In the room above, someone banged on the floor, and Catherine, crouched by her daughter’s bed, muttering words of comfort, thought how easily a murder might be ignored.

Honor’s face was wet with tears, the back of her pyjama top soaked with sweat. Catherine used childhood endearments – ‘pumpkin’ and ‘pickle’ and ‘sweetheart’ – to soothe her, but the girl resisted her mother’s touch. After a few minutes, Honor settled back into sleep. Catherine lay on her own bed, not touching Edward, watching the darkness thin into dawn.

At ten to five, she woke up her husband and daughter, and they dressed in bleary-eyed silence. Most of their belongings had been packed away the night before and they were passing through the hotel lobby when the hour struck.

‘Up bright and early,’ said the receptionist, all service-industry smiles. ‘Off anywhere nice?’

Honor rolled her eyes and flinched at her mother’s touch. Catherine managed a weak smile. ‘Magical mystery tour.’

The receptionist laughed and wagged her finger at them. ‘Don’t get lost.’

Lost.

Catherine had been lost for years, but this time there was no breadcrumb trail, no rope to guide her home.

The police officers were waiting for them in the car park, blurred shapes wreathed in freezing fog. They loaded the bags into a nondescript black estate car. No one spoke, the bitter wind sharpening the sense of despair, the hotel’s lights illuminating their heartbreak.

The holiday let was hidden down a pot-holed lane bracketed by trees and bushes. The fog had lifted and a frosted farmer’s field ran as far as the eye could see. Branches were silhouetted against the grey skies of Norfolk, yearning towards the horizon. It was the only house for miles.

Detective Sergeant Carla Stroud pressed some numbers into a keypad on the small black safe on the side of the property and withdrew a set of keys.

‘Let’s get you settled, shall we?’

They trudged in behind her, but with none of the giddy excitement that comes from arriving at a strange place on holiday. The owners had left a welcome basket filled with marmalade and crusty bread, fruit and biscuits and wine. A fresh Christmas tree in a pot was decorated with tinsel. A tray with pretty cups and a sugar bowl and cafetière was waiting on the table. But the jauntiness felt off-kilter.

If any of the neighbours happened to ask, their own house had been flooded.

Honor, headphones plugged in, opened the biscuits without asking and slumped down at the table, tear tracks still visible on her face.

As they had driven across the Suffolk border, halfway through their two-hour journey, she had screamed without warning. DC James Hart, who was driving, had jumped and swerved, cursing under his breath. He had pulled into the nearest services, a ramshackle cafe on the A12.