The sun shone bright and warm for an early April day.  Wet shirts hung heavily on the line, and every so often a breeze would cause them to sway, and as they did so, they threw moving shadows on the face of Matthew Stannard.
      He reclined in a deckchair in the back garden of his sister’s house.  It was called a garden though it paid little respect to the name; the lawn was no larger than the size of a dining table, the rest of the ground area was paved over and corners were used for a ramshackle assortment of objects; spades, rubbish bins, beer crates.  It was small and functional because it was the backyard to a public house, Matthew’s sister and brother-in-law being the owners of The Fiddler’s Retreat, situated in a decent and mostly residential area of East London.
      He wasn’t asleep, though he felt dog-tired because these days, he didn’t sleep well.  His eyes were closed, but almost two decades spent in detection made him alert to his surroundings.  He heard his sister in the kitchen, banging crockery on to a tray as she prepared the afternoon tea, heard the rasp of the paint brush behind him as Frederick creosoted a new section of fence, heard some young boys kicking a football against the wall.  He opened his eyes a fraction and scanned the sky, forcing his eyes to grow accustomed to the light.  Sleepily, he turned his head to the side and glanced at the house next door.  In the top window, was the neighbour’s daughter, changing her clothes.  He watched her pull a red jumper over her head.  She lingered long at the window in her bra, and he knew in that moment that she wanted him to be watching.  He smiled to himself, flattered that such a young thing should be interested in him.  He shook his head and sat up, pulling the back of the chair so that it slid into the next section of notches. 
      ‘You awake, Matt?’ Frederick asked.  Matthew nodded.  ‘Pat, he’s awake.’
      ‘Right ‘o,’ a voice helloed from the kitchen, ‘I’ll bring the tea out now.’
      'She wasn’t waiting on me, was she?’
      ‘Oh, you know Pat, she doesn’t like to disturb you.’
      ‘Make a table for me, Fred,’ Patricia said as she stepped out onto the paving stones, a heavily laden tray in her hands and slippers on her feet.  ‘Turn that crate upside down, that’ll do.  And then get the chairs out for Mother and Georgie.’
      Frederick did as he was bid, and Patricia deposited the tea tray on the upended crate.  ‘’ave a nice sleep, did you?’
      ‘Yes,’ Matthew lied.  ‘George back then, is he?’
      ‘Been back for about an hour,’ she said, cutting a thin slice of fruit cake for him.
      ‘Where has he been?’
      ‘I don’t know. Why?’
      ‘Just wondered, that’s all.’
      ‘Why don’t you ask him, if you’re all that curious?’
      Matthew shook his head in answer.  ‘Is Fred bringing him out?’
      ‘George is not a complete invalid,’ Patricia said crossly.  ‘He’s got his crutches.  He’ll manage.  Besides, he gets upset if you make too much fuss.’
      Frederick brought out two upright chairs and set them down around the tea tray, then returned with two more.  Patricia and Matthew’s mother, Elizabeth, came out and sat down next to Matthew, patting his hand affectionately.  Patricia saw it and muttered under her breath.  Next came George, swinging easily on his wooden crutches.  Frederick helped him into a chair.
      ‘You’re looking well, George,’ Frederick said.
      George grunted an agreement.  Matthew studied his brother.  ‘What?’ George said after a minute under this scrutiny.  Matthew muttered ‘nothing’ and looked hurriedly away.
      ‘Don’t speak to your brother like that,’ Elizabeth scolded George.
      ‘Is that how you used to look at the villains, Matt?’ George sneered.  ‘Give up all their secrets, did they, when you gave ‘em that look?’
      ‘Something like that,’ Matthew said, his eyes narrowing.
      ‘Will you two behave?’ Patricia snapped.  ‘Honestly, I’m fed up with your sniping.’
      ‘Can you give us a hand in the bar tonight, Matt?’ Frederick asked in an attempt to change the subject.
     ‘Course,’ Matthew said, taking down a mouthful of tea.  ‘Haven’t anything else to do.’
     ‘Well, you could find yourself somewhere to live,’ George suggested spitefully.  ‘Can’t expect Pat and Fred to look after you for the rest of your life.’
     ‘They’re looking after you.’
     ‘Ah, but that’s different.  I can’t look after myself.  I ain’t got no legs, have I, Matty boy?’
     ‘How much longer are you going to be throwing that in my face?’
     ‘Throwing what?’
     'The fact that you went to war and I didn’t?’
     ‘How could you go to war?’ Elizabeth said.  ‘You were doing your bit in the police.’
     ‘That needn’t have stopped him,’ George said with a shrug, stealing a slice of cake from his mother’s plate.  ‘Other coppers joined up.  There was one in my trench.’
     ‘If all the police had joined the army,’ Frederick said evenly, ‘there would have been no one to keep an eye on all the criminals left in England.’
     ‘I don’t think Matthew kept the criminal element at bay all by himself,’ George laughed derisively.  ‘He wasn’t that good a copper.  He couldn’t have been.  Couldn’t even forge evidence without getting caught.’
     Matthew had heard enough.  He pushed himself up from the deckchair, not without some difficulty as the seat was low, and stormed into the kitchen.  He heard the footsteps of Patricia padding quietly up behind him.  He was in no mood for conciliation.  He pushed forward through to the bar and jerked a class into the optic of a Scotch bottle.
     ‘Matthew,’ Patricia hissed, leaning over the partition that he had let down.  ‘Come back out.’
     ‘And listen to him going on?  No thank you.’
     ‘He didn’t mean it.’
     ‘Yes he did,’ he snapped, taking a gulp, gasping as the liquid burnt the back of his throat.
     ‘He’s lost both his legs, Matt.  You can’t blame him for feeling bitter.’
     ‘Is it my fault, then?   I didn’t shoot them off.   Christ, he should blame the Germans, blame the Government, anyone but me.’
     ‘You know why he has a go at you.’
     ‘Yes, I know.  He thinks I should have joined up.  But I was doing a necessary job.’
     ‘I know that.’
     ‘Well, tell him.’
     ‘I have told him.  But Matty, he’s been through such a lot.  We can’t understand how it feels.  He’s such a young man still.’
     Matthew shook his head and finished the whiskey.  ‘I know, Pat.  But I could do with some understanding myself.  I’ve lost my job, not to mention my reputation.  I'm only here on your sufferance.’
     ‘That’s rubbish, Matt,’ Patricia smacked the bar top angrily. 
     ‘My money’s run out,’ he continued as if she hadn’t spoken.  ‘And there aren’t many firms willing to hire a bent ex-copper.’
     ‘You might get called up,’ Patricia suggested brightly.
     Matthew cast a look at her.  ‘And that would be a good thing?’
     ‘Well,’ she shrugged uncomfortably.  ‘It might stop all the talk.’
     He leaned both elbows on the bar, cradling his empty glass and looked up at her.  ‘What talk?’
     ‘Just...talk.’
     ‘Oh, you mean all the talk that I’m a coward, haven’t got the guts to go to war, while my younger brother gets both his legs blown off fighting for King and country, while I’m out fitting up decent, respectable people.  That talk.’
     Patricia drew herself up.  ‘I’m not listening to you when you’re like this, Matthew.  Now, are you coming back out the garden?’
     ‘Stuff the garden.  I’m going out.’
     ‘Frederick asked-‘
     ‘I’ll be back to help behind the bar, Pat.  I’ve got nowhere else to go, have I?’
He slid a packet of tobacco and cigarette papers into his jacket pocket, reached for his hat on the hook behind the door.  He unbolted the door with its stained glass representation of a rustic fiddler and stepped out onto the street.