Read Chapter 4: — SOUTHBOUND

Martin travelled to Devon on a slow regional train because his credit problems made leasing a car difficult and because, after years of airports and hired drivers, he found the indignity useful.

The journey forced him to sit with himself.

He remembered meeting Claire while stationed near Exeter during his army years. She had been twenty, sunburned and laughing, selling strawberries at a roadside stall for her parents. He had climbed a communications mast nearby and nearly missed a foothold because he kept looking down at her.

She moved to Bristol with him after he left the service. Together they cleaned offices, worked security shifts, ran a café, saved deposits, bought a flat and slowly built a life.

Then Martin discovered property.

At first, one renovation became two. Then a small block. Then partnerships. Then Harbour Rise.

He had told himself that every risk was for Claire and Leo.

On the train he admitted that this was only partly true.

He had loved winning.

At a station café in Exeter, he bought one of Claire's food boxes from a display shelf and turned it over in his hands. The packaging was simple, locally sourced, and clever. A QR code led to recipes and producer stories.

Martin's mind immediately began multiplying possibilities: subscriptions, pub bundles, tourist editions, Christmas partnerships.

He laughed aloud.

Even repentance, apparently, could become a business plan in his head.

When he finally saw Claire, she was standing outside her parents' converted outbuilding wearing jeans, trainers and a headset microphone.

She looked healthier than she had during their last year together.

"You came," she said.

"I said I would."

"You said many things."

A man emerged from the storeroom carrying cartons. Dark hair, weathered face, expensive watch.

"Martin Hale?" he asked.

Martin felt jealousy arrive before reason.

"And you are?"

"Rowan King. I supply half the products Claire sells."

"Only products?"

Claire closed her eyes.

"There it is," she said. "Five minutes. That's how long it took."

Martin and Rowan argued. The argument became a shove. Rowan hit him. Martin hit back.

Claire's father separated them with the efficiency of a man who had raised four children and seen foolish masculinity before.

"If you've come to see your son," he told Martin, "start behaving like someone a child should be glad to see."

The words did what the punch had not.

Martin sat down.

That afternoon, he signed the separation agreement.

Claire added one sentence before signing her own name: if Martin rebuilt a stable life, they would reconsider Leo's living arrangements together when the boy was older.

It was not a promise of reunion.

It was a promise not to erase him as a father.

For the first time in months, Martin was grateful for something he could not control.