‘Want us to put some of those up in the village?’ Kate asks, nodding at a pile of laminated missing person posters on the passenger seat. Silas has already tied one onto the metal railings down at the station.

‘Would you?’ he says. ‘I’m out of time.’

‘Sure.’ Kate takes a couple and passes one to Jake.

‘Maybe in the pub? Post office?’ Silas suggests, but Jake is still staring at the image of Conor.

‘I’ve seen him,’ Jake says. ‘In the village yesterday. Down by the water meadow.’

‘Really?’ Silas glances at Kate. Her own sighting suddenly seems more credible.

Jake looks at Silas, as if he’s contemplating whether to tell him something. ‘By the crossing,’ he says. ‘Waiting for a train.’

‘And what happened?’ Silas can hardly bear to hear the answer.

‘The train came and I pulled him out the way.’ Jake says the words quietly, no suggestion of heroics on his part.

‘You didn’t tell me any of this,’ Kate says, turning to Jake.

Jake shrugs. ‘We went for a walk afterwards, up in the woods. I left him there.’ He pauses, studying the photo again. ‘Is this really your son?’

Silas nods.

‘We need to talk.’

56

Kate

‘I’m so sorry about the boat,’ Kate says to Jake as the train draws up at the platform. They haven’t discussed where he might live. They haven’t talked about a lot of things.

‘Thanks for coming,’ he says, avoiding eye contact.

‘Thanks for the dress,’ she says.

She’s folded it up in a separate plastic bag, to stop the smell of diesel from infecting her other clothes.

‘You’ll feel better once you’ve seen Dr Varma,’ he says, looking at her.

‘Rob first,’ she says, trying to sound upbeat.

She rang Rob after they met DI Hart in the high street, told him that she’d changed onto the wrong train at Exeter and would now be arriving an hour later. That suited Rob better, he said, as, predictably, he was running behind with work.

‘It’ll be fine,’ Jake says. ‘And that beach-bum Gil in Thailand? I bet he looks nothing like Rob these days.’

Jake is always full of optimism. It’s what did for them in the end, blinded him to the reality of their circumstances.

‘Wait, there’s something else I saved from the boat,’ he says as she boards the train. In his big hand is a tiny paintbrush, a kolinsky. It was a present from him when she was struggling with a difficult portrait. At the time she knew they couldn’t afford it and she’d been cross with him.

‘I hope you’re painting again,’ he says.

‘I am.’ She takes the brush as the door closes and mouths the words, ‘Thank you.’

But Jake is distracted, looking down the platform. She presses the button and the doors open again.

‘What is it?’ she asks, peering out of the door.