She’d worked the cigarette down to the filter now. ‘He isn’t coming back. He isn’t. And I’ve no idea what he’s part of.’ She let a breath out through her bottom teeth: a long note sibilant with regret. ‘If I’m ever at the pearly gates, recounting my life or whatever you have to do, that’ll be one thing I can say I’m sure about: I’ve no idea what he’s done or where he’s gone.’

Vincent felt like a bystander, like this was something between Deborah and Erin. He took his iced tea into the house and stood drinking it by the kitchen sink, looking through the window at the three of them still outside at the table. Deborah and Erin speaking mutely. He ran hot water in the sink and added some detergent from a bottle on the windowsill, washed his glass and dried it with a dishtowel. He held the glass up by the base and checked it for prints in the window light, and then left it on the counter.

Outside on the driveway the street was quiet, and the traffic over on Esplanade made a soothing note back and forth at a lazy tempo. The sunshine was that potent California kind, heavy and constant.

He opened the rear door of the Range Rover, wondering if Erin had more guns hidden somewhere. Against the rear seat was a duffel bag he’d noticed before. He looked through it briefly. A first-aid kit and a Kevlar vest. A sports coat he figured had been Tanner’s. He found the pistol compartment under the load bed, beside the spare tyre. No guns.

He sat in the car to pass the time, tried to think why Deborah Forsyth’s mention of flowers had clicked with something. Just for a second there’d been a flash—a neural tweak, as one piece of information touched another. The flowers, and some other detail. Something else he couldn’t summon. But from yesterday? The day before that? Last week?

He tried to let the feeling return. As if with sufficient time, the same two facts would intersect unbidden, and in that brief light of contact he would see both things, and the way forward.

Twenty minutes later, Erin came out of the house and got in beside him.

Vincent said, ‘Did you say we think her husband stole a truckload of drugs?’

She glanced at him, one eyebrow raised a touch. He would catch her in these little moments where she just looked perfect.

She said, ‘She knows he’s done something. I wasn’t sure if stealing drugs was better or worse than what she had in mind, so in the end I didn’t tell her.’

She looked out her window at the house. ‘You notice Page didn’t strictly implicate my father?’

Vincent didn’t answer, waited for her to lay out whatever theory she had.