The Captain's Cabin looked the same. Bland decor. Dull brass. Lobster pots laced with spiders webs. There sat Ben, calloused hands caressing a pint of rough cider. Next to him, Ticker 'The Sprout' bent low over a Guinness. It was as if they and the other four men sitting around the scruffy, oblong table had remained in their seats, growing older, waiting for his reappearance.

'You're back!' Getting up from the bench, Weasel was the first to acknowledge Rees's arrival.

'Still shit scared of the dentist, I see.' Rees laughed as Weasel placed a defensive hand over his mouth.

'Staying long?' Weasle's dark button eyes took in his old friend's casual but expensive attire.

'Haven't made my mind up yet,' Rees told him, paying the barman for his double shot of whiskey.

'You've got an American accent.' Weasel lifted a pint glass to his lips depite the glass being empty.

'I reckon it's down to living there for twenty odd years.'

'My sister went to Disney Land with the kids, last year.'

'Not my scene.' Rees took a step back from the stench of stale sweat and, noticing an attractive young woman seated by a spitting gas fire, flashed a smile in her direction.

'You worked in New York,' he heard his old friend say.

'In finance,' Rees replied, turning his gaze back to Weasel.

'Got into a bit of bother, I hear.' Weasel clamped his small mouth shut at Rees's sudden belligerent expression. Glancing over his shoulder at his pals half-heartedly playing dominoes, he continued in a cautious tone, 'Your mother didn't last long after the old fella died. But your brother gave them both a good send off.'

On hearing unified grunts of dissapproval coming from his old mates, Rees retorted, 'The past is past.' And draining his drink, walked out of the pub into a cold November evening.

Doing up his camel coat, he strode across the road onto the promenade. A high tide crashed against the sea wall, spewing white foam onto handmade Italian shoes. But, unaware of the possible destruction of fine leather, Rees looked along the curve of a small bay at shadows of bungalows and lights emanating from each window.

He began to count. One. Two. Three. Number three was his old family home and he knew his brother, David, still lived there. Feeling a rare tug of remorse, gazing at the squat, square building, he wondered if his older brother had a wife. Children.

Glancing back at the pub, wishing he'd made some enquiries, Rees pulled a handkerchief out from his pocket and blew his nose. Then, laughing a shaky laugh, told himself not to be so bloody stupid.

'The town hasn't changed much, has it?' Unnoticed, the young woman he'd see earlier, appeared by his side.

Furious at having being caught off guard, he asked, 'Where in the hell did you spring from?'

'You've come far,' she said in response.

Three generations of his family, he'd often mused, had lived worked and died in Dunely, not one of them, apart from himself, had had the guts to leave. All fearing to cross over that invisible border into unknown territory.

'Far as in distance or achievement?' He lightened his tone but flippancy could not erase an odd sense of unease which had dogged him since he'd driven, four hours ago, into his home town.

'They say it's always been money with you.' Her gloved hands gripped the railing in front of them.

'Now listen.' Defensive anger rose up. 'I don't know you. You don't know me. Let's leave it like that, shall we?'

Taking out a packet of cigarettes and a gold lighter form his coat pocket, cold fingers scrabbled for a cigarette. Turning his back to the wind, shielding the flame with the lapel of his coat, he lit the cigarette, drawing on it deeply.

A near gale screamed around mock Victorian lamp posts, whistling through cables that seemed to exaggerate her presence. Rees wanted her to leave but said, 'I'm down from forty to twenty cigarettes a day,' hating, as he spoke, his need to break the silence between them.

'Are you the same person who left all those years ago?' she asked.

'Are you a psychiatrist?' He tried to laugh but the sound seemed hollow, scared even.

'Why did you come back?'

'I've family here.' He paused, saying under his breath, 'What's left of them.'

'I'm told you were a bit of a lad back in the old days,' she said.

'You're talking as if it was a century ago,' he replied as memories barged into his mind. 'We had some fun,' he admitted. 'Summer was our best time. Lots of girls staying in caravans. The fair. Pub.'

'After you left you did well for yourself.' She broke into those memories and his expression of nostalgia grew into a grin of satisfaction. 'Clambering up the ladder of success,' she continued. 'Stepping on fingers all the way.'

Nostalgic memories vanished. 'Piss off little lady.' Rees flicked his cigarette stub over the railings, wondering how rude he could get before she took the hint and left him in peace.

'Your nickname around here is Humpty Dumpty. The guy who climbed up to the heights of achievement only to come crashing down into obscurity.'

'Clear off. Take your fucking cliches with you.' But his angry suggestion didn't seem to offend or irritate her.

Looking up at him, she went on, 'It said in the papers you'd married a rich Connecticut heiress.' Rees remained silent. 'They said she stood by you after an American Grand Jury found you and your partner guilty of fraud and corruption,' she blithely went on. 'But because you sang like the proverbial canary, you received a lesser sentence.'

Rees told her, trying to keep calm, 'Newspapers tend to exaggerate.'

'Our local rag claimed you two-timed your loyal wife as soon as you were released. Ended up with an even richer woman,a widow.' A pause followed but he was unable to speak as her words, like single hammer blows, assualted his ears. Then she asked, 'Have you brought your second wife on this trip?'

He shook his head and, finding his voice, said, 'It's freezing out here. I'm heading back to my hotel.'

'Where are you staying,' she asked.

He pointed up the road. 'The Seaways. It's cosy apart from the fake pine.' Now, for some reason, he needed to justify his past actions. Wanted her to accompany him. Talk over a drink. Maybe, later on, once he'd melted that little heart of hers, take her up to his hotel bedroom.

'When my mother was a teenager, she worked in The Seaways,' she broke into his musing.

'Really.' He turned his gaze back to the churning sea.

'She loaned you twenty pounds before you ran off.' The young woman leaned forward, peering over the railings. 'Your poor mother's Christmas money went missing too. She claimed she'd mislaid it. But your Dad knew different.'

'Who in the hell are you?' Anger and guilt exploded inside his head. 'Some little sanctimonious bitch who's leader of the local Conscience Party?'

'Yell if it makes you fell better.' The calm tone in her voice and the way she tossed her head brought up another memory, the memory of Melanie Moorcroft and, studying the young woman standing beside him, he could see the likeness, the same delicate features.

'Emma!' Both turned at the shout and watched a figure heading towards them and as the man approached, Rees felt a stir of anxiety.

'This is Paul,' she said when the burly young man reached her side, placed a protective arm about her shoulders.

'Thought you were waiting for me in the pub' Paul kissed her cheek.

Looking at Rees, she said, 'Paul meet Rees Sebastian Newcomb.' And she she introduced him, Rees wondered how she knew his middle name. No one, not even family, had ever dared to utter it in his presence.

'Not David's brother?' The question sounded like an accusation.

'You know my brother?' Rees asked.

'He's the skipper of our lifeboat,' came the curt response. 'Emma's Dad.'

Rees felt as if he's been struck and Emma, watching him, said, 'Your sister-in-law, my mother, Melanie Moorcroft, married your brother six months after you left.'

Rees swallowed a couple of times, longing for a stiff drink. 'Small town,' he managed to comment. Then pulling himself together, asked, 'And how is my brother?'

'He's fine.' Rees sensed hostility in the young man's reply.

'I was thinking of calling in to see him,' Rees told them.

'I wouldn't bother if I were you,' the young man stated.

'Tomorrow,' Rees persisted.

'Tomorrow or any other day won't be convenient.' Paul took a step closer. 'My advice to you Mr. Rees Sebastian Newcomb, is to leave Dunely, tonight.'

Rees bunched his fists. No one told him what to do. No one dared to even in prison. Respect he'd earned. Respect he got.

Emma tugged at her boyfriend's sleeve. 'Time to make a move,' she said.

And Rees said,'Better listen to your little woman.'

Paul made a move towards Rees. Emma, grabbing hold of his hand, tried to drag him away. And for a long moment, both men faced one and other until Paul, with a shrug, walked off and watching the couple hurry along the promenade, Rees wiping away salt spray from his eyes, was surprised to find himself crying.