She switched off the alarm and lurched unsteadily to the kitchen. Two and a half hours solid sleep should have refreshed her, but she felt like shit. All she could think about was that Kerry had now been missing for three days and four nights, and that was not good.

As she automatically made coffee, she went over the happening of the day before, and briefly wondered how old the cornflakes were. She tried to concentrate, but her mind felt fuzzy and her head ached as if she had a God-awful hangover.

We have to be sharp, she heard herself saying, and this morning she felt anything but. She ate a few spoonfuls of the stale cereal, then threw the rest in the bin. She’d call in and get a Danish on her way to the station. Or maybe? What had she said to Joseph on their trip to Barnby Eaudyke? When I’d had a bad shift, I would go up to the sea-bank, be on my own, and get my head back together. If ever there was a time for that, it was now. She showered and dressed hurriedly, then locked the front door and headed for the station, and her badly parked car.

In twenty minutes, she was standing on the high bank that looked across the marsh to the Wash. For once, there was little wind, just a light warm breeze, and apart from the call of a skylark above her it was completely silent.

She walked along the uneven track and down a narrow path to a spot where she knew there was an old wooden seat. It was a little-known place, rarely used even by birdwatchers and, being some way down the bank, it was partially hidden by weather-beaten shrubby bushes.

Nikki sat down and gazed out across the salt marsh. It looked deserted, almost like a still photograph, until you really studied it. Then you realized it was teeming with life. A waterbird dipped its beak in a shallow lagoon of brackish water. A hare stretched up, sniffed the morning air, then sprang off in search of breakfast. A heron, grey and prehistoric, flapped its great wings and rose laboriously into the air, only to be chased by a pair of rooks that had materialized out of nowhere. And all around, the song of the skylark rose and fell, like an anthem to the dawn.

She breathed in the salty ozone and closed her eyes for a moment. It was so peaceful, and she knew that when she opened them she would see only nature surrounding her. No police uniforms, no decomposing bodies, no masks and no dying teenagers.

A sharp bark brought her from her reveries, and when she looked, she saw the shape of a small dog, nose to the ground, running sure-footed across the marsh paths. Caught the scent of a hare, she thought. Which is more than we seem to be able to do.