Chris Simms - Savage Moon

'Turn a blind eye? Push it to the side because it's not happening here? I will not!' Holly's arms and legs flinched at her raised voice. Her eyes fluttered open and her lips began to move.

'Think about it, Jon. What would you do if someone destroyed your family? Me and Holly. Murdered.'

Jon knelt down to scoop his daughter up. 'She's hungry. I'll get her bottle.'

He walked from the room but she followed him to the kitchen. 'You wouldn't rest until you'd tracked them down, I know you wouldn't.'

I wouldn't rest until I'd stamped the last breath out of their blood-soaked faces, Jon thought.

'This war has only just started. People will want revenge for all the death we've unleashed over there. It will be revisited on us, I know it will.'

Jon turned round, Holly now crying in his arms. 'For fuck's sake, Ali, stop it will you? Can't you see you're upsetting her?' Alice's eyes suddenly focused on their baby, and the fire burning within them vanished as tears welled up. 'Oh my poor darling. I'm sorry, I'm so sorry.' She laid a palm on the baby's head, then trailed her fingers over the soft sheen of hair.

The gesture contained such sorrow Jon used the excuse of opening the microwave to move Holly away from his wife's touch. 'I'll take care of this feed. Why don't you go to bed?' Alice stood there a moment longer, the mournful look still on her face. Then she seemed to crumple. 'Yes, you're right.' She turned and walked from the room as if already in the grip of sleep.

Jon watched her go with a sense of foreboding. What's happening to my wife? The microwave pinged and he took the bottle out, quickly tested its temperature, then placed the teat in Holly's mouth. Leaning against the kitchen cupboards, his eyelids lowered. He had the sensation of falling backwards, or was it just the waves of tiredness pressing down? He opened his eyes and watched as Holly eagerly drained the bottle.

Ten minutes later she was safely tucked up in her cot and he was back in the kitchen, making a cup of black coffee. In the front room he turned the computer on and accessed the internet. He went to the history file to see which sites his wife had been looking at. BodyWatch. Troops Out. Al Jazeera. Something by Robert Fisk. An essay by John Pilger from the New Statesman's web site. God, she was wallowing in it.

He moved the cursor to the search field, typed in Post Natal

Depression and hit enter.

Top of the search was something from the Royal College of Psychiatrists. He clicked on it and read the heading on the document that appeared.

What does it feel like to have PND?

He scanned the subheadings below.

Depressed. Irritable. Tired. Sleepless. Unable to cope. Anxious . Chin propped on his hand, he read the paragraph that followed.

You may find that you are afraid to be alone with your baby. You may worry that he or she might scream, or choke, or be harmed in some way. You worry that you might lose him or her through infection, mishandling, faulty development or cot death .

He thought about how Alice had taken to checking Holly in the night, afraid she couldn't hear her breathing. The irrational fear of Punch began to make perfect sense. Scrolling down the document, his eyes were snared by another subheading.

Do women with PND harm their babies?

He had to take a sip of coffee before reading on, eyes slowing at the second to last line. Rarely, she may feel so suicidal that she decides to take her baby's life and her own.

Alice's last words before going to bed sprang into Jon's head. But it wasn't what she said that caused the apprehension he felt; it was the melancholy way she had caressed Holly's skull before walking from the room. No, she wasn't that bad. She needed to see a doctor and tomorrow he'd try and broach the subject again. But she hadn't lost the plot so completely that she'd… he didn't dare even think the words.

By the time he closed down the computer, his coffee was stone cold in his mug. The kitchen sink was half full of old washing-up water and he tipped the dregs in, watching the dark cloud of denser liquid billowing out across the bottom, enveloping a teaspoon that lay there.

He remembered his dream, the blackness engulfing the desert fortress, camels whinnying like horses, church bells ringing from minarets. Why minarets? He shook his head. This bloody business in Iraq is getting to me too.

Trevor Kerrigan opened his eyes and smiled. The bedroom curtains were closed, the faint glow of dawn just strong enough to pick out the floral pattern printed on them. Last night's weather forecast had indicated that conditions would be perfect for his early morning round of golf.

It was part of his weekly routine to rise in the semi darkness on a Friday and be on the course well before anyone else. There was something deeply satisfying about being the first person on a pristine fairway, the cropped grass shimmering with dew-covered spiders' webs, the top layer of sand in the smoothly raked bunkers still damp.

He slipped out from under the duvet, leaving his wife fast asleep on the other side of the mattress. Pausing at the end of the bed, he turned an ear towards the window and listened. That was another good thing about these early starts. Hardly any bloody traffic on the roads.

The wheels of his Shogun crunched to a stop in the empty car park. A glance towards the clubhouse revealed grilles over the windows and shutters over the doors. Not even the groundsmen had turned up yet. As he hauled his golf bag out of the boot he looked up at the gradually lightening sky. There was some low cloud on the horizon stained a faint pink by the yet-to-appear sun. Above that the heavens were blank, as if wiped fresh and clean for the coming day. Somewhere in the depths of the golf course a pheasant sounded its klaxon call, the sound reverberating in the silence.

After placing his ball on the tee, he selected a driver, then looked down the deserted fairway. Pockets of mist clung in the dip created by the River Medlock as it meandered its way along the side of the course. Barely visible in the mist, about two hundred yards away was the green. The shadow to its left was a dense grouping of gorse bushes and he knew two kidney-shaped bunkers lay in wait to its right. A good drive would get him to within chipping distance of the green.

Lazily he swung at the air to the side of his ball, using the movement to gauge his muscles and joints. A bit of stiffness in the left shoulder. He reached his arm up over his head, bringing it round like a swimmer doing backstroke. A few more repetitions and he was satisfied it was loose enough. He stepped up to the ball, fingers and toes rippling, buttocks clenching and unclenching as he made infinitesimal adjustments to his posture. First shot of the day, he thought. And if I cock it up, it could throw me out for the rest of my round.

The club connected with a pleasing crack and he completed the swing before looking up, knowing it was a good one. The ball was almost invisible against the grey sky before it suddenly reappeared below the horizon and bounced to within metres of the gorse bushes.

'Nice one, Trevor,' he murmured, sliding the driver back into the bag. Now for the next pleasure — walking down the unblemished fairway.

As he strode over the grass he breathed in the chill morning air. Another few weeks and it'll be too cold for this, he thought. His mind turned to Milner. He'd turned up with some cash, but not the full amount. She would settle up a bit more the following week, he'd asserted. Trevor analysed the conversation. He knew the signs. Milner suddenly becoming an advocate for the woman, making excuses for her, buying her more time. It all pointed to the probability she was settling her debt by spreading her legs for him. He considered going round and demanding some of that payment for himself — God knows he'd been happy enough to accept favours like that plenty of times in the past.