Away from Plymouth she had a few acquaintances scattered round the country, but they weren’t much more than numbers and faces on her phone. They weren’t people she could call up and talk to. Aside from her mother, there was really only one person who she’d ever been able to do that with and she had no idea where he was. She didn’t even know what country he was in. Besides, she’d burned her bridges with him. Ended it. Her decision, no regrets. None. At least that’s what she told herself every time he slipped into her thoughts.

More letters into letterboxes. Bills and court summonses and bad news. The occasional birthday card or a postcard from abroad. Somewhere hot and sunny where you didn’t have to stay behind hard cover or crap yourself when you walked down a street because your opposite number had found a standout position.

She came round the side of a block of flats and the car park loomed above her once again. The boy had gone and there was nobody up there now. Nothing but a mass of concrete and rows of cars and, above it all, a brooding grey sky the colour of gunmetal.

Holm stood by the sink for a moment longer. He examined himself in the mirror, trying to see beyond his reflected image, to somehow see the future. There was nothing but a creased brow and a face with a dozen craggy lines, lines which he knew had deepened in the past few years. Was that life and ageing or were the marks indicative of a more serious malaise? He wasn’t sure, but either way the job wasn’t helping and the current debacle marked a new low point in a career that had recently been short on highs. Perhaps he should just resign himself to the fact he was past it. His mind simply didn’t work in the same way as it once had. His creative juices had been sucked out by the constant stress of trying to stay on top of the latest threat. If you made a mistake, people died. And as Palmer had said, he’d fucked up on this one.

Big time.

He met his gaze in the mirror and wondered how in hell it had come to this.