister was a witness of fact at my own short trial. She was a picture of politesse: a smart, yet feminine, trouser suit, white blouse, sensible heals and matching haircut. At the end of her re-examination, prosecuting counsel asked her why she believed I had wanted to kill my own father.

‘I believe my brother was jealous of the relationship that I had with our father. He coveted our closeness. I also believe that he couldn’t stand to see me happy in my new relationship. When I came to him, he saw an opportunity to take his revenge on us both. I am sure the money was also a factor, although of course, he’ll have to wait for that now.’

‘Thank you, Ms Kindersley. We have also heard evidence during the course of these proceedings that your brother may have been subject to sexual abuse at the hands of your father. Now, your brother hasn’t yet corroborated these allegations, but did you ever witness any such conduct?’

She paused before answering.

‘No. That’s absurd. My father would never do such a thing.’

‘And, one final question, Ms Kindersley: did your brother, Mr Charles Alexander Kindersley, ever give you reason or cause to suspect that he was being abused?’

‘No, never.’

‘I have no further questions, Your Honour.’

I often think of her answers as I lie awake at night.

Amalik hadn’t left the house in four days. The ice storm had started on the stroke of noon five days before and Mother Winter had shown no sign of relenting since. Just hours before the snow fell, Amalik had managed to lock the dogs in the sled barn which was sheltered from the worst of the wind between two finger-like granite protrusions at the western limit of the village. He knew they’d be safe for another couple of days; they’d lived through worse and he’d left enough clean straw and food to last a week.   

            His own provisions were running low, but he wasn’t desperate, not yet. The storm had come in quick and taken the whole town by surprise. The villagers had been waiting expectantly for the supply vessel’s biyearly visit so they could line their larders in preparation for the months of cold darkness ahead. It was too early for heavy snows and he’d expected the weather to move on just as quickly as it had arrived. But for now it seemed like it was here to stay. Amalik wasn’t too concerned, though: he still had reserves of seal meat and mattak in the freezer which, with the rest of the soy sauce, would see him through the days ahead.

            It had been seven months since he’d spent more than 24 hours inside his small, timber-clad house and, on that particular occasion, he’d been running a fever of over 104 and his mind hadn’t been concerned with a lack of occupation and space. Now, the house and each of its three rooms felt like an extension of his very being; he knew the dimensions of the living room like length of his own arm, the red of the table lamp like the pale blue of his own eyes. He’d spent hours considering his reflection in the bathroom mirror and had counted freckles and eye lashes just to pass the time. He’d also discovered a talent for distorting his already uneven features into grotesque creations and had made a mental note to amuse his nieces with some choice examples next time he saw them.

             Amalik wore a totem around his neck, polar bear incisor threaded on a piece of twisted cord. The tooth was passed to him by his grandfather, a great Inuit hunter, as a symbol of strength and endurance. Under normal circumstances, he never took it off, but on the third day of his confinement he removed the tooth from its chain and began threading it between his fingers, absentmindedly. After tiring with the game, he rose to look out of the window and placed the tooth on the sill. Seeing no change in the weather, he went to the kitchen and made a pot of black tea. When he returned to collect the tooth it had vanished from its spot on the windowsill. He searched the floor beneath the sill, even running his fingers along the narrow gap between the coarse carpet and the wall. When he couldn’t find it there, Amalik looked under each and every piece of furniture in the small room, but after an exhaustive search there was no sign of the incisor.

            Dejected and hot from his efforts, Amalik stumbled to the bathroom and threw some cool water on his red face. He ran his wet hands around to the base of his neck and there his fingers alighted on the familiar texture of the cord. Amalik looked into the mirror as his fingers traced the thread round to his collar bone and then pulled out from beneath his sweater the polar bear incisor hanging where it had always been. 

The peninsula was bone-shaped with a flat, low-lying central plain and tipped with a bulbous outcrop which thrust out into the bay. It was spring then, the time of ice, when the Uummannaq fjord surrounding the land froze solid, hard enough to hold the weight of husky-drawn sleds and the plodding paws of wandering polar bear. The sun had just returned after an absence of over three months, its weak light gently casting welcome shadows and breathing bright life into the surface of the frozen pond. The time of darkness, winter, had been almost unendurable, its end seeming never in sight, but now gone, best forgotten.

The ice sheet was broken here and there by ship-wrecked icebergs whose heavy wanderings had been temporarily suspended by a stronger force of nature. They’d be released come the thaw, free to tumble in the waters once more; their scale incomprehensible in that place, with white planes the size of runways. Guillemots gathered on top of one large specimen, their tiny black forms sprinkled like sesame seeds. Otherwise the ice was a desert; vast, flat and empty.

On the peninsula, there was a small settlement, no more than ten houses. They were positioned close together on the short, narrow diaphysis. They were squat, none higher than two stories, wooden and painted in primary colours with black or white window frames. The place could be mistaken for a toy town sprung from a child’s imagination if it were not for the brutality of the surroundings. Each house appeared frozen to the very earth with ice grasping their corners, holding them down, no escape. By the steps of one house lay the body of a dog, long dead, muddy ice tangled in its grey-white hair. Outside another, skin was stretched over a dark wooden frame; the fur mottled brown and creamy white round the edges. The creature’s hide was secured to each corner of the mount with pale blue cord and its antlers lay on the floor below. A narwhal skull was mounted above the entrance to the blue house next door, not one, but two, twisting tusks. Fishing boats lay docked on the land sheltering beneath tarpaulin, waiting with their nets.

In summer, the fjord would lap again at the shoreline on both sides of the village, a time for hunting, of renewal, to prepare once again for the darkness ahead. But for now, the waves must bide their time, churning unseen under the calm concrete exterior, waiting for the seasons to turn.

Jun completed her check of the temperature gauges in the ZaiCorp greenhouse ahead of schedule and by 8:15 was back at her desk in the small office annxed to one of the larger research laboratories. She wouldn’t be joined by any of her colleagues for at least another thirty minutes as they were undertaking their daily dose of orientation at the hands of one of the corporation’s many productivity instructors. Due to her seniority, Jun was exempt from this morning ritual, although she was still required to attend training at least once a week. Any failure to attend would be noted.

Coffee in hand, Jun began reading a paper which had been recommended by Yoshi, one of the junior assistants on the programme. After less than five minutes she was interrupted by the telephone. She sighed and, after placing her cup of cooling coffee onto the desk, answered the ring.

“Jun Matsuoka speaking.”

“Ms Matsuoka, this is Executive Yotashi, from Resourcing and Personnel. We haven’t met, but I am aware of the important work which you do for the Corporation. Can you spare a couple of minutes?”

Yotashi’s tone was odd, almost robotic. Jun had, thankfully, very little experience of dealing with ZaiCorp’s R&P department. As well as being responsible for human resource matters it was rumoured that R&P kept close watch on the digital activities of all ZaiCorp’s employees and Jun was aware that Executive Yotashi headed ZaiCorp’s R&P operation across all of Atarashii OSA. This was big. What did she want?

“Of course, Executive Yotashi. What can I assist you with?”

“Ms Matsuoka, it has come to our attention that you have recently been accessing material on the ZaiCorp database that bears no clear relevance to the scope of your research. Now, I am not suggesting that you have exceeded your access…”

“I hope not. My access rights are unfettered throughout the ZaiCorp database. That is the agreement which I reached with the Director of Research. My team and I cannot work under any other circumstances.”

Jun was nervous. What had they picked up on? It could only be one thing: the fertility data. But she thought she’d deleted her access history. Clearly their data mining tracking capability was more sophisticated than she had thought.

“As I was about to say, Ms Matsuoka, there is no suggestion that you have exceeded your access permission. However, we are concerned that, how do I put this: the Corporation is concerned that those with privileged levels of access should not abuse the trust which has been placed in them. I have spoken with the Director of Research and he informs me that the Corporation’s enhanced fertility scheme, which you were a beneficiary of, has nothing to do with the research which you are currently undertaking.”

Jun sat rigid in her seat. What had she touched on here? She hadn’t found anything of note during her search. What were they hiding?

Yotashi continued. “It is recommended that you limit your mining of the database strictly to those areas which directly relate to the matter of your research, Ms Matsuoko. Is that clear? We will not issue this warning again”

Jun breathed deeply, hoping to keep her voice steady, before replying, “Abundantly clear, Yotashi-san, although please let it be known that I resent the implication of any wrongdoing. My work here is complex and multi-faceted. Science cannot be neatly divided into boxes and it is in the interests of the success of the project that my research and mind flows freely across the information which ZaiCorp holds. Nevertheless, your warning is noted and I will make sure that my team is informed. Goodbye.”

The dial tone returned and Jun slumped in her chair. A film of cool sweat had risen during the short conversation. They wanted her to know she was being watched. But why?

The grass is different when the summer sun is out softer more inviting want to take off my brown brogues and let my toes breathe can’t remember the last time absurd really but time is consumed back home if not working then what helping mother with the rest of them feeding cleaning washing repeat cycle she needs my help although she never complains at least not to me and I don’t expect my father would listen to it there’s a freedom in this action in feeling the blades between my toes a small escape a simple act flex bend stretch relax muscles taut then relaxed legs pale tinged with pink not long out not used to the exposure black hairs shifting in the breeze park filling up slowly as the sun rises different groups strewn across the expanse of lawn broken here and there by flowering bushes rhododendron fuchsiathe odd vertical a tree a post by the croquet lawn a couple with child wearing a red hat to guard a picnic set out on a stretched square of white cotton the assumed father seemingly uninterested his eyes tuned elsewhere does he take it all for granted four girls young women students sit circled a punnet of strawberries between them fingers dart in and out the fruit hulled at first serious  what subject then laughing one louder than the rest their attention fixed on her back straight legs tucked underneath a cigarette lit then softly fumes a world apart his mother’s cousin an out of sight relative went to Newcastle became a doctor a useless beacon of hope last time I saw a classroom five or six years now no point then no point now a breeze stirs the pages of the diary in my hand nothing written today maybe later too hot to write not much to record that’ll change before long tales of adventure ha perhaps but what else mind can’t fix on what may come to pass injury my own or worse the sight of others mud sweat water drunk from a tin canteen grass to be trudged over not lounged upon cool air drifts from the river a thirst for it another sits close by a man white linen his skin used to the sun his hands dark a book bound in green leather embossed gold can’t make out the title he reads and flicks a brightness sudden then gone a flash of light not from the turning pages but somewhere else where to my left towards the river no one there just a trick a breath a buzzing the fly lands and walks observed twitch then gone there it is again the river a glint from the surface no something there what a discarded bottle a child’s toy something more moving quickly now over the grass my steps light in bare foot the bank a skirt blue an unbuttoned blouse is she her eyes mouth closed hair wet arms limp she looks….