‘We’d like to appeal to anyone who has seen a book similar to this one here, or been given one – anyone for whom this is ringing any bells at all – to contact us as a matter of urgency.’

This is crazy. I’m being roped in by a TV policeman. How absurd. Don’t they know my grandmother’s just died?

I tossed the little white book in the nearest bin and hardly thought of it again.

Literary. A quote, then? Perhaps a well-known one. I feel as if I’m trapped in a surreal dream. All the details are clear but impossible.

I force myself to get up, walk to the kitchen, pull my phone out of my bag and tap the Google icon. I type the words ‘Every bed is narrow’ into the search box.

Shit. Oh, shit.

The line ‘Every bed is narrow’ comes from a poem. It’s the last line of the first verse. I start to read the poem from the top and get no further than the first line.

No, no, no. Oh, God. You have got to be kidding me.

A loud, undignified noise startles me. A fraction of a second later, I realise that I made it.

Death. A little white book. That has to mean …

Leaving the TV on, I stuff my phone back in my bag and run to the front door. On the other side of it, I fumble with the keys. Can’t leave the place unlocked, not if a killer might be after me. I need to talk to the police, but first I must go back to my least favourite place in the world: Ward 10 of the Rawndesley General Infirmary.

Chapter 4

4

6/1/2015

They were all staring. Anyone’d think they’d never seen a man walk back into a room after making a phone call before. Proust’s jibe rang in Simon’s ears: You have the attention you crave. The floor is yours.

The words would stick in Simon’s mind for too long. Speaking in public, never easy for him, had just got harder.

‘Any joy?’ James Wing asked.

‘She didn’t pick up. I’ll try again later.’ Simon stuffed his phone back in his pocket.

‘Why is Sergeant Zailer with Sandra Halliday, Waterhouse? Has marriage to you driven her to seek out the nation’s foremost misandrist?’ The Snowman chuckled.

‘I asked Charlie to have a word. Didn’t trust myself to do it without losing my rag.’

‘Because you hate women?’ Neil Dunning asked neutrally.

Twat.

‘You might as well ask Waterhouse if he hates stilt-legged llamas, DS Dunning.’

And another one.

‘No, I hate people who prefer their stupid biased beliefs to the truth,’ Simon answered Dunning’s question. ‘Halliday might be talking shit but she’s making herself heard, and it’s not helpful.’

‘No one with a flicker of brain activity would listen to her,’ said Proust.

‘You’d be surprised,’ said Kerensa Moore.