Breaking Point Read Online Free PDF

Again, the series of emails and letters came to him. Were they the senders? And if so, what the hell did they want?
    He passed a Tube station, and then he saw them again. One of them was talking into a mobile phone. They hadn’t seen him. The man on the phone glanced around as he ended his call. Then they entered the Underground together.

7
    THE BOOKCASE, THE CD collection and the DVD library did nothing to lift Reuben’s spirits. It was official. The man who had stolen his wife and child, whom Lucy had taken solace in while the job at GeneCrime had chewed him up, had good taste. Of course Reuben was well aware that good taste was an arbitrary concept, that one man’s Phil Collins was another man’s Radiohead, but there were certain incontrovertible facts.
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
was a good film.
The Corrections
was a good book. New Order were a good band. And Lucy Maitland was a good-looking woman. Draw a Venn diagram of the people who liked these things, and Shaun Graves would be standing dead centre, smiling slyly with that cool, detached I’m-fucking-your-ex-wife look of his.
    Lucy padded down the stairs, stopped off somewhere for a second, then came in holding two glasses of red. ‘He’s fast asleep,’ she said, handing over one of the glasses. ‘Shiraz. Hope that’s OK?’
    Reuben stared into his drink. It was dark and impenetrable, more black than red. Generally, he preferred his alcohol clear and pure. ‘It’ll do,’ he answered.
    He ran his eyes along the elongated racking system that displayed Shaun’s good taste for the whole length of one wall. This is what I lack, Reuben thought to himself. A home, a place to exhibit all the things that make me who I am, rooms that tell the story of my life.
    He picked up a framed photo and waved it towards Lucy. ‘When was this taken?’
    ‘Only a couple of days ago. I’ve just had it framed.’
    ‘He’s starting to look better. More like a proper boy than a hospital patient.’
    ‘And he’s getting stronger. God, he’s got some energy at times.’
    Reuben replaced the photograph of his son and turned to his ex-wife. It had been nearly two weeks since he last saw Joshua. As usual, Reuben hadn’t been invited in. He had been allowed a couple of hours in the park in the rain with him. And already Joshua was changing: some of his hair was growing back, maybe some weight returning to his features. He wasn’t out of trouble yet, but he was heading in the right direction.
Remission
was the word the consultants had used. It seemed such a gentle word after the pain and misery acute lymphocytic leukaemia had put his son through, sapping his energy, stripping away his immune system, attacking him from the inside. But ‘remission’ was now Reuben’s favourite word, infinitely better than any of the others that sprang to mind, unthinkable outcomes that had all too nearly come to pass.
    ‘So, what did you want to talk about?’
    Lucy sat down on one of the two leather sofas and crossed her legs. Reuben watched her take a measured sip of her wine, savouring the moment, the reward for getting her child into bed and finally to sleep.
    ‘I’ve been thinking,’ she said.
    ‘Why don’t I like the sound of this?’
    ‘No, it’s nothing bad. It’s just I think Joshua needs to see more of his dad.’
    ‘Since Shaun went away? And, let me guess, he isn’t coming back any time soon?’
    ‘What makes you say that?’
    Reuben ran a finger over a nearby section of the racking system and inspected it closely. ‘Either he never listens to music, watches films or reads books, or he isn’t here to do those things at the moment.’
    Lucy followed the direction of his scrutiny. ‘Maybe I just don’t dust very often.’
    ‘So how come your section of CDs, the ones that used to sit in our living room, in our CD rack, is nowhere near as dusty.’
    Lucy flushed despite herself. ‘God, do you ever lose that detective zeal? It can get very annoying, just like the