Joe finished his phone call to Sal and headed back to Mardle, driving too fast along the icy roads. It was the day before Christmas Eve and the gritters would be on double time, so the council hadn’t called them in. He felt responsible for Vera; she thought she was invincible, that she could control any situation with the power of her personality. She could be an arrogant cow, with no sense of danger. He couldn’t allow anything dreadful to happen to the boss.

He pulled into the lay-by opposite a petrol station that was putting up Closed signs. The roads were almost empty now. Stepping out of the car, he was hit by a sudden cold that took away his breath for a moment. The moonlight made everything monochrome and dreamlike and the shadows were very sharp. He headed away from the road and towards the beach. After a few minutes he heard the sound of an engine, moving down the track towards the car park, and he was close enough to recognize Malcolm’s car, the rattling, spluttering sound of it and the shape of the model. There was a bank of bramble and he hid behind that and watched two figures head towards the beach. Joe waited until they were far enough into the dunes not to hear his footsteps and then he followed. He must have got lost in the strange dunescape, because suddenly he found himself facing the wrong way and looking down towards the main road and the lights of the town in the distance. Perhaps Jessie had inherited his sense of direction. Then he had another moment of panic, imagining Vera dealing with this situation alone. He wished he knew where she was.

At last he reached the highest sand hill and from there he had a view of the beach. The white curve of the softly breaking waves catching in the moonlight. The same two figures, very close, walking towards the water. Did they intend to continue walking, heading towards Scandinavia, until they were killed by drowning or by the cold? Some odd suicide pact.

This was like the set of a black-and-white silent movie. There was no sound apart from the occasional distant rumble of a truck on the main road. It was so quiet that when the words came they were shocking.

‘No more killing!’ A bellow like a bull elephant.

And he saw Vera, recognizable because of her bulk, moving across the sand at a speed that seemed physically impossible for someone of her size. A giant hovercraft, hardly seeming to touch the ground. And the two companions must have been shocked too, because they stopped moving and watched her running towards them.