The Isle of Ely rose up from the fens ahead, the cathedral trailing a pennant of low cloud, all that remained of the morning’s leaden sky. He wondered what it was like not to have a memory. A blessing, perhaps. Laura’s coma had been marked by a complete absence of any recall of their accident. The hours spent trapped in the lightless car beneath the winter water was literally a black box; a memory too terrifying to allow a replay. His wife’s recovery had been marked by many advances. But not a single shaft of light had fallen into that lost world. Ely, bathed in sunshine now, had come to life. In Market Square he spotted that one newspaper vendor was already on his pitch. The Express and The Crow were printed a mile out of town, and the editor had recently introduced an early print run for both in order to catch sales before the shops closed. The seller was a man known as Skeg, thirty perhaps, his face punctured with a single cheek stud, the hair cut savagely short, emphasizing a small triangle of dyed red stubble below his lip, but above his chin.
