Joe crossed the road so that he couldn’t be seen from the Harbour Guest House basement and wondered what he should do next. He assumed Vera had gone into town on the trail of George Enderby. She’d probably dragged Holly or Charlie along with her, a corroborative witness if the case came to court. He tried phoning her, but the call went straight to voice-mail. Joe was still standing there dithering, phone in his hand, when the door of the guest house opened and Stuart Booth emerged. He hesitated and then looked back at the house. Joe expected Kate Dewar to follow, but the man closed the door behind him and remained there for a moment. Dithering too. They formed mirror images of each other on both sides of the road. Booth seemed to come to a decision, before making a dash across the street to join Joe outside the church.

‘I wonder if I might talk to you, Sergeant. I have some information; it might be relevant to the murder of Margaret Krukowski.’

Joe was in a pool car and he drove Booth to the police station in Kimmerston. Vera might have done it differently, had some informal chat over tea or beer or chips. But Joe wanted this done properly – the man’s words recorded. Driving to Kimmerston, he felt a tingle of excitement. It occurred to him that the man intended to confess to murder: Booth was so still and so serious.

In the car Booth didn’t speak. Joe turned occasionally to sneak a look at him and saw that he was staring out of the window, very tense. The muscles in his face were set hard. Joe had come across men like him in rural Northumberland. Hill farmers and shepherds, with few words. Tough, sinewy men. It was hard to imagine Booth as a musician. Joe had looked him up, and Google said that jazz was his thing. Perhaps that was when he did relax, and he could picture the man then in a basement bar playing saxophone, head tilted back, eyes half-closed, wrapped up in his music.

‘What instrument do you play?’ The question came without thought.

Booth didn’t turn away from the window to answer. ‘At school, whatever they need me to. Piano for assembly, recorder to start the little buggers off. But for pleasure, the alto sax.’

Joe was pleased that he’d guessed right.

In the station Joe got Booth coffee from the staffroom, in a mug, not the cardboard cups they usually gave to witnesses. One of Vera’s tricks. Holly had gone into town with Vera in search of Enderby, so Charlie sat in, the silent man, the observer, while for once Joe took charge of the discussion. They sat in an interview room and their words bounced off the gloss-painted walls and seemed to rattle like hail from the ceiling. He asked if he might record their discussion and Booth nodded.