‘What’s wrong, sweetie?’ Kim asked as she came into the kitchen. Bob was at her heels and he went over to his favourite place underneath the kitchen table and flopped down.

‘I’m trying to work out if I can go and visit Will again today,’ Dave said.

‘Why couldn’t you?’

‘I don’t want to put him under any pressure. I could see yesterday he was really tired. I don’t know much about these things, Kim, but I can’t see how much longer he can go on. His eyes are all sunken back in his head and—’ he broke off. ‘I don’t know, he sort of looks like a living skeleton.’

‘I noticed that when I was out there. And I don’t know too much about this sort of thing either. You and I’ve been really lucky not to have been through this with anyone we know.’ She sank down in a kitchen chair and put her head in her hands.

‘You want a cuppa?’

‘Yes, please, love.’

Dave switched the kettle on and got two mugs out of the cupboard before putting a tea bag in each. He didn’t feel like coffee in the middle of the day.

‘Why do you need to go back out there?’ Kim asked, reaching down to pat Bob’s head.

‘He said something about the drones yesterday and I couldn’t follow up on it. I feel like he knows something about them.’

Kim was silent as she continued to pat Bob. Finally, she asked, ‘If it was a murder enquiry, what would you do?’

‘I’d have to go out there,’ he answered without hesitation. The kettle boiled, and he picked it up and poured steaming water into the cups and started to dunk the tea bags. ‘This is different, though. It’s not a murder enquiry and I can probably solve the problem without calling on a dying man. He would just make it quicker and easier.’

‘I guess all you can do is make the decision when you get out there.’

Dave put the cup in front of her and sat down, just as a puff of foul-smelling air radiated up from under the table.

‘God almighty, Bob,’ Dave said as he fanned the smell away.

‘What about Zara—do you think she might know?’ Kim asked as she got up and moved away from the table. ‘I don’t know why that dog has to do that.’

‘Zara is part of the trouble,’ Dave answered. ‘She’s on our case to do something about the drones. I know she’s written a story about them because she came in and spoke to Jack, who told her there wasn’t an investigation going on and she wanted to know why.’

‘And why isn’t there?’

‘Well, really, up until now, I haven’t had enough evidence that there’s a problem. But I have three reports and one unofficial sighting. And when those reports came in, we were still on holidays and Jack didn’t want to stir up trouble with the locals in case someone had bought a new drone and didn’t know the rules. If that was the case, we could’ve just found them and warned them off.’