Jamie stood by the window. It was 4.29 p.m. Normally she was like clockwork every Wednesday evening.

Sure enough, just after 4.31 p.m., Jack Marshall rode down the street with her rucksack on her back and her laptop bag slung over her shoulder. She was on her way to coach her girls’ football team, and later she would head back to the newspaper office for the night shift.

Jamie watched her go. Just as he did at the same time every Wednesday. When he’d first come home from Spain, Jack had always looked up at his window and waved at him, but she’d stopped doing that now.

Had he done something wrong? He just couldn’t work out why she was being so distant. Then again, perhaps she was just busy. While Jamie was still trying to piece his life back together, other people were getting on with theirs.

Jamie turned, opened his wardrobe and started to take off his running clothes. His balance was improving enough now that he could do it standing up.

In fact, the training sessions were starting to get much better. He was now kicking a ball against the wall quite hard, and Archie had even said that Jamie might be able to take part in some light training with the Hawkstone Youth Team in a month or two’s time – if Godal agreed.

However, two months seemed a lifetime away, and if there was one quality that Jamie did not possess in abundance, it was patience. He was desperate to play again, desperate to feel like the player he knew he’d been.

As he pulled off his sweaty top, Jamie looked at himself in the mirror and analysed his features. The hair, previously ginger, now a darker auburn – that was from his nan. The lips, nose and chin were from his mum. But the eyes – their shape and their misty blue colour – were they from his dad?

Turning sideways on, Jamie tried a smile and a scowl. And there it was, in the scowl, just a hint, just a shadow of his dad.

Since Jeremy had told him a couple of days ago that his dad was now in prison, Jamie had been doing a lot of thinking about that man, and the role he had played, or rather not played, in Jamie’s life…

The slamming of a car door outside brought Jamie back to reality. It was his mum. She was arriving back from work and struggling to carry five bags of shopping to the door. It was a dreary afternoon and Jamie could suddenly see the years of work and stress etched into the lines on her face as she struggled through the clawing winds to the front door.

Suddenly, Jamie felt a dagger of guilt cut into him. When he’d become a professional footballer, he’d promised his mum that she could stop work; that he would look after the money from now on. But in signing that stupid contract, he’d left himself with no protection, and she’d had to go back out to find a new job.

A hideous question inserted itself into Jamie’s mind. Had he done exactly the same thing as his dad had done all those years before? Had he promised everything and given nothing?

Jamie looked at himself in the mirror one final time.

Who was he?

Was he slowly becoming the one person he could not bear to be?