His face was turned away from me now, the reflection of him in the window as pale as a phantom. ‘All the cold cases I looked into,’ he said softly, ‘all the months down in Devon I spent researching them at the library …’ He glanced at me. ‘I mean, I had to do something to maintain my sanity. I was working on a trawler with a moron and his son, I had zero access to the Internet at home, I couldn’t talk to other people, and I either started trying to do something useful, something I was actually good at, or I went home and stared into the void and felt like topping myself. So you know something? When I told you about this case, when I said we should look into it, when you actually arrived here yesterday, for a brief moment I allowed myself to think that things might be different.’ His gaze returned to the window, to the scenery passing in a blur at the side of us, his reflection blinking in and out on the glass. ‘For a second there, I actually thought my life might be worth something more than this; that for a few days, it might not be the same monumental fuck-up.’

I didn’t know what to say to that, so we didn’t speak again until we were almost in Skipton – the emptiness of the moors gradually giving way to the outskirts of the town – and, when we did, it was simply a repeat of the arrangements for the next few days. We went over them again as I idled outside the station – and then Healy headed inside the building.

He didn’t look back.

He simply vanished behind the windows.

A ghost, once again.

Pioneer

1985

Los Angeles | Wednesday 24 July

The next day, Jo woke early, before the sun was up, and – as had become her routine – ate breakfast standing in the doorway of Ethan’s bedroom. After she was done, she wandered back through to the kitchen. Ira was catching a flight out to New York for a lunchtime meeting and wouldn’t be back until the next day, which was why he’d reluctantly crawled out of bed so early. He still had to eat, shower, pack, drop Ethan at the day care in Van Nuys and then get down to LAX.

‘You know where it is, right?’ Jo asked him.

‘LAX? Yeah, I think I can find it.’

She rolled her eyes.

He smiled. ‘This ain’t my first rodeo, cowgirl.’

He meant he’d dropped Ethan off at the same day care the last time he’d had to go out of town on business. Ira was a graphic designer, so usually worked from home, and the two of them generally stuck to the same routine: if she was on a day shift, he would work evenings – and vice versa – and whoever was off would look after Ethan.