Today wasn’t a fishing day — that much had been decided the night before, when Geoff had called Bob to confirm he was still on for a seven-thirty pick-up. That was part of the routine, too. A seemingly pointless cog in the machine of their Sunday morning relaxation. It had been the same for years. It was comfortable, familiar. Today was for ‘just sitting’. Their annual permit gave them the right to fish, but there was no law saying they had to, and no-one had told them off yet. Besides, ‘just sitting’ shook things up occasionally. It was an exciting divergence from what would otherwise be boring and routine.

‘Good pasty?’ Geoff asked, in case Ginsters had radically changed their recipe since last week.

‘Beautiful.’

‘Not bad, are they?’

‘Not bad at all, Geoff. Not bad at all.’

Bob had tried to explain the fascination to Freda, but she didn’t understand. She said it sounded boring floating around in a wooden hull for hours on end, doing nothing, talking about nothing. Which was odd, considering how damned good Freda was at talking endlessly about nothing at all.

The nothingness was precisely the point. Out here on the water, there were no stresses. He wasn’t being nagged. He didn’t have to spend two hours on hold trying to get through to Legal & General to sort out his contents insurance. He didn’t have to listen to Mrs Calderwood’s sodding dog barking all day. He was only half an hour from home, but he might as well have been in paradise.

‘Here, wassat?’ Geoff said, deviating from the script.

‘Where?’

‘Over there, on the rocks.’

‘Can’t see from here,’ Bob replied. ‘Left me glasses in the car.’

‘You and me both. Start her up, will you? We’ll go have a looksee. Something’s not right, here.’

Bob had to agree. They knew the water like the backs of their hands, and this was far from normal.

With the outboard motor spluttering to life, the boat made its way towards the rocks at Normanton Church. Bob squinted as they neared, trying to make out the shapes. To him, it looked as though someone had dumped a big bag or a pile of clothes on the rocks. But as they got closer, it became immediately apparent to Bob that this was no pile of clothes.

He sucked in a breath. Adrenaline bolted through his chest.

‘Bugger me,’ he said. ‘It’s a body.’

2

Caroline Hills had her own Sunday routine, albeit a much simpler one: pancakes.

She wasn’t a stickler for routine, but the sizzle of batter in a frying pan on Sunday mornings was one stitch that connected her family with their previous life in London. And it was a good stitch; not like those rotten, frayed ones which had needed pulling out.