It was only at the end of the night, when they’d hung around giving statements and calling the cab ranks to send every car available to ferry the kids home, getting on for three o’clock, the last coffee brewed and drunk, the place locked up and dark, the cops waiting for them to leave in their own cabs, that Odd said, ‘Cheers, Vince, we done well. Don’t miss the eight o’clock mass at St Gregory’s now.’ And Vince thumped his arm and remembered. ‘What was that all about – your mate and his win at the dogs?’

‘Oh, right – I was getting to that.’

‘You were?’

‘Derry said the man he got the tips off wouldn’t tell him his name, just said the bookie would know who the wallet had come from, and when he took it the bookie said, “Is this from the Cabby or Fats?”'

Thirty

The cars crept along the paths, crunching on the gravel, and the gravel sparkled like the sea under a heavy frost and the dawn sky was sea-blue, with a fading half-moon. When they stopped and people got out and stood waiting, breath plumed up like smoke.

Simon stamped his feet, the Chief banged his hands together. A robin stood on the white grass beside the white tent, bright-eyed, watchful, head cocked.

The van was already there, parked on the far side of the tent, invisible from the paths and shielded by a high wall. The ghosts in white suits, white hoods pulled up, bent over bags of equipment.

The black police Range Rover was by the tent on the near side, the unmarked van as close as it could get to the entrance flap.

It had been the right of the family to attend but no one had wanted to.

When Serrailler had been to see Lynn Vines, she had stared at him in shock, her face pale blank of expression for a several moments, before she said, ‘Oh God, not this, please not . . . we’ve had enough. He’s had enough. Can’t you let him be?’

He had explained carefully, gently, stressed that everything would be done with great respect, very early in the morning so that there could be no gawpers, and no funerals taking place at the same time.

‘I totally understand how you feel, and if you don’t want to be there – and I think you’re right, you’ve had enough and it wouldn’t serve any purpose – then you needn’t even know the date and time.’

‘I wouldn’t want to know that, I’d think of nothing else, I’d . . . Do I have to tell Mum and Derek?’

‘They ought to know, but if you’d prefer it, I can go and see them and explain.’

‘No. It ought not to be a policeman. They wouldn’t want . . . sorry, I’m sorry.’

‘Please don’t be. I understand everything you’re saying, I really do.’