David Keating fears he may be all these things. What saves him from despair is his middle-years marriage to tough driven Annet:an attraction of opposites. The passion - and the problems - of their late flowering love give meaning to David's life.

But in the physical and emotional turmoil that follow the birth of their daughter Freya, David's sleepless nights are tortured by the memory of an employee he treated shabbily. And as he and Annett struggle to adjust to late parenthood, he is haunted by the idea that someone is watching him. The idea quickly becomes an obsession, and when the mysterious figure disappears he sets out to discover the truth, a search for which he will pay a high price in terms of his own relationships.

For the truth isn't always comfortable, and confronting it can be dangerous. Only when David has stared harsh reality in the face does he fully understand that a dreamed of heaven is not 'out there' - but here. And on hold.