Andrew let go of the burden, mouth full of bile. He struggled back into the dinghy, salvaged his oars and rowed back to shore, where he stopped only long enough to be sick, before squelching back to his van, hoping to God his mobile worked up there. It didn’t. Cursing, he threw it on the floor and started the van with shaking hands. As he drove back toward Helmthorpe, he glanced frequently in his rearview mirror to make sure that no misshapen, supernatural beasts from the depths of the tarn were following him.

Banks still felt angry when he pulled up outside his parents’ house, brakes squealing, but before he went inside he took several deep breaths, determined not to let it show. His parents didn’t need it; they had problems enough of their own. He found his father in front of the television watching horse racing and his mother in the kitchen fussing over a cake.

“I’m heading home this afternoon,” he said, popping his head around the kitchen door. “Thanks for letting me stay.”

“There’s always a bed for you here,” his mother said. “You know that, son. Have you finished what you came for?”

“Not really,” said Banks, “but there’s not a lot more I can do.”

“You’re a policeman. Surely you can do something to help?”

The ways Banks’s mother said “policeman” wasn’t quite as vehement as the way his father said it, nor was it as tinged with distaste as the way she used to say it, but it wasn’t far off, which was why it had surprised Banks when Mrs. Marshall told him his mother was proud of him. Banks’s mother had always made it clear that she thought he had sold himself short, that he should have gone into commerce and worked himself up to be managing director of some big international company. It didn’t seem to matter how well he did in his job, or how often he was promoted; to his mother, his career choice was undignified, and his achievements always seemed to pale beside those of his stockbroker brother, Roy. Banks had always suspected that Roy was a bit of a shady dealer, a frequent enough occurrence in the world of financial speculation, in his experience, though he would never voice such suspicions to his mother, or indeed to Roy himself. Still, he lived in dread of that telephone call coming from his brother one day: “Alan, can you help me? I’m in a bit of a fix with the law.”

“It’s not my case, Mum,” he said. “The locals are good. They’ll do the best they can.”

“Will you have something to eat with us before you go?”

“Of course. Know what I’d like?”

“What?”

“Fish and chips from over the road,” said Banks. “I’ll get them. My treat.”

“Well, maybe I’ll have a fish cake,” said his mother. “Your dad hasn’t eaten from there since it went Chinese, though.”

“Go on, Dad,” said Banks, turning to the living room. “Or maybe you should stick to your low-fat diet?”