I looked at my watch, which, even after the transplant, I continued to wear on my right wrist.

Quarter to seven here, quarter to eight in the Netherlands.

If Marina and Saskia had caught the three o’clock British Airways flight from Heathrow to Amsterdam, as we usually did when visiting her parents, they should soon be at the family home, depending on delays due to immigration, customs, or heavy traffic on the motorway going north.

I made myself a strong coffee and tried to sober up a bit. It wouldn’t do to be slurring my words if and when Marina called.

My phone rang and I grabbed at it, but it wasn’t Marina.

‘Hello, Sid,’ said a mumbling, squeaky, northern voice.

Gary Bremner.

He too had been drinking, and by the sound of him, he’d had far more than I.

‘Hello, Gary,’ I said with slight irritation. ‘What do you want?’

‘I want you, mate,’ he slurred. ‘Come and sort out my life.’

‘I told you to come down here and we would talk.’

‘I can’t.’

‘Why not?’ My irritation was rising. I didn’t want to miss a call from Marina because I was talking to a drunken Yorkshireman.

‘I daren’t leave the horses.’

‘Why not?’ I repeated.

‘Because someone will bloody kill them, that’s why not.’

He was getting quite agitated.

‘Why would anyone do that?’ I asked in as civil a tone as I could muster.

‘Because they said they would.’

‘Who did?’

‘If I knew that I wouldn’t need the great Sid Halley to find out, now would I? I have to stand guard all the time.’

And being drunk, I thought, wouldn’t necessarily add to the horses’ security.

‘Why don’t you call the police?’

‘I did, but they told me to eff off, or words to that effect. Said I was making the whole thing up. But I’m not.’

‘Did you explain about the threats?’

‘Course I did. But they’d been over the phone, hadn’t they. No evidence, they said. But it’s true. Come on, Sid. I bloody need you here.’

‘I’m sorry, Gary. I can’t at the moment.’

‘Don’t you believe me either?’

‘It’s not that. I just can’t leave my home at the moment. Can’t your stable staff guard the horses while you come down here?’

‘Don’t make me laugh.’ But he did. ‘I don’t trust any of those buggers.’

My phone buzzed in my hand, indicating that there was another call waiting.

‘Sorry, Gary. I have to go now, but why don’t we speak again in the morning, when you’ve sobered up.’

I disconnected his call and took the other, but that wasn’t from Marina either.

‘Just wanted to check you got home okay and hadn’t fallen off your bike.’

I sighed.