The van bumps over the rumble strip and onto the hard shoulder then growls ominously as Honor makes a correction with the steering wheel and the tyres come to land squarely in the slow lane once more. Shit, she thinks, I lost concentration. I must stop thinking about murder before it kills me. A coffee would help. Honor remembers seeing a sign for a service station in eight miles. Better lose ten minutes on the road and get there safely. At Leigh Delamere services she buys a flat white (‘We don’t do just normal white’) and tries Nevis again, this time leaving an estimated arrival time while the server – didn’t they call them baristas these days? – an exhausted-looking young woman in a T-shirt with an unconvincingly perky slogan leans her forehead on the coffee machine and takes a micro-nap while waiting for the dark liquid to trickle into the corrugated paper cup.

It is 1.45 a.m.

Honor takes the coffee back to the van and gulps it down in the service station car park. The lecture on Greek mythology is over and the radio is now playing soothing light jazz. It is gone two o’clock when she turns off onto the M32 approach into Bristol and the effect of the coffee seems already to have worn off. She winds a crack in the passenger window to catch the breeze but the air smells cloyingly of diesel fumes. Or maybe this is just a reflection of Honor’s mood. Of her state of mind in general. She hums along with the jazz but the voice in her head sings an altogether different tune. What has happened to Nevis and why hasn’t she called me?

Chapter 5

Nevis