Beauden shrugged. ‘Yeah, well. No big deal, I guess. But I just found … I think I just felt like I came home, and I was living behind glass or something. Or … what is it?’ He pushed himself back in his seat, moved a hand between his chest and the wheel. ‘It feels like I have distance from everything. Hard to explain. But it’s like, you’re on deployment, and everything is very real and immediate and feels like it counts for something. And I’ve come home, and in a weird way, it’s like nothing seems to matter. Like …’ He went quiet for a moment, looked at the window. ‘The universe is fourteen billion years old, right, and literally appeared out of nothing. And we’re the only ones here to see it.’ He looked at Vincent. ‘You ever think about that? How space and time are just so enormous, and there’d be no knowledge of it, if it weren’t for life on earth?’

‘Every now and then, I guess.’

Beauden nodded slowly. ‘Sometimes it feels like it’s on my mind too much. I don’t know. Getting swamped by the brute fact of it. It’s like … man. How do you find something meaningful in that? I mean, in that context? Sometimes I feel like, even something like this, potentially solving a case, there’s this part of me that thinks: Who cares? It doesn’t matter.’

Vincent wasn’t quite sure how to play that one. Life and meaning and the age of the universe. He said, ‘It’s good you’re talking to someone about it.’

‘Yeah. I think so. Anyway.’

Vincent had that strange feeling of being glued to the windshield, locked straight ahead until they made it through the conversation. He said, ‘I’m probably no good as a counsellor, but you know you can always get me on the phone. Chew the fat about space–time or whatever, if you need to.’

Beauden grinned. ‘Well, that’s good to know. I always said deep down you’re not too bad.’

The Navigator went north on Laurel Canyon Boulevard, up into the hills. Traffic thinned and Beauden hung back. Eventually the Navigator turned right onto Mount Olympus Drive.

‘Pull over a second, he’s going to see us turn in.’

Beauden swung to the kerb. ‘It’s twisty around here. We don’t want to fall back.’

‘Yeah, I know, just give it a second.’

Beauden waited another five and then floored the gas, putting the needle in the red as they rounded the corner onto Mount Olympus Drive. The street was narrow with cars parked on both kerbs, Beauden straddling the centreline for clearance as the night rushed by, one uphill bend and then another, the dashed lane marker spitting yellow tracer fire underneath them.