Next door to the yard was the lifeboat station, housing the inshore lifeboat, and outside it, to the seaward side, sat the tractor and trailer that would carry the vessel to the water in emergencies or on exercise. Then came the Mardle Fisheries: alive, buzzing with sound, background music from the telly on the wall, laughter from the people in the queue. During the day the fisheries sold wet fish, much of it locally caught, retail and wholesale from a long, low building at the back. In the evening it was a fish-and-chip shop, with a sit-in restaurant by the side. Behind the fryers two women dressed in white were flushed with heat, despite the snowflakes blowing in through the open door. There was a line of people spilling onto the street. All local. Mardle wasn’t a place for tourists, even in the summer. There was nothing beyond the fisheries except the harbour, enclosed by the wall. The boats there were dark shadows, half-hidden by the drifting flakes.

On the other side of the road stood the Coble pub, and already the snow was flattened and hard where people had crossed between it and the chip shop. Outside, a couple of hardy smokers leaned against the wall for shelter from the worst of the weather. Next to the pub was the low, squat building of the harbourmaster’s office; beyond that some rough ground that was used as a car park, and then, opposite the big residential house with the brightly lit basement, stood St Bartholomew’s Church. Victorian Gothic, a church built for seamen and pitmen, now regularly attended by a handful of elderly women. At the end of the street, like a beacon or a square glowing moon, shone the yellow cube with the black M that marked the Metro station. The end of the line. People waited on the platform to get into town for Friday-night partying, but no trains came.

This was Harbour Street.

In the big house Kate Dewar carried the linen up the stairs to the airing cupboard, pausing briefly outside the numbered doors. Not listening. Kate would never eavesdrop on her guests. But this was her territory and she liked to know who was at home. The house seemed quiet. Perhaps the snow was causing travel problems. She was glad her kids were already in; she’d heard them arrive earlier and imagined them slouched on the couch in the basement flat, watching TV. She had a rule about finishing homework before switching on the set, but it was nearly the end of term and today she wasn’t going to push it.