“Is that where you were before Lafferton?”

“Yes. Assistant priest at a big north London church. Before that I was in Cambridge. That was where I trained.”

“Why did you move?”

“The cathedral. And I wanted to move into hospital chaplaincy c the job came up. That’s what happens. People don’t always realise it.”

“Like the police. You look for a particular job. Apply for it. Move.”

“Will you?”

“Move?” He shrugged.

“Sorry.”

Simon zipped into the fast lane and picked up speed. “Police driver,” he said, “so hang on.”

She did not speak again until they had left the first motorway and joined the next, which was quieter, now that the home-going traffic had eased. Then she said, “Poor girl. How will they start looking for whoever it was?”

“Probably straightforward. Usually is. It’ll be a relationship thing, boyfriend, some score to settle. Could well be sorted by the time I get back.”

“Just like that.”

“Hm.”

“Not like my mother.”

“Is there anyone who might have it in for her?”

“Only the thugs who came last time.”

“The Met’s pretty hot. They’ll have them.”

“But that won’t help her, will it? She can’t stay there. I’ll have to bring her to Lafferton, somehow.”

“Do you have room?”

“I’d have to find room.”

“Would she want to come?”

“To live with me? No. My mother’s an independent woman. And she finds it pretty embarrassing having a priest for a daughter.”

“Ah. My father finds it embarrassing having a policeman for a son.”

“Why on earth—”

“Serraillers are doctors. Hadn’t you noticed?”

“Like Fitzroys are Jews. My mother’s a child psychiatrist. A Hampstead intellectual atheist.”

“You’d fight?”

“Yes. But there’s no other solution.”

Simon had spoken on Jane’s mobile to the London police, so he knew that her mother’s condition was more serious than she realised. Lavatory paper had been pushed into her mouth, she had been tied to the sofa leg with wire, and then beaten.

Now he said calmly, “Take it bit by bit.”

“It would make it even more difficult for me to move.”

“So Lafferton was one big mistake?”

“I don’t know, Simon. It feels like it some days c nothing is working. I don’t like the bungalow; but is that because I was attacked there? I don’t find my colleagues in the cathedral easy; but is that because I’m so much younger than them and the only woman? I’m not getting on that well at Bevham hospital because not many people want a chaplain and a lot of those who do are Catholics or Muslim, which leaves me a bit of a spare part. I love the time I spend at the hospice but there’s a problem there c that’s what Cat and I were talking about this evening.”

“So you’ll run away.”

She was silent.

“I’m sorry. I don’t know how I could have said that.”

“Perhaps because you’re right. I was feeling sorry for myself. People who feel sorry for themselves quite often run away. It’s been a bit of a turbulent few weeks. Your sister has been a big help.”

“That’s Cat.”

“You’re close?”

“Usually.”

The phone rang.

“Nathan?”

“I’m at BG, guv. Just talked to the girl’s brother. He’s here to identify. Nobody on the scene—child’s father’s a Greek, holiday fling. Never been in the country. No other boyfriend so far as he knows. Doesn’t look like your open-and-shut. They’re getting DNA on the blood. No one saw or heard anything—no one much around in the afternoons there any road. You in London yet?”

“Another half-hour or so.” The call ended and Simon sighed.

“Worrying,” Jane said.

“DNA’s a wonderful thing.”

“Maybe.”

“They’ll go over your mother’s house for it, don’t worry. There’s an awful lot can be done nowadays.”

“How do you cope? You have to have a coping strategy, we all do.”

“I switch off.”

“How?”

He hesitated.

“I’m sorry. Not prying. But it’s interesting. Cat and I were talking about it, oddly enough. She has her family.”

“You have God.”

“Do you?”

“Not sure. I draw.”

“Draw?”

Simon negotiated the roundabout between the motorway and the stretch of dual carriageway into London. It was raining now. A stream of dipped headlights crossed theirs, heading in the opposite direction.

“As in pencil,” he said. “It was a toss-up between that and the police. Maybe still is.”

“So you’re good?”

He shrugged.

“With me, it was swimming.”

“Water or God, then?”

“Not mutually exclusive.”

“There’s a good pool in Bevham.”

“I stopped. In sport, there’s a point when you either go for it, to the top—or quit. I wasn’t going to the top. And even if I had, in the end swimming wasn’t enough.”

“Why not?”

“I’m not competitive enough. And you have to be. Aggressively competitive. I’m not.”

“Lafferton should suit you. Not a very striving, achieving sort of place. Nor, I guess, is the Church of England.”

“Oh, you’d be surprised. But I didn’t come to Lafferton for the quiet life.”

“But you did come to get away from London.”

“Not really. I came to get away from my mother.” She put her hands to her face. “Oh God.”

“It’s OK,” Simon said quietly.

Under an hour later, he stood just outside the main entrance to the hospital talking to the Met’s DI Alex Goldman. He looked younger than Nathan Coates.

“She’s in a bad way. Docs aren’t hopeful.”

“This isn’t the first time.”

“Might be unconnected. This time, nothing was taken, nothing disturbed. Forensics are all over everything. We’ll get them. You a relative?”

“No.”

The DI gave him a sharp look. “Right.”

“Just no.”

“We’ll need to talk to the Reverend at some point.”

Simon’s phone rang.

“Nathan.”

“Nothing new, guv. I’m for home. Be in first thing. Get on top of it then. You OK?”

Simon hesitated. He wanted to tell Nathan where he was and why, and the need to do so puzzled him. “Fine. Just sorting something out for a friend. I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Cheers, guv.”

Two women, a hundred or so miles apart, one young, battered to death in her garden, one old, battered almost to death in her house. No obvious suspects, no obvious motives, no robberies, no trace of anyone or anything. They were unconnected and yet, to Serrailler, they seemed linked in some dreadful intangible way, part of a pattern, part of a connection with him and with his work and his life. He was angry at the apparently pointless, random violence, but there seemed more behind both incidents than there would be behind a couple of street muggings or burglaries which had got out of hand.

He was putting his phone away and heading towards the entrance doors when he saw Jane Fitzroy walking slowly down the corridor. He watched her. She looked small, distracted, pale. Vulnerable. Her hair was like curling copper wire, glinting in the artificial light. He wanted to freeze her image until he had caught it with pencil on paper.

He went through the doors towards her.

“She didn’t come round.” She was shaking. Simon took her arm and led her to a bench against the wall.

“She didn’t know I was there.”

“But you were. And you know you can never be sure c people often do sense someone with them.”

“I’ve said that. I’ve tried to make people feel better. But she didn’t, Simon. She was miles away and she just went further and further c like someone drifting out to sea. I couldn’t reach her and then she was gone. She looked c terrible. She didn’t look like herself. Whoever did this to her c”

She fell silent. Out of the corner of his eye Simon saw DI Goldman and waved him away.

“What am I going to do?”

“Do you want to go to the house?”

“Must I?”

“Absolutely not. There won’t be anything else for you to do tonight. I’ll take you back.”

“Where?”

“Back to Lafferton.”