Will, or Foxy as he was sometimes called, played the sexy Silent Witness pathologist card on women all the time—and it worked. He referred to himself as “The Death Detective” and made out that the police couldn’t make a move without him. Ridley didn’t mind; it wasn’t entirely untrue and, besides, all he cared about was his team being exceptional. And Foxy was exceptional.

The Aylesbury undertaker handed Foxy a large evidence bag and pushed the gurney indoors. Ridley explained.

“His left foot came off when they picked him up.”

The walk from Totnes railway station to Charlie and Penny’s bungalow was visually quite an ordinary picture of semi-rural life, but emotionally, for Jack, it was borderline enchanting. Every step was a memory: the pub where he’d had his first underage drink; the back garden where he’d first touched a girl underneath her clothes; his first fight, his first heartbreak and the pub where he first saw Maggie. She was horrible to him. But they were both drunk and were showing off with their respective groups of friends.

The day after, Jack had gone to the café where Maggie worked and apologized. He’d stayed for four hours until she finished her shift and then taken her for a drink . . . Three hours later, they knew everything there was to know about each other. Jack wasn’t Maggie’s first love, but she was his.

Of course, he thought he’d been in love before, but he hadn’t really—he’d been in lust. Love was calm, lust was frantic. Frantic because Jack never knew exactly how long it would last, so he had to make the most of it while he could. But with Maggie, he knew immediately that he had all the time in the world. She was going nowhere.

Jack stared at the bungalow he’d grown up in. Every light was on. Every light was always on. He smiled and shook his head. He watched Penny fussing in the lounge through always-open curtains, then in his old bedroom—she was fluffing his pillows, probably for the twentieth time. He was sure she was checking she’d put every toiletry under the sun in his en suite, just in case he’d forgotten anything—which would be handy on this occasion because, in his rush to get here, he’d forgotten pretty much everything.

From the second Penny opened the front door, she never once stopped talking.

“Tea, darling . . . ? Oh, the trains are a nuisance, aren’t they . . . ? How’s Maggie . . . ? Georgina’s got herself a puppy, can you believe it . . . ? There’s a chicken in the oven, but the veg isn’t on yet . . . Would you like a whisky to tide you over?”

Charlie smiled at Jack and rolled his eyes, gently mocking his hyperactive wife.

Father and son hugged. Charlie held on for a moment longer than usual and, in that instant, Jack knew something was very wrong. When Charlie pulled away, the tears were welling—then he sniffed, shook his head and squeezed Jack’s shoulders. In the background, Penny fussed between the sink, the oven and the drinks cabinet—oblivious to the fact that the dreadful news she was so frantically avoiding had just been silently shared.