‘A shrike,’ he mumbles, as the silvery shape delineates into a shape he recognizes.

It’s a silver charm. A gypsy wagon, dangling from a silver ring. It belongs on a charm bracelet. An antique, French-made charm bracelet. A bracelet that entwined the slender wrists of the young Roisin Teague.

McAvoy’s feet slip on the wet earth. Sharp branches rip at his face: claws scoring trenches into the cold, wind-kissed flesh of his cheekbone. In the periphery of his vision, the jewelled haze of crimson blood.

He’s pulling his phone from his pocket as he starts to run.

Over the sound of his thudding heart, the mechanical arpeggio.

Three notes.

Call failed.

SEVENTEEN

Twelve years ago

This is the Fair Maid, set back from a quiet road near the centre of Cottingham, on the northerly reaches of Hull. It calls itself a village, but it’s the size of a decent town. It’s popular with the self-made crowd: plumbers, builders, structural engineers, all proud to have invested in property at the right time; revelling in their grand five- and six-bedroomed properties that line the wide roads – bay windows reflecting long, landscaped gardens built around Audis and the wife’s weekend convertible. It’s got an edge, has Cottingham – a certain toxicity to the air in certain pubs, once the casual drinkers have gone and the regulars can reel off their lengthy checklist of prejudices: the wife, the darkies, the young. And the Travellers. The families up at the halting site, squashed in between the Indian restaurant and the golf club. Hundreds of them, now. Caravans, mobile homes, lodges, bungalows: a proper little community that routinely enrages the locals.

McAvoy’s sitting outside at a little wooden table, drawing stick figures in spilled beer. He’s drinking something tropical and sticky, and which would benefit from being frozen around a stick, and licked on sunny days.

He checks his watch. Almost eleven p.m. He’s heard them call last orders. He’s starting to think he asked too much of her …

A blue hatchback careers too fast into the car park and swings into a parking space for the disabled, sending up a spray of muddy water. The door swings open in an instant, and the driver yanks the keys from the ignition as she hauls herself from the vehicle. She stomps across the puddle-patterned car park: a vision in rubber sandals, pyjama trousers and a puffer-style gilet over bare arms. Her name is Donna, but people call her ‘Red’, in respect of her frizzy, sun-kissed hair. She’s tall, broad-shouldered, and has the names of several children and former lovers tattooed in various styles down her left forearm, as if trying to select a favourite font.

‘I got you a drink,’ says McAvoy, quietly, rising from his chair like a gentleman receiving a lady of rank. He nods at the Bacardi Breezer on the table. ‘Didn’t know you’d be driving.’

‘Expected me to run, did you?’ she demands, coming to a stop in front of him and picking up the bottle. She takes a swig. Shakes her head at him in the exasperated way he is beginning to become familiar with. ‘It’ll have to be quick. He thinks I’m pricing up a Gonfalon.’