Dead Man's Time

recording of the Olympics closing ceremony from less than a couple of weeks ago. He and Cleo had both fallen asleep watching it live on the night. He could not
remember ever feeling so tired in his life, and it was affecting his concentration at work. He was definitely suffering from
baby brain.
    Ray Davies, from one of his favourite bands, The Kinks, was singing ‘Waterloo Sunset’, and he turned up the sound slightly to listen. But Cleo did not look up from her book.
    Grace had recently crossed the Rubicon to his fortieth birthday. For the past couple of years he had increasingly been dreading that milestone. But when it had finally arrived, both he and Cleo
had been too tired to think about a proper celebration. They’d opened a bottle of champagne and fallen asleep before they’d even drunk half of it.
    Now they had another celebration due. After a long time, the formalities for his divorce from his wife, Sandy, on the grounds of her being presumed legally dead, had this week been completed,
and he was finally free to marry Cleo.
    Sandy had been missing since the day of his thirtieth birthday, ten years ago, and he still had no clue as to what had happened to her, or whether she was alive, as he still liked to believe, or
long dead, as his friends and family all told him, which probably was the truth. Either way, for the first time he was feeling a sense of release, of truly being able to move on. And a further big
part of that was that finally a buyer had been found for the home he and Sandy had shared.
    He stared down lovingly – and hopelessly proudly – at his seven-week-old son. At the tiny, cherubic creature, with rosebud lips and chubby pink arms and fingers like a toyshop doll.
Noah Jack Grace, in a sleeveless white romper suit, eyes shut, lay on his lap, cradled in his arms. Thin strands of fair hair lay, brushed forward, with his scalp visible beneath. He could see
elements of both Cleo and himself in his face, and there was one slightly bemused frown Noah sometimes gave, which reminded Grace of his late father – a police officer, like himself. He would
do anything for Noah. He would die for him, without a shadow of hesitation.
    Cleo sat beside him on the sofa, in a sleeveless black top, her blonde hair cut shorter than usual and clipped back, engrossed in
Fifty Shades of Grey
. The house was filled with a milky
smell of baby powder and fresh laundry. Several soft toys lay on the play mat on the floor, including a teddy bear and a cuddly Thomas The Tank Engine. Above them dangled a mobile with brightly
coloured animals and birds.
    Humphrey, their young black Labrador-Border collie cross, gnawed a bone, sulkily, in his basket on the far side of the room. He had taken a couple of disdainful looks at Noah when he had first
come home, then wandered off, tail between his legs, as if aware he was no longer number one in his owner’s eyes, and his attitude had remained the same ever since.
    Roy Grace clicked his fingers, beckoning the dog. ‘Hey, Humphrey, get over it! Make friends with Noah!’
    Humphrey gave his master the evil eye.
    It was midday on Tuesday, and Roy Grace had sneaked home for a few hours, because he had a long meeting ahead of him this evening. It was with the prosecution counsel on the trial, at the Old
Bailey, of a particularly repugnant villain, Carl Venner, the mastermind behind a snuff movie ring, whom Grace had arrested last year. The trial had been adjourned recently for several weeks
because the defendant had claimed to be suffering chest pains. But doctors had now cleared the man to continue with his trial, which had restarted yesterday.
    At this moment Roy Grace honestly believed he had never felt happier in his life. But at the same time he felt an overwhelming sense of responsibility. This tiny, frail creature he and Cleo had
brought into this world. What kind of future lay ahead for Noah? What would the world be like in twenty or so years, when he became an adult? What would the world be like during the next twenty
years – at the end of which Grace would be sixty years old? What could he do to change it? To make it a safer place for Noah? To protect his child from the evil out there, of which Venner,
sadly, was just one of life’s sewer rats?
    What could he do to help his son cope with all the shit that life, inevitably, threw at you?
    God, he loved him so much. He wanted to be the best father in the world, and he knew that meant committing a lot of