‘Sure the kids are OK?’ Silas asks Strover as he sips on an espresso. The harbour café is full of families in dripping swimwear and sunglasses, the air thick with the smell of sun lotion and salt water.

‘All fine. Apart from the one I squashed,’ Strover says. ‘He’ll live.’

After a long talk with Strover, Kate has gone back to her house, shaken up by the near miss. They’ll call on her on their way out of the village, check again that she’s alright.

Silas was hurrying down the hill when the car sped past. He managed to get its number plate, which tallies with the one that Kate memorised. A minute later, he was with Kate and Strover on the pavement, relieved that no one had been injured.

‘If he knows we’re police, he’ll ditch the car – or lose the number plates,’ he says.

Strover has already called a colleague back at Gablecross, who confirmed that the car had been reported stolen. He then rang through to the Devon and Cornwall Police Control Room, giving them details of the incident.

‘Tasty?’ Strover asks, nodding at a half-eaten tart beside his espresso.

‘Exceptional.’

The Portuguese tart is his reward after the earlier exertions on the coast path. It’s not as if he’s unfit – he’s been going to the gym recently. Strover and Kate are simply fitter.

‘He was driving straight at us,’ Strover says, more sombre now.

‘Trying to scare you? Or kill you?’

‘Her, not me, I hope.’ She pauses. ‘I’m not sure. I think he lost his nerve when he saw all the kids.’

Silas sits back on the metal stool, watching a dad on the beach below dig a speedboat in the sand with his son. He used to do that with Conor, who always squealed with excitement as the incoming tide washed all around him. Will he ever see Conor again? Every force in the country has his details, along with the UK Missing Persons Bureau.

‘That’s three times he’s gone for her,’ Silas says. ‘If we believe Kate’s swimming story.’

‘You don’t believe her?’ Strover asks.

He thinks he does. When he was working alongside Kate, he trusted her with his life. It’s annoying that she didn’t tell him sooner about her visits to the Bluebell, but something else is bothering him. Kate said that the man had spiked her coffee in the harbour café. It was a very specific allegation, quite a leap for her to have made. Particularly as it was before they’d explained that her drink in the pub six months ago might have been spiked too.

Maybe it’s nothing.

‘I believe her now,’ he says.