When his stomach rumbled, he knew it was time to take a break for lunch and decided it was the perfect opportunity to call home and speak to his son and wife. He needed to hear their voices and, more importantly, he needed them to know he was thinking about them and that he wished he was with them at home.

After consuming a serving of cottage pie and peas in the police station canteen, Palmer stepped outside the front of the building to call his family. To his bitter disappointment there was no answer. He remembered his wife was taking their son to visit Father Christmas. He wanted so badly to call and hear their voices, but he refrained from making the call. He’d have to speak to them later.

Looking up at the white sky he could feel that snow was in the air again. The chill had returned and the threat of rain was long gone. On the road in front of the station puddles were beginning to freeze over, a paper-thin layer of ice forming almost in front of his eyes. Rubbing his hands together for warmth he returned to the station and was met by Elly who was tearing down the stairs.

‘I found it!’ she said holding a printout in her hand. ‘Jack Hucknell. He was a boy scout who killed himself in 1998. His parents found him at home. The newspaper doesn’t give much information, but I’ve managed to track his family down. Here’s the address.’

‘Excellent.’ Palmer took the papers from her.

‘Poor little mite was thirteen.’ She shook her head. ‘Same age as my little sister. There’s so much pressure on kids now. Social media, exams, it’s so much for them to contend with. Doesn’t bear thinking about.’

‘No. It doesn’t,’ Palmer said thinking about his own son again. ‘Fancy a trip.’ He paused to look at the address. ‘To Sawston?’

Palmer had called ahead and warned the Hucknell family that officers were on their way over to the house to interview them. He felt awful having to dredge up their painful past, especially with it being so close to Christmas but, in order to save another family pain, he had to subject this one to it. It was a dilemma he’d never got his head around properly.

Sawston, a large village south of Cambridge, was busy with shoppers. The high street was bustling with families doing some last-minute Christmas shopping. But it was a relief to be somewhere where the traffic flowed more freely than it did in the city. The Christmas lights came on just as darkness began to fall and the car pulled onto the high street.

‘My son would have loved seeing that,’ Palmer muttered to himself as he searched for The Dairy House through the window.

‘Stop!’ Elly exclaimed. ‘It’s just there.’