“Hello, Inspector. I’m closed really but if you see anything you want, take it quick.”

He had been a customer for a long time, buying all the flowers for his mother and sisters, for birthdays and christenings.

“Last minute, I suppose?”

“Peace offering, Molly. Can you put something really special together?”

“Go on then. Come back in ten minutes.”

He went from the florist’s to the bookshop and scooped up half a dozen paperbacks for Cat’s children and then a bottle of champagne. He knew perfectly well what his sister’s comment would be.

The flowers were waiting.

“Best I can do. Told you it was the end of the day.” Deep blue delphiniums and white agapanthus in a huge tied bunch.

It began to pour again as he was carrying everything to the car. The lightning was livid, red-rimmed, the sky sulphurous. He remembered the crash of the waves below him as he stood with Ed Sleightholme on the cliff ledge. Excitement. It had been excitement. He craved more of it. Cold cases might be many things but they rarely held out the hope of much excitement. QED.

“Uncle Simon, Uncle Simon, this is Jane, she’s brought us two books, I’ve got a new Lemony Snicket and Sam’s got—”

“No you haven’t, it isn’t just for you, Lemony Snicket is for me as well, so—”

“Sam c”

“Well, I read Lemony Snicket first, I found out about it and now Hannah’s pretending she likes it best.”

“And the other book is called The Fantora Family Files, have you read that?”

Felix started to wail. Mephisto the cat leapt off the kitchen sofa and fled out between Simon’s legs and up the stairs. Simon stood in the doorway, besieged by the children, his arms full of presents. Cat was at the table but was now reaching down to haul the wailing Felix on to her lap. Beside her sat the young woman priest who had been kept prisoner in her house by Max Jameson. She wore a pale pink T-shirt and no dog collar.

Cat gave a single sharp look at the stuff he was carrying. “Ah. Guilt offerings.”

“God, I knew you’d say that.”

“Well, it’s true. Come on then, hand over. Lovely, lovely booze, oh, Si, what fantastic delphiniums.”

“I’m afraid one of the books seems to be redundant.” He took the Lemony Snicket volume out of its paper bag.

Sam came over and held out his hand. “Thanks,” he said, “one each. I can read mine to myself. Hannah has to have it read to her.”

“Sam c”

“Oi, I’ll have you carpeted, DC Deerbon, that’s no way to talk to your DCI.”

“Sorry, guv.”

Simon dumped the bottle on the table and went to the cupboard to look for a vase to put the flowers in, Hannah beside him, clinging on to his arm, Sam following, trying to push his sister out of the way.

“Jane and I were planning on a nice quiet girls’ night in.”

“OK, fine, I know where the fish-and-chip shop is.”

“It’s fish and chips here c well, haddock and a potato-and-parsley bake.”

“So much more delicious.”

He filled the vase with water, stripped off the paper and cut the stems of the flowers. Jane Fitzroy was watching him.

“Oh, yes, he’s quite handy,” Cat said, seeing her.

“Uncle Simon, there was lightning with blue in it.”

“In Lafferton it had a red lining.”

“Scar-y.”

“Lightning is caused by—” Sam began.

A mobile phone rang. The room was a picture in a frame, the children silenced.

“Oh, help, it’s mine, sorry, sorry. Where is it?” Jane got up and looked round the kitchen.

A denim bag was hanging on the chair handle beside Simon. He looked down at the blue light flashing on the mobile in its depths. “Seems to be here.”

“Help c sorry, how stupid. I hope it isn’t anything, I’m enjoying myself too much.”

“That’s because of us,” Sam Deerbon said airily, plonking himself on the sofa and opening his own copy of Lemony Snicket.

Jane went out of the room, holding the phone to her ear, still apologising.

“Sorry,” Simon said to Cat, watching Jane.

“OK. Thanks for the guilt offerings.”

“Not sure it was my shout.”

“What?”

He held up his hands.

Cat subsided. Felix reached out and grabbed the peppermill, which crashed on to the floor.

“I don’t mind going. If you’ve got things to talk about.”

“We’d finished the business meeting. Hospice politics.”

“Problems?”

“Yes. You don’t want to know. Stay.”

“I’d like to.” He glanced at the door through which Jane had vanished.

“No, Si,” Cat said. “Absolutely not.”

“I didn’t see it at first. She’s beautiful.”

“Yes, she is. And no!” But then Cat looked up. “Jane? What’s the matter?”

Jane’s face was pale as a candle as she stood just inside the doorway, staring at her phone.

“Jane?”

It seemed a long time before she could speak. “That was the police. About my mother.”

“Isn’t she back at home?”

“Yes. Apparently someone broke in.”

“Oh no, Jane, not again c have they taken a lot?”

“They c he didn’t say. About anything being taken. Just that they’d beaten her unconscious. She’s very ill.” She looked around her as if not understanding where she was. “I have to go,” she said. “I have to go to London.”

Simon put down the wine glass he had been holding. “Let me have your phone. For the number. I’ll call them back.”

“I have to go.”

“I know,” he said, holding out his hand. Jane handed him her mobile. “You just get ready,” he said, leaving the kitchen to make the call outside. “I’ll drive you there.”

Ten minutes later Simon closed the car door, glanced back and saw Cat beckoning. He hesitated, then waved, and swung the car towards the gate, without looking back.

Five minutes later, his own phone rang. He clicked it on to hands-free.

“Guv?”

“Hi, Nathan, anything? I’m just setting off for London.”

“Oh. Right. Only we’ve got a body.”

“Hold on.” He slowed and glanced at Jane. “Sorry, I’ll have to take this.”

“Don’t be silly, it’s your job. It’s fine.”

“Sure?”

She smiled. “Just do it.”

“Nathan?”

“OK, guv, young woman, Hayley Twiston, single mother, one boy, living in a couple of rooms in Sanctus Road.”

“Behind the canal.”

“That’s it c neighbours heard her baby crying for a long time. Went round eventually. Baby was on its own in a cot, quite distressed, seemed to have been there for a bit. They found the mother in the garden. She’d been hit over the head, probably a brick or a stone from the garden path. Someone had smashed down part of the fence. There’s blood marks on it, whoever it was cut themselves getting through.”

“The girl?”‘

“Doc says dead from one of two blows on the head.”

Jane drew in a sharp breath.

“Right. Forensics there?”

“Guv.”

“You take over now, Nathan, find out what you can, put people on to the neighbours, all the rest. I want everyone in the area questioned, anyone who might have seen someone on the canal path this afternoon. Relatives?”

“A brother in Bevham. Someone’s on to that.”

“The baby?”

“Social services are dealing.”

“Good work. I don’t know when I’ll be back, I’m driving a friend—her mother’s been taken to hospital. Keep me posted.”

“Guv.”

“You’re probably having second thoughts about Lafferton,” Simon said.

“No. I didn’t want a retirement village.”

“All the same. You were taken prisoner in your own house. Not good.”

“You live in the close, don’t you?”

He nodded.

“The peaceful life?”

“At the end of the day’s work among the violent and disaffected, yes.”

“It isn’t where I live or what happened which makes me wonder if I’ve come to the right place.”

“Do you wonder that?”

“Yes.”

He accelerated down the slip road and on to the motorway. The traffic was heavy.

“But everything’s connected, I suppose. The moment I arrived, my mother was burgled and I had to be back in London.”