This rather curious play is another that interests me. Filled with loathing for his weaknesses, James Milner suffers a crisis that undermines everything he thought to be true. "Is it a fair world?", his wife, Julie, yells at him as he storms out of the house after destroying his daughters' mobile phones. His business appointment is nearly forgotten as he passes the police station and sees a girl standing on the pavement with passers-by barging past her. Milner parks the car and decides to help the girl; he suddenly remembers why her face is familiar as she smiles at him. In 1895, a girl’s body had been pulled from the waters by the old bridge. A probable suicide, her identity unknown, she was buried in a pauper’s grave.  All who saw her were struck by the girl’s repose after death. A cast was made of her face and kept in a cupboard at the police station. Milner recalls seeing a photograph of the girl’s death-mask in his father’s newspaper when he was a boy.  How does the girl know his identity as he approaches and offers him an apple that she says is good? Milner is shocked when she tells him there are three drops of blood on his trouser leg. Fearing for his sanity, Milner allows the unknown girl to travel with him. As they get into the car, it is now early evening and not the morning when he begun his journey. I have included an extract below.

Milner:   Why don’t they come? I stood by the window and there are no signs of any buses. The bus shelter is in darkness. Surely, Julie and the girls have not forgotten? They watch me in here; their faces blank one moment, then eager the next for they want to see if I am weak willed. One incident did disturb me and that was the peal of the church bell. I knew what that signified and I did not have the heart to tell my fellow travellers. It was stifling and I felt so cold. The tips of my fingers felt numb, as did my legs and toes. Closing my tired eyes, I remembered a few hours previous when I caused another furore. Julie, my wife, remained silent, imploring me to say nothing. Jane and Alex, my teenage daughters, were at the awkward age when they were right with everything they said and did. I would do anything for them. What I did not want to happen was for their eyesight to be ruined by constantly staring at the screens of those bastard mobile phones and communicating with their friends in a language I found incomprehensible. Well, I smashed the mobiles to pieces with my father’s old hammer. I took great pleasure in this and told them straight: “You should be outside with your friends, not stuck in your bedrooms for hours on end. Believe me; you will lose the ability to have a conversation with anyone if you carry on like this. “Being short tempered, I left the girls in tears, Julie staring at me with daggers in her eyes, and I drove off to a meeting with my bank manager. At least, I thought, calmness returning, the girls do pick up a book now and again. I had to go to the bank because the late payments from customers came in weeks after they were due. An extension to the overdraft was needed to tide us over until next month. There is never a level playing field for small companies. I could use the red tape to strangle someone for this mess I was in if I could find the person responsible. Traffic had increased and my patience was not too good. Then, as we started to move, I saw people pushing past a girl by the police station. She had her back to me, her hands covered her face, and, I presumed, she was weeping gently. Her long, wavy brown hair did not move with the breeze. Then, as I was about to turn to the right, she looked at me. There was some kind of recognition because she smiled. . .