His was still the only car there. No sound at all except for water. The rain on the stone pier and the tide slapping against the harbour wall, so high that it almost washed over the top. It seemed that even the fishing boat had disappeared. Maybe the boys were at home now, sharing a beer. He walked on along the track towards the old salmon hatchery, to the building that would become an electricity substation when Evie’s grand scheme was played out. It had turned to mud and he slithered and tripped in one place. Shining his torch towards his feet, he saw at least two sets of footprints. But no car tracks. Even in this weather it would be possible to get a four-wheel-drive vehicle down here, but there was no sign of that having happened.

As he approached the old hatchery he sensed he wasn’t alone. There were voices. He supposed they were coming from inside the building. He’d reached it without realizing and switched off his torch immediately, hoping the light hadn’t shone through a crack in the door, through the crumbling stones. He couldn’t make out the words. The walls of the building were thick. Then there was silence, so he wondered if he’d imagined the sound, if his depression had created the voices and they were inside his head and not out there in the real world.

He stood where he was, incapable of moving or of coming to a decision. He must look ridiculous, standing here in the wet. Impotent. And suddenly he experienced the rage he’d felt when Fran had been killed, the desire to make someone – anyone – pay. A blind, confusing anger.

‘What are you doing here, Jimmy?’ The voice was like an echo of the voice in his head. There was the same bewilderment and the same madness. For an instant Jimmy didn’t respond because he thought he was imagining the question, just as he’d thought he’d imagined the voices in the shed.

The boat, he thought. Not boys out after creels. Of course the killer came by boat. A stab of sanity.

The voice persisted. ‘Why don’t you just walk away, Jimmy? Back to your car and the real world. You know what it’s like to need justice done.’ Besides the weird feelings of disconnection, Perez experienced a sense of triumph, because he recognized the voice and realized he’d been right about the identity of the killer. He was still good at this business. His brain was working.