Huw Langridge

So eager was I to get home to my wife and child, that I drove a little carelessly. It was Friday evening, and I was at the end of another long working week in the city. A weekend at home was exactly what I needed. When I was only a few roads away I rang Juliette. I was sitting in traffic waiting to join a roundabout and she told me she had lit the fire to make the house cosy for my return. She was bathing little Elliott and had allowed him to stay up late to see me. I was concerned when she hung up the phone without saying goodbye. Perhaps she had needed to urgently attend to our boy's regular antics of tipping water out of the bath.      I pulled up the gravel driveway and swung the car in front of the house, noticing that the front door was ajar and all the lights in the house were on. I got out and stepped across the threshold, calling out to Juliette. She didn't answer. From the kitchen a beautiful smell of cooking. The carpeted stairs were peppered with dark drips. The lig