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But he had often wondered how ht havelike this at hos, the sti busy around her, children co in, Cat’s children, their friends, animals on her lap She had never known a norave a little h … it was impossible to tell Her hand ?’

The little noise again He looked at her face It registered nothing at all yet he knew she was trying to coave her a drink from the spouted plastic cup on the table and she sipped it, but whether it had been what she had wanted he couldn’t know

‘Little Martha,’ he said, ‘I’lad you’re better’

He stayed for twentyher about the squirrel he had seen in the fir tree behind the car park, knowing that itto her and yet sure that she liked to hear his voice

When he left, her eyes were closing She was like a baby, soothed into sleep by the softly blowing, bright curtains

In the hall, he met Shirley ‘She seems fine,’ he said ‘She’s asleep now’

‘She’d betterto do her bed and then she has to have her chest pu I should think Dr Serrailler will be in later’

The squirrel raced up the long trunk of the Scots pine tree as he approached his car but stopped halfway and peered down at him with feverish little eyes

DCI Serrailler turned out of the drive and headed for Lafferton Police Station and work If absence row fonder, death did the sah the Old Town side streets to get to the station, though it cut off a couple of sets of slow traffic lights, but as he approached he knew that he had wanted to drive down the road in which Freya Graffham had lived

He had not been in love with her – or at least not while she was alive – though he had found her attractive, she had intrigued his for hione out to an impromptu dinner at his favourite Italian restaurant, not fro she had said – she had been far too cautious for that – but froone on Freya Graffham had been murdered Killed in her own house The house Si now It was a s a grid of twelve similar streets known as the Apostles because they were near the cathedral He had not been inside until after Freya’s murder He had no memories of it which were not dreadful ones The front door had been painted It had been maroon Noas smart navy blue There were new roone Simon stopped on the opposite side of the road No one was about He did not understand why he was here But as he drove away a leaden feeling settled in his stoeant’

DS Nathan Coates looked over his shoulder and steadied the hand he was using to hold two paper cups of coffee piled on top of each other as the DCI went past hiht you weren’t back till to to behind Serrailler

Nathan shifted the cups slightly He was s Nine times out of ten he seant It was over sixand become an official DS but he was still not used to it, still had to check that so him up He had wanted the job and not wanted it because it hadinto Freya Graffhaht buttons to press

‘You caht just as easily have gone the way of half your schoolmates and how many years would you have served by now, courtesy of Her Majesty’s Prisons? You took the other route, and don’t tell me it was easy Do they still respect you round your way? I doubt it They don’t go for coppers much on the Dulcie estate, especially when the copper is one of their own You now stand for everything you ought to be against, and you are exactly the sort of policeht to mirror the society it polices and it almost never does, which is why it’s so i the ladder You’re young, you’re bright, you work your socks off and DS Graffhah opinion of you What do you think she’d say if you chicken out now?’

‘That’s below the belt, guv’

‘Soht It hit you It hit all of us It was a bloody awful thing to happen I never thought we’d see a serial killer in a place like Lafferton … drugs, laries, robberies, whatever, it’s all on the increase, even in a nice slish cathedral town But et our heads round a shooting in the course of an operation … a raid … a panic … a dead policeman We could have coped with that, but not Freya’s murder And you were the first there, you dealt with it all and you blame yourself, don’t think I’m not aware of it You’ve no need to but you do and you probably alill It’s none of it a reason for you giving up your career It’s a good reason for you to stay Are you hearing h it had taken him another couple of weeks to admit it He and Emma had been married quietly in the side chapel of the cathedral, with the DCI as his bestin the force It had been eant But he was a sergeant now and the excitement of it, the pride, the sense of achieve Serrailler had been spot on No one froround had ever eant He didn’t intend his climb up the career ladder only to stop here

He pushed the swing door open with his shoulder and went on towards the CID room but, as he passed, the DCI called out The door to his room was open

‘That for me?’ Serrailler held out his hand

‘Course it is’

‘Thank you’

He took the paper cup of cappuccino which Nathan had fetched not fro machine at the end of the corridor but from the new corner café in the next street, run by a Cypriot couple and kept going o out for his own’

The DCI sat back in his chair It’s daft, Nathan thought, he looks younger thanon the fast-track graduate scheme, not well up the ladder already Serrailler’s hair, white blond and disarranged as ever, shone in the light co from thebehind hiht so and they would have been just right And thenme up to speed’

‘Been a bit too quiet’

‘Don’t say that’

‘Only one thing giving us grief has been this gang … kids, only they don’t act like kids I went up to the Eric Anderson last week, saw the head, saw a couple of teachers They knoho it is, pretty much They’re all no-hopers, they bunk off ives a toss It started with small stuff only now it ain’t so s about in the evenings targeting people walking hos, mobiles that sort of stuff … then there’s the cars They’ve started nicking top-of-the-range , they’re cleverer than that, theseinto thin I reckon they’re in with soer villains’

‘How old are these kids?’

‘Fourteen, fifteen … last couple of years at school GCSE supposedly Ha’

‘Naot some but they’re fly – slippery as eels Learned a lot of stuff froet the brothers and dads Check up on everyone who has been inside, in the last three years … better include those who are still there as well There’s plenty the kids can learn when they visit We’ll have a list of prisoners and then follow up children in this age group I’ll have a ith unifor up presence … known times All that’ll do is move the ’

‘OK, the naet to some hoetting up and going out at two in the ht before’

‘Guv’

‘Any other excitee done, nothing taken … soraffiti on a couple of the pillars See’

‘Who handled it?’

‘I went to talk to the Dean … he was very nice Bit too nice …’