“Oops,” Lindsay said.

“Oops is right. You going off to collect your e-mail was the signal for Penny to slide right over into maudlin tears and reminisce about Meredith turning the lesbian community cyberpunk.”

“But only if they let her wear a bag over her head,” Lindsay responded. “You know, I couldn’t do a job where I had to stay in the closet.”

“No,” Sophie sighed. “You have many fine qualities, Lindsay, but discretion isn’t even in the top forty.”

And now Penny was dead. Lindsay kept staring at the newspaper. She had no idea what to do next. She supposed she should call Meredith in San Francisco, but she didn’t have any enthusiasm for it. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to be supportive, rather that she knew she was more use at the practical rather than the emotional side of things. In their partnership, it was Sophie who did emotional support.

Impatient with herself, Lindsay wiped the tears from her face. She’d take the dog for his evening run, then she’d call Meredith. “Penny would have taken the piss mercilessly,” she told Mutton as she walked up to the bedroom and changed into her running uniform of shorts, T-shirt and cross-trainers. “‘Whatever happened to the tough journalist?’ she’d have said. ‘Thought you could face out anybody? You scared of a bit of raw emotion, Lindsay?’ She’d have been a proper monkey on my back, dog,” she added as Mutton licked her knee.

Lindsay jogged up the street, then cut across towards the beach, avoiding the wiry grasses that would whip her legs raw within minutes. Once on the sand, she headed for the water’s edge, turned her back on Pillar Point and let her rhythm gradually build to a place where it became a part of her she didn’t have to think about. There were fewer people than usual on the beach that evening but Lindsay didn’t notice. Penny Varnavides was at the center of her mind’s eye, caught in a slo-mo memory replay, playing beach volleyball with Lindsay, Sophie, Meredith and half a dozen other women last Easter. Lindsay could see the ponytail of glossy black hair switch across Penny’s tanned shoulders as she leapt for the ball, the sun glinting on dark eyes and white teeth as she soared into the sky, fingers stretched to the limit to nudge the ball upwards again for one of her team-mates to sweep back over the net.

Never again, Lindsay thought, bitter and sad. Next time they all trooped down to the beach, they’d be one short.

Although she wasn’t consciously checking out her surroundings, part of Lindsay’s mind was on alert. Her evening routine with the dog had been going on sufficiently long for her to be familiar with other locals who ran or walked by the ocean. A stranger was enough in itself to register with her. A stranger walking a north-westerly line that looked as if it were chosen to intersect inevitably with her southerly one was enough to take her mind momentarily off Penny. Lindsay slowed slightly and stared at the approaching figure.