In two decades not a single day had passed that he hadn’t thought about her. He studied the photograph. Her hair was shorter than he remembered, and her clothes - there was an expensive elegance about them - and her eyes were different. Eyes that had sparkled with laughter so long ago now stared at him, not empty, but brimming over with sadness and hurt. She was so different, yet there was no doubt.

‘Alex.’ He whispered her name on a sigh. Twenty years had passed, true, but his first thoughts every morning and the last every night had been of her. Every time he thought of her he had kicked himself, told himself what an idiot he had been, but it made no difference. She married the bastard, anyway. Quickly, noisily, he rustled the pages of the inside-out publication until he located the cover, keeping his thumb in the place. There was the date: June 4th, just two weeks ago.

The fat man stood and the barber shook the cape, took up his broom and swept away the dark brown wisps of hair that littered the black and white vinyl   floor.

‘Next!’