Silas took a personal interest in Kate’s recovery, visited her most days at the Great Western Hospital in Swindon, on his way to or from Gablecross police station. He also tried to stay in touch when she was discharged, but she wanted to cut all ties with him, her job, the force. With Jake too, it seems. The last he heard, she was living in seaside splendour somewhere on the south coast of Cornwall with a wealthy entrepreneur who does something clever in tech.

‘Everyone at the station misses her,’ he says. He knows it’s of little consolation.

‘Me too.’

‘She was an extraordinary woman. Gifted.’

They both fall quiet. Silas is saying all the wrong things today. Kate is the only reason why he’s prepared to forgive Jake for his poor book sales. It was Jake who introduced Kate to him in the first place. Brought her remarkable talent to the force’s attention.

‘I’ll check out the video,’ he says, watching enviously as the waitress puts Jake’s bacon sandwich in front of him. He still marvels at his own short-lived vegan phase last year. ‘Let you know what we find.’

‘If it wasn’t an accident, if someone was trying to harm Kate…’ Jake pauses, eyes welling at the thought. ‘… was it because of the work she did for you? It was in the news again yesterday.’

Silas hesitates. He’s asked himself the same question many times, particularly this last week while he was sitting in court watching a modern slavery gang being sent down for a total of thirty-three years. The original arrests were made by his team, almost entirely as a result of Kate’s exceptional work for the police. It was one reason why he went to such lengths at the time to reassure himself about the circumstances of her accident.

‘Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,’ he says, but the discovery that Kate visited the Bluebell on the night of her accident worries him. At the time, Silas and his unit were investigating possible links between modern-slavery and county-lines gangs in Swindon. The Bluebell was under suspicion, but there was no hard evidence of a connection.

He looks up at Jake, who’s wolfing down his bacon sandwich. The thought of someone targeting Kate, a decent, ordinary human being who happened to have an almost superhuman gift, sends a shiver through him.

13

Kate

The flat white at Kate’s favourite café in the village doesn’t taste the same as usual. It’s not the coffee, or the artistic way it’s been prepared, and she can hardly complain about the al fresco venue, looking out across the beach and harbour. It’s the thought of Rob ordering one. She knows it’s just a bloody cup of coffee, as Bex says, but he’s never had a flat white in all the time they’ve been together. Why start now?