He wondered why he suddenly felt so drained and futile. The demands of work were crushing, but they always were. Pressure, stress, instant decisions, life and death-these were the things he thrived on, without which he wouldn’t exist. Suddenly they weren’t enough. Or rather, they were too much. For the first time in his career-no, his whole life-he wondered if he could cope with everything that was required of him.

It was absurd to connect this sudden loss of confidence with the brief moment in the hospital corridor when he’d been confronted with a past he’d thought safely dead and buried.

Buried. Not dead.

He hunted in the top drawer of his desk until he found a set of keys, selected one, and used it to open the bottom drawer. At the back, buried under a pile of papers, was an envelope, stuffed with photographs. He laid it on the desk, but made no move to open it, as though reluctant to take the final step.

At last he shook out the contents onto the desk, and spread them out with one hand. They were cheap snaps, nothing special, except for the glowing faces of the two young people in them.

The girl’s long blonde hair streamed over her shoulders in glorious profusion, her face was brilliant with life. It was that life, rather than her beauty, that made her striking. All youth and abundance seemed to have gathered in her, as though any man who came near her must be touched by her golden shadow, and be blessed all his days.

Blessed all his days. There was a thought to bring a bitter smile to the face of a man who’d felt that blessing, and seen it die.

He lingered over the girl’s laughing face, trying to reconcile it with the weary look he’d seen on the woman in the corridor. Just once her gaze was turned on the young man, and he studied her expression, trying to detect in it some trace of the love he’d once believed in. In every other picture she was looking directly at the camera.