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Chapters (62)
  1. Title
  2. Copyright
  3. Contents
  4. About the Author
  5. About the Book
  6. Dedication
  7. Your Worst Nightmare
  8. ONE
  9. TWO
  10. THREE
  11. FOUR
  12. FIVE
  13. SIX
  14. SEVEN
  15. EIGHT
  16. NINE
  17. The Answer to All Your Prayers
  18. TEN
  19. ELEVEN
  20. TWELVE
  21. THIRTEEN
  22. FOURTEEN
  23. FIFTEEN
  24. SIXTEEN
  25. SEVENTEEN
  26. EIGHTEEN
  27. NINETEEN
  28. TWENTY
  29. TWENTY-ONE
  30. TWENTY-TWO
  31. TWENTY-THREE
  32. TWENTY-FOUR
  33. TWENTY-FIVE
  34. TWENTY-SIX
  35. TWENTY-SEVEN
  36. TWENTY-EIGHT
  37. TWENTY-NINE
  38. THIRTY
  39. THIRTY-ONE
  40. Somebody Else’s Child
  41. THIRTY-TWO
  42. THIRTY-THREE
  43. THIRTY-FOUR
  44. THIRTY-FIVE
  45. THIRTY-SIX
  46. THIRTY-SEVEN
  47. THIRTY-EIGHT
  48. THIRTY-NINE
  49. FORTY
  50. FORTY-ONE
  51. FORTY-TWO
  52. FORTY-THREE
  53. FORTY-FOUR
  54. FORTY-FIVE
  55. FORTY-SIX
  56. FORTY-SEVEN
  57. FORTY-EIGHT
  58. FORTY-NINE
  59. Sunlight on Water
  60. July
  61. September
  62. Acknowledgements

‘My grandpa was a man who loved the land. He loved the fells in summer and the frosty fields in winter. He loved to watch the fish swim in the beck and hear the skylarks sing. He loved his sheep and he loved Millie, his dog. He loved my dad and mum and he loved his friends and everybody here. He loved my grandma very much indeed.’

Chin trembling, he falters, unable to read any more of what he has written until he has wiped away tears with the back of his hand. Claire can hardly bear to look at him and see the misery of his grief. Matt’s head is bowed.

But Evan carries on, and says his final words.

‘My grandpa loved me, and I loved him. I miss you, Grandpa.’

FORTY-EIGHT

FORTY-EIGHT

31 May

Crown Court Trial, Day 1

‘We have to stop meeting like this,’ says Ron. ‘People will talk.’

The Lamb and Lion is quiet, in its usual Monday lunchtime dip. Naylor is already sitting at a window table, though there’s no view to the outside through the thick glass in the leaded panes, only half-hearted, watered-down daylight which doesn’t reflect the brightness of the warm day outside.

‘Let them talk,’ she says. ‘It never bothered us before. Nice tan, by the way. Don’t tell me you’ve got the sun-bed habit?’

‘Not in the way you mean,’ says Ron, taking off his jacket and hanging it on the back of a chair. ‘We’ve had a couple of weeks away. Malaga, very nice. Didn’t want to come home.’

‘We all have to come home.’

‘Maybe,’ says Ron. ‘You want another drink?’

‘I’m all right with this, thanks.’ Naylor points to her orange juice and soda.

While Ron’s at the bar ordering his pint and their food – steak and kidney as always for himself, regardless of the weather, a chicken Caesar salad for Naylor – she’s thinking he’s changed, and trying to put her finger on exactly what’s different. Straight after his retirement, anyone would still have picked him out as a copper. He hadn’t lost the tension everyone at the job seems to carry, even on downtime, with the permanently overhanging threat of the ringing phone, regardless of whether you were in Malaga or Margate; the buzzing in the brain, did I think of this, what if we did that. All that seems to be leaving him at last. Looking at him now, he’s a regular bloke, as likely to be taken for an ex-accountant as a retired detective. It’s taken him a while, but it seems as if Ron might have actually, mentally, retired.