How does Ian McEwan use imagery in The Child in Time?

Examples of Imagery:

"He had been back a thousand times, seen his own hand, a shelf, the good accumulate, heard Kate chattering on, and tries to move his eyes, lift them against the weight of time, to find the shrouded figure at the periphery of vision, the one who was always on the side and slightly behind, who, filled with a strange desire, was calculating odds, or simply waiting."

"As always, they stayed out on the front path waving at their son as he receded into the sodium dusk, waving, resting their hands, then waving again as they had on the desert airstrip, till a slight bend in the street lost him to their view. It was as if they wanted to see for themselves that he was not going to change his mind, turn around, and come back home."