He and Kat had grown up close, but not in-each-other’s-pockets close. She had stood by him at the funeral. Alternated with Mum to have him round for dinner so he wasn’t alone with his thoughts every night. How could he tell her that seeing her and his brother-in-law, Tony, playing happy families with Tom and James sometimes gave him a hollow queasy feeling like someone had scooped out his insides, shaken them like a martini and poured them back in? As much as he loved them all, they were a flash-forward to what he and Holly could have been. Should have been. Kat would tell him not to be so stupid. And she’d mean it, too. That wouldn’t make it any less of a painful reminder.

‘I know, Mum. I know. Dad round?’ he asked, changing the subject.

She shook her head. ‘He’s popped out to get a new lawnmower. Shouldn’t be long, though, if you’re not in a hurry to get anywhere.’

‘I’m done for the day,’ he said, plucking two cups from the cupboard, knowing that he was far from finished. He wouldn’t be heading back to the station, but the questions he still had after the visit to the Locke house were like ticks under his skin. If he could manage more than the five or six hours’ sleep he’d been getting by on, a clearer head might help make sense of what he’d learnt today, and what he still needed to find out. He felt tired, and not just from chasing a good night’s sleep. The effort of trying to be a good copper as well as a good son, brother, uncle, felt like it demanded more than he had in him to give on days like today. He owed it to them to try. All of them. Natasha Barclay was on that list now as well. Each needing him to be something different for them.

It was the ones missing from that list that weighed the heaviest. Husband. Father. Deep breath. Push it all inside. He’d deal with it later when he went home after Anderson’s leaving drinks. Alone.

Porter stared at his reflection in the bathroom mirror. Holly used to tell him he had ‘rugged good looks’. He knew she meant it as a compliment, but he always equated the words with the notion of something worn or weather-beaten. There were still very few lines on his face, but he was sure that most of them had appeared in the last eighteen months. He flicked the stray strand of hair that had crept towards his eyebrow back into place. A hasty shave had left matching blooms of red either side of his chin. He licked the tip of his finger and rubbed them away, but they were back within seconds. Better to let them clot and he would sort them out in the gents’ toilet when he arrived.