He stood for a moment in the doorway of the saloon, unable to move. With the removal of the body the crowd at the harbour wall had faded away. The town was quiet. Her shadow was already disappearing among the cranes, the boxes of cargo, and fish crates on the quay. A uniformed police constable watched her go.

Louis suddenly came to life. He jumped from the Jessie Ellen onto the quay.

“Inspector!” he shouted, running after her. “Inspector, there’s something I should tell you!” But by the time he reached the constable, Claire Bingham was driving away in her expensive car.

“What’s the matter?” the policeman asked. “Can I help you?”

“No,” Louis said. “It’s nothing that won’t wait.” He turned to the policeman, who was young, only a boy. “ You might as well come aboard,” he said. “ You’ll be more comfortable there. You’ll have a long night.” Then, because the Jessie Ellen provided the only security he had, he added, “I’ll stay here with you.”

Claire Bingham went first to the police station. Berry had collected Greg Franks’ car, and she had arranged to meet him there. Before she did anything, she phoned her husband. She could never quite lose herself in her work. Whatever she was doing, her responsibility for him and for Thomas remained at the back of her mind, a guilty irritation.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’ll be very late.”

As she had expected he was bad-tempered.

“What about the morning?” he said petulantly. “ What shall I do if you’re not back? It’s happened before. Who takes Tom to the childminder?”

“You’ll have to do it. You know where she lives.”

“Claire,” he said accusingly, as if she was being awkward deliberately, just to annoy him, “You know I’d arranged early squash with Charlie tomorrow.”

She wanted to say that there were lots of things she had arranged, too, and anyway, wasn’t murder slightly more important than showing off on the squash court in front of Charlie Turner, but she hated spending time away from him with disagreement lingering between them.

“I’m sorry, darling,” she said. “Really sorry. I’ll be home as soon as I can.”

Sergeant Berry had been in the canteen. She could smell the fried food and stale cigarette smoke around him as he came into the office, though she knew he never smoked. She stood up and opened a window, but away from the sea the night was still, and it did no good. Berry was young, quiet, anonymous. He still lived with his parents in one of the genteel, slightly shabby suburbs of the town. To his colleagues he was something of a joke. He was a nondrinker and had, it seemed, no girlfriends. They knew very little about him.