For Stephen Sumner, work had never been better.

He was a Member of Parliament, in which he represented his home constituency of Brighton Kempton. It was a seat he'd held for nearly fifteen years and he had just that year been re-elected. He was a member of the Labour cabinet too, no less. He oversaw Education for the whole of the United Kingdom, and he was poised, in the coming years, to oversee yet more still.

And, like any good politician, his opponents in the Conservative party detested him.

There was something quite satisfying, he found, about walking through the House of Commons and feeling the baleful stares of the Tories upon his back. Howard, Gove, Hague, Pickles, Osbourne, the ever-dignified David Cameron, and especially his opposite number, Elliot Powell. Stephen was quite sure that they all would far prefer that he never step foot in the Commons, or Britain, ever again.

He was the most active, and indeed most successful, Education Minister that the UK had ever had. Through his tenure, hundreds of grant schemes had been put in place so as to ensure that Higher Education was accessible to every member of the country. The funding budget for schools had doubled in his time in office, and in many of the poorest areas of the country, it had tripled.

The Tories, it seemed, would much rather have every penny the country possessed spent on ensuring that the borders were locked without reprieve and that immigrants could never even think of entering their green and pleasant land. No matter how much the country needed them.

Stephen's crowning achievement was the 'Academy System'. His proudest work, and yet still the most controversial piece of legislature he had passed.

With this, struggling schools were offered greater funding, provided directly under the central government's jurisdiction, and greater power to cater their schools specifically to their students. He had helped to give the youth of today the power to manifest their own successes.

In his life, Stephen had found that all that anyone truly needed to succeed was the opportunity to succeed, and the belief that success was possible. It was his, and the government's, duty to ensure that every person in their country had that opportunity and that belief.

He'd never considered himself a selfless person; he had too many vices for that. Drinking. Golf. Women. Even as age faded away most of the charm from his features, it had not faded his desire for any of those three things.

But he was a purposeful person. He knew and had always known that life was for more than just the satisfaction of one's most selfish senses. That vices were only valuable whilst they remained vices. When they were indulgences and not habits.

Though he'd gone out a fair amount in his youth and admittedly still did, even into his fifties, he'd never devoted himself fully to finding a life partner, to settling down and getting married. An affair some twenty-three years ago had given him a son, Hugh, and he was more than enough to make Stephen perfectly happy.

And so, as the Summer Recess fell upon the House of Commons, and Stephen was without any grand purpose for a month, he had only one desire.

To see his son happily married.

Hugh had proposed to his fiancée, Sally-Anne, in the spring of that year, days after Stephen had achieved re-election in what he could only describe as the happiest week of his life. And Sally-Anne was a lovely girl, too. Older and well-travelled. Quiet in the ways that Hugh was not. A wonderful pairing, Stephen thought.

There were times, as Stephen watched his son, his pride and joy, so happy with what was undoubtedly the love of his life, that the Minister found himself envious. His still youthful son, with his blond hair not yet faded to dull grey, his skin not rough and lined with creases, had managed to achieve the love and companionship that Stephen had not. And, he had done so whilst only just having entered his adulthood.

Yet, such feelings were infinitesimally short-lived. They were the petty misgivings of a child, a nothingness when compared to the fullness and loveliness of seeing his son happy.

And, as the world turned itself into the first Friday of August, two weeks before his son's wedding, Stephen's evening would yet again treat him with such a sight.

They were not a traditional family, Stephen and Hugh, but as their schedules would allow, they would attempt to spend one Friday of every month having a meal together. It was most often not just the two of them, and they had not done so for the past two months, but it was an idea they both enjoyed.

It would not be just the two of them that night, either. Sally-Anne, his son's fiancée, would be there, as would Stephen's best friends from university, Margery and Richard. They would, all five of them, fall upon Stephen's North London flat and they would drink, laugh, and talk the night away.

Stephen had already informed his housekeeper to make up the two spare bedrooms in preparation for such an evening. If all went well, neither couple would be in any fit state to drive home.

To his own shock, however, he found himself greatly looking forward to — and enjoying the process of — cooking. It was a skill he'd only picked up in raising Hugh, and one he only exercised when he was entertaining Hugh. But there was a functional purpose to it that he enjoyed thoroughly.

He heard a thud coming through the walls of his apartment, but he ignored it in favour of preparing their meal; basking in the simplicity of cutting the vegetables, raising the oven to temperature, and seasoning the beef to roast.

He heard a second thud. By then, he did take notice, though only enough to mutter beneath his breath about 'noisy neighbours'. It disappeared out of his memory easily enough. London was forever loud and apparently even its flats were no exception.

Soon enough, the monotony of food preparation disappeared from his focus, and instead, his mind wandered to the hotel that he'd arranged for Hugh's wedding to be held at. It had an exquisite golf course. One that had been used by the PGA Pro Tour as recently as last year.

Golf had been a tradition for Stephen, Hugh, and Richard from the moment his son could lift a club. He and Richard had taught Hugh the game completely, refusing to allow a coach to break away the potential for bonding.

Stephen's mind disappeared down memory lane over such memories. Of Hugh, at eight years old, winning a junior trophy against boys and girls nearly twice his age. And of one summer, when Hugh had been fifteen, and the three of them had gone to Spain on a golfing trip. They'd played and lazed under the sun for days on end.

And, as Stephen allowed his mind to wander, and he disappeared into his own memories, he was distracted enough that he did not hear the kitchen door open behind him.

Nor did he hear the third thud.