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thrust the curved claws into his eye sockets.
           The night may have been dark, but death was darker.

Five

           Harrison drove home on auto pilot, his mind elsewhere as he negotiated the city streets. His stomach boiled like agitated snakes and he beat down at the conflicting emotions of guilt and sadness that threatened to ignite within him. Guilt at having argued with Maria at their last face to face meeting only compounded by his parting sentiments.
            "Sometimes I just wish you were dead. Life would be easier."
           He'd been angry with her, furious to discover that Courtney and Ryan had started calling Greg dad. That bastard wasn't their dad and never would be.
            "He does more for them than you ever did."
           Maria had thrown the statement at Harrison like an accusation and it had hit harder than the slap that followed. He'd wanted to hit her back, hurt her in return. Instead he'd wished her dead and sometimes you get what you wished for. But Harrison had never wanted his ex-wife – or his children- to die.
           The images of their tiny bodies in the morgue still burned his eyes and he had to blink away the tears. In all his time as a policeman he'd never seen anything like it.
           Harrison couldn't even focus his anger upon a third party; Tom had assured him the attack couldn't have been carried out by a human, that is was probably a wild animal of some description. And this only made it worse, how could you feel hatred towards an unseen animal? Harrison wanted a face, a name he could loathe.

           The only good thing left in his life had been taken away for good, more permanently than any court could have done. Finally he let the tears come, blurring the headlights and tail-lights that surrounded him.
           By the time Harrison pulled the car into the garage below his apartment he had cried himself out, there wasn't anything left within him to give. Life was empty and would never be the same again. He should have got out the car and taken the elevator the three floors to his two bedroom flat, but what was the point?
           He leaned over the passenger seat and popped open the glove compartment. Harrison hadn't smoked in six months, but the emergency pack was waiting for him, along with the Zippo lighter Maria had given him when they first met. He opened the cellophane wrapper and tugged out the silver lining paper to reveal the twenty white tips. He pulled one out with his teeth and flipped open the lighter, flicking it to life. He touched it to the end of the cigarette and inhaled deeply, feeling the satisfying burn of smoke fill his lungs.
            'I could just sit here and smoke myself to death.'
           The thought appealed to Harrison and he settled back in the driver's seat, cracking open the window and watched as the exhaled smoke was taken away. He reached inside his jacket pocket, wanting his wallet and the photos he kept of Courtney and Ryan. He found the leather note book he'd taken from the suicide's room. So much had been thrown at him since he couldn't believe it had all taken place in the same evening.

           He lifted the notebook from his pocket and stared at it. If he was going to smoke himself to death he might as well have something to read. It beat staring at photos of the children he'd never see again.
           Harrison flicked through the pages, going from front to back in one, fluid motion. He saw a variety of hand scrawled words and pictures, all done in blotchy ink as if written with a faulty fountain pen. He went back to the beginning and repeated the process, this time stopping about a quarter of the way through and began reading.
           18 June 1989
           They came this morning and told me that the time is close and we must start to prepare. I'm not sure that I'm ready for what must be done.
           19 June