Sabih whistled and shook his head. ‘Have you lost your mind? This is why you’re digging into these poor people’s lives? You bought an old book and now you think you’re solving a murder? Come on, Kealty. This isn’t normal. You can’t build a case off a few scribbles.’

Smouldering embers of resentment caught on the wind of Harri’s anger. His words hurt all the more because they were coloured by truth. The message in the book was a tenuous reason to pursue an investigation. Would she have taken it quite this far if Ben Elmys hadn’t answered the door? Would she be treating it like a case if the man who’d spurned her hadn’t been involved? Was she looking for answers? Some reason to explain why he’d rejected her? Or did she want revenge?

‘Normal? What’s normal? I’ve lost everything, Sab. My career, my so-called friends on the force, my life. What am I supposed to do? What exactly is normal for someone like me?’

Sabih closed the book and tossed it on the sofa. He took her shoulders and squeezed gently.

‘I’m sorry, Harri. It’s all my fault, but this isn’t what you need,’ he said. ‘You can’t go poking into people’s lives. You’re not police. Not any more.’

His words couldn’t have caused greater hurt, and Harri trembled as she fought back tears of shame. Had she been suppressing her feelings? Was that what the Elmys investigation was? A chance to play pretend? To stall the reality that the job that had defined her for so many years was no longer hers? She still harboured the hope she could get it back. If only she could find the man who’d filmed her that night.

Was she clutching at straws? The poster girl for lost causes? Is that why she was investigating Elizabeth Asha’s death? Did she secretly hope she and Ben might have a future together? Or were her true motives darker? It was a rare twist of fate that put a man who’d spurned her in such a position. Did she just want to see if she could make him suffer for the pain he’d caused her?

‘I’m sorry,’ Sabih said. ‘That was harsh.’

‘I’m lost, Sab,’ she replied, finally breaking down. ‘I’m really lost.’

As her tears fell, Sabih pulled her close, and she cried into his shoulder.

‘I’ll help you. Whatever you need. I owe you that, at least. It’s going to be OK,’ he said, but she really didn’t believe him.

Chapter 13

Harri could taste salt in the air. The west wind picked it up from the swells and spray, and carried it over the trees to the lay-by where she waited next to her car. There was an old red-and-yellow brick cottage opposite, with brine-corroded drainpipes, dirty windows and grime-grey net curtains obscuring its innards. The house exuded a stillness that suggested it hadn’t been inhabited for a long time, and Harri pictured herself living there on the outskirts of Arthog, a tiny Welsh village whose main advantage was the magnificent mountains of Snowdonia stretching out to the north. The densely packed forest obscured her view of them from where she stood, but she’d been in awe driving the last few miles of the journey. More than the rugged cliffs of the Peak District, these mountains touched her soul. They reminded her of the grandeur of the world into which she’d been born, and in which she could lose herself.