A police boat chugged under the bridge, dispelling the illusion, and in the glow of the navigation lights, Fielding could just make out two figures hunched in the stern; the engine was cut off suddenly and the boat drifted silently for a moment, then there was a splash as the drag hit the water, seeking some lost soul for whom the season had proved too much. An instinct for news should have rooted any decent journalist to the spot, but it wasn’t the time of year for other people’s tragedies and Fielding turned to go back to the office, leaving the river police to carry out their sober work 29in private. In the distance, the chimes from Big Ben struck the hour.

The air was raw now, even away from the water, but the brightly lit windows on the north side of the street helped to temper the bleakness which had crept up on Fielding like an early morning mist. The Times headquarters – a plain, red-brick building opposite Blackfriars underground station – stood aloof from the pack of press in Fleet Street, as if keen to claim superiority. The latest fall of snow had deadened the city’s familiar evening sounds, and the photographer crossed the road to deliver a good day’s work, glad that the thrill of the job was still as fresh and unspoilt as the whited streets and pavements.

The fug of cigarette smoke in the third-floor offices was less opaque than usual, a sure sign that things were winding down for Christmas. Fielding knocked at the editor’s door and received the customary curt admittance. Dick Robertson was standing by the window, laying down the law to a junior reporter who fled the room gratefully at the first sign of a reprieve. Tuesday’s paper lay open on the desk, already dissected and annotated as old news gave way to the stories that had arrived too late, and Fielding wondered if Robertson even had a home; no matter what the shift, he was invariably somewhere on the premises. ‘You asked to see me, sir?’

‘Yes, but that was hours ago. Where the hell have you been?’

‘Down by the river, gathering shots for the piece in tomorrow’s—’

‘Yes, yes, yes,’ Robertson interrupted, holding up his hand in exasperation. ‘Sometimes I wonder why I do this job. We’ve got all hell breaking out in Europe, and still the only 30thing that anyone wants to read about is the weather. What’s wrong with people? Why can’t they just look out of their bloody windows?’

‘It is Christmas. I suppose they’re making plans for the holidays.’

‘Yes, well, so is Hitler.’ Robertson gestured to the open newspaper, where a picture of starving refugees arriving in Shanghai sat incongruously next to Fielding’s own photograph of the skating in Hyde Park. ‘Anyway, Christmas was what I wanted to talk to you about. Are you all set for Cornwall?’

‘Raring to go. Any final instructions?’

Robertson looked his senior photographer up and down, taking in the shapeless trousers and the overcoat with its missing buttons. ‘Smarten up for a start, and try to look a little more … well, respectable. You know what the aristocracy’s like, and you are representing this newspaper while you’re there.’