‘Looked like it,’ she says. ‘DI Hart thinks it’s drug-related.’

  That would make sense if it was the Bluebell barman. ‘I’m sorry it was you who found him,’ he says.

  ‘Actually it was Stretch, my dog. Poor little sausage. At least Bex was with me.’

  Jake has yet to meet Stretch.

  ‘I spoke to Bex earlier today,’ he says, changing the subject. ‘She said you’re worried about Rob. That he has a bit of a thing about the double he met in Thailand.’

  ‘Bex was talking out of turn,’ she says. ‘She also thinks I’m delusional.’

  ‘She’s concerned for you. We all are.’

  Bex must have mentioned Capgras to her. Jake scrapes the ingredients together on the wooden board with a knife.

  ‘That’s why I logged into your Facebook account,’ he continues.

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘I wanted to see if anyone in Rob’s past knew what actually happened in Thailand, that’s all.’ He braces himself for her reaction. ‘So I contacted one of his friends.’

  ‘Contacted? How?’

  He tosses the shallots and garlic and mushrooms into the pan, standing back as they fry in the spitting oil.

  ‘By pretending to be you.’

  He screws his eyes tight shut as he waits for the eruption.

  ‘Me? Fuck you, Jake. Seriously, fuck you. Who? Who did you contact? I can’t believe you did that.’

  Jake shakes the pan around until her anger subsides. And then he relates everything that Kirby told him, as much as he can remember about the double called Gil at the party in Thailand. Perhaps he shouldn’t have deleted the chat, then she could have read it for herself.

  ‘I thought it might help,’ he adds. ‘I’m sorry. It was totally out of order, completely wrong of me, I know.’

  It’s a while before Kate speaks, and when she does, she’s calmer, more composed. ‘I knew it was more serious than Rob was letting on. But he doesn’t…’ She pauses, falls quiet.

  Jake breathes a sigh of relief. She’s no longer shouting. He finds some pasta in a cupboard, puts it on to boil. They always talked, eventually, if there was a problem, sorting things through in their own muddled way. Except for the time that she saw him on the CCTV cameras with another woman. They’ve never talked about that.

  ‘Rob doesn’t what?’ he prompts, not sure if he wants to know the answer.

  ‘He doesn’t burden me with stuff,’ Kate says in a small voice. ‘Makes it hard to understand what’s going on with him.’

  She hesitates again. Jake focuses on the pan.

  ‘Jake?’ Kate asks quietly.

  ‘I’m still here.’

  ‘Do you think Rob might… might have been replaced by him? Gil? The man in Thailand?’

  ‘No, Kate, I don’t.’ Her voice frightens him. She doesn’t sound herself. He pauses, takes a deep breath. ‘Did Bex mention anything about this condition called Capgras? It’s a—’

  ‘She told me,’ Kate says, interrupting him.

  Silence. No one likes to be told they might be delusional.

  ‘So what do you think?’ he asks.

  ‘I’m talking to Dr Varma about it.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘He’s a neuropsychiatrist, one of the best in the country. Rob pays.’

  Of course he does. Jake doesn’t want to be reminded of Rob’s wealth, or how he, Jake, was singularly unable to provide for Kate.

  ‘That’s good of him.’ The words sound more sarcastic than he meant. He remembers Bex mentioning something about a shrink.

  ‘I wish I could explain to you what it’s like,’ Kate says. ‘One moment he looks familiar, the Rob I know and love, the next he’s a total stranger.’ It’s her turn to pause now. ‘I’d be so bloody relieved if it is Capgras, Jake. At least I could stop thinking I’m going nuts.’

  Her voice cracks. Jake wishes he were with her now, there to comfort her. In truth, she always was a little bit nuts. Impulsive. Like the day gay marriage was legalised and she painted the outside of the boat in rainbow colours. Her hair has been most colours of the rainbow too, since he’s known her, although she settled on a conservative chestnut when she worked for the police. He wonders what colour it is now.

  ‘Talk to this guy Dr Varma,’ he says. ‘When are you seeing him?’

  ‘Tomorrow. I’m coming up to London. On the train.’

  He’s not aware of her having come up-country since her move to Cornwall, but what does he know? They live separate lives now.

  ‘Don’t forget to wave,’ he says. The Penzance to Paddington line runs through the village, parallel with the canal.

  ‘Sure.’

  They are both silent, neither of them hanging up.

  ‘Did you really not read any of my messages?’ she eventually asks. ‘To Rob?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  Monday

  50

  Kate

  Kate is sitting on the train from Cornwall to London, watching the Wiltshire countryside slide by. Bex and Stretch dropped her off at Truro station this morning, later than she planned. She and Bex both overslept, having stayed up late to talk about what they’d seen on the beach. Bex is going to hang out at the house for a few days, drive around in the Tesla with Stretch.

  The train will soon be passing through Kate’s old village, where she shared so much of her life with Jake, and she should be able to see their boat – what’s left of the burnt-out hulk. She’s not sure if she wants to.

  She’s still cross with Jake for logging into her Facebook account, but it was good to talk to him last night about Capgras. And to hear about the story that Kirby told him online – told her; she must remember that. Rob’s encounter with Gil in Thailand fits with what Rob told her – his fear of being found by his double. But Jake’s right, it doesn’t explain her own suspicions whenever she sees Rob face to face, that he’s been replaced by Gil. That just doesn’t make any sense, on so many levels. Take the piece of beach glass she and Rob found. How would Gil, a man Rob met nine years ago, be aware of that? He certainly wouldn’t know to give it to her as a necklace. It’s ridiculous. She must be suffering from Capgras syndrome. Dr Varma will know. Rob has arranged for her to see him later today.

  Her phone rings.

  ‘You alright?’

  It’s Bex, calling her for the third time since they said goodbye at Truro.

  ‘Just coming up to the village,’ Kate says, her face pressed against the carriage glass.

  ‘Give it a wave from me,’ Bex says, echoing what Jake said yesterday. ‘I think I’ve been caught speeding – sorry.’

  ‘Seriously?’

  Rob won’t be happy. When Kate spoke to him earlier, he agreed to put Bex on the Tesla insurance as long as she watched her speed.

  ‘Stretch was on my lap so he can take the points,’ Bex continues.

  She’s joking. Of course she is. Kate worries that she lost her sense of humour too after the crash.

  ‘Goes like a rocket though, doesn’t it?’ Bex says. ‘And it can drive itself, does the parking for you, even blow-dries me hair.’

  They chat some more, Bex’s usual joshing cut through with a new note of concern. The sight of a dead man has left them both frightened. Kate knows Bex is worried about her going up to London on her own. She fell very quiet after Kate told her about Kirby and Thailand – Kate had expected her to be outraged by Jake’s behaviour – and she gave Kate an extra-long hug on the platform.

  Kate’s train starts to slow as it approaches the village. The service from Cornwall to London rarely calls here, but she’d had to take a stopping service after oversleeping. As they draw near to the platform, she catches a brief glimpse through a row of poplar trees of the wreck of their old boat, semi-submerged in the canal, the adjoining towpath blackened by the fire and ringed off with cones and police tape. The sight of it takes her breath away. The boat looks so forlorn, utterly broken. And then she sees a figure walking towards her. It’s Jake, hunched shoulders, defeated gait.

  She grabs her bag from the overhead luggage rail and finds herself standing at the door, waiting impatiently for it to open. One other passenger at the far end of her carriage is preparing to get off and she doesn’t recognise the few people gathered on the platform. There’s a delay with the door and she begins to wonder if she misheard the announcement. Before she knows it, she’s slapping at the glass and the door slides open, fresh air is on her face and she’s running down the platform towards the canal.

  And then she stops. This is crazy. What is she doing? Jake, the narrowboat, this village – it’s the old her, the life that she left behind. She needs to keep moving forward, to London. To Rob. The only other person to get off the train walks past. The woman in her carriage. Big eyebrows, like Cara Delevingne’s. She must think Kate’s a madwoman. The doors are still open. Kate glances up and down the platform, spots the guard at the far end, and starts to move back towards the train.

  The guard shouts at her. ‘Stand away!’

  The doors close. And she’s still on the platform.

  She stands there in a daze, watching distorted reflections of herself as the shiny train pulls out without her and continues on its journey. She knows she hesitated, could have jumped back on board. When the train has gone, she’s alone at the station, the sun beating down on her. Even the birds are too hot to sing. It feels like yesterday she was here, and yet it could also be an eternity ago.

  She’s about to turn when a movement in the doorway of the shelter on the opposite platform catches her eye. There are no windows. It’s just a basic wooden hut, popular with teenagers who gather there at night to drink cans of cider. She remembers the graffiti and stale smell of urine.

  She looks across the tracks again, into the hut’s dark interior, and sees someone sitting on a metal bench in the shadows. It’s hard to make out his face in the poor light, and he’s wearing a beanie, pulled down hard. But she can glimpse enough to know that she has seen him before – staring out from a missing person poster.

  51

  Silas

  The boss is furious with Silas, much as he expected, demanding to know why he should authorise him to spend time on a murder investigation two hundred miles away in Cornwall.

  ‘Even when you told him about a possible link to our modern slavery investigation?’ Strover asks.

  Silas shakes his head. They’re sitting in the canteen at Gablecross, where he is debriefing Strover about a twenty-minute roasting from his boss. He called Silas in after his email request late last night to assist Devon and Cornwall with a murder inquiry.

  ‘Told me to leave it to Major Crime,’ Silas says, nursing a plastic cup of cold coffee. ‘Reckons the man was in Cornwall trying to sell drugs to the locals. Extend the Swindon county lines network.’

  ‘So who does he think killed him?’ Strover asks.

  ‘Looks like a rival north London network supplying drugs into Truro from Tottenham. Apparently the bloke had been under surveillance in Swindon for several weeks – until he gave the Proactive Team the slip and headed west.’

  ‘What about Kate?’ Strover asks. ‘Her accident? Nearly drowning?’

  ‘The boss is not buying any of it. Too circumstantial.’

  ‘The man tried to bloody run us over,’ Strover protests. ‘Did you show him the footage from the pub?’ she asks, glancing around the canteen.

  ‘Not interested.’ Silas takes another sip of coffee. ‘It’s back to the nail bars for us.’

  He doesn’t even bother to smile. It’s not funny. For six wonderful months after Silas cracked his last case, he basked in his boss’s praise. Couldn’t put a foot wrong. But then normal service resumed. Silas was a good detective, but he must learn to be more of a team player. Play the corporate game. Which means not meddling in another force’s business. Liaise, by all means, but don’t try to run the show.

  In half an hour, Silas will be interviewing some poor woman from Latvia who thought she was coming to the UK for a new life and now finds herself doing acrylic overlays for eighteen hours a day. He glances around the canteen. A group of uniforms has lined up and are joking with the woman behind the food counter. He misses his own days in Response in the Met.

  ‘Last night I looked back at some of the interviews Kate gave to the media,’ Strover says. ‘Just to see what she actually said.’

  ‘And?’

  There’s no need for Strover to feel guilty too. It was his idea to push Kate into the spotlight. Silas waits for her to speak, but she’s not confident enough to openly criticise her boss.

  ‘It was a mistake,’ he reminds her. ‘My mistake.’

  ‘The OCG would have found Kate eventually, if they were committed to harming her,’ Strover says. ‘With or without publicity.’

  ‘You think so?’

  Neither of them seems convinced.

  ‘I came across something else, too, when I was searching to see if any other super recognisers had given interviews,’ Strover continues.

  ‘The Met unit did – told anyone who would listen about their success at the London riots,’ Silas says.

  One poxy criminal was identified by recognition software in the aftermath of the 2011 disturbances, even though the Met had gathered 200,000 hours of CCTV footage. When the footage was passed over to the spotters, a single super recogniser made 190 IDs. Interestingly, the Met gave no interviews when the unit identified the two Russian GRU officers who had travelled to Salisbury to poison Sergei Skripal with the nerve agent novichok.

  ‘And the Australians,’ says Strover. ‘And the Germans. They’ve all been talking about their successes.’

  ‘You were busy last night.’

  ‘Couldn’t sleep.’

  Strover retrieves a sheet of paper from her jacket pocket. A printout of an article.

  ‘Not sure it’s relevant now, but I thought you might want to see this,’ she says.

  Silas takes it and starts to read. The article is about an Irish super-recogniser unit that was set up in Dublin at the same time as Wiltshire’s. But it’s the photo staring back at him that has his attention.

  ‘She’s still missing,’ Strover says, but Silas is not listening. ‘Their star recogniser, two years younger than Kate. Disappeared a month ago.’

  Silas tears through the words. The female officer vanished late one night on her drive back from work. As with Kate, she possessed exceptional powers of facial recognition and was responsible for the arrest of a number of petty criminals. Nothing major, apart from one suspect who was caught after she’d spotted him at a football match at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin. He was subsequently charged with murder.

  ‘You need to widen your search,’ Silas says, a new urgency in his voice. ‘See if any other super recognisers have disappeared. Dublin’s not alone.’

  He tells her about the call last night from the detective in Nottingham. She’s shocked, but her eyes light up. Two small dots have been joined. It’s the bit of his job that Silas likes the most, watching the bigger picture emerge.

  ‘Search the UK first, then Europe,’ he continues. ‘Check with Europol too – see if they’re aware of any missing recognisers.’

  As far as Silas can tell, most forces in Europe either have their own units already up and running or are in the process of establishing them. No surprise, given the continuing fallibility of facial-recognition software. In the past two weeks alone, colleagues from two cities in Germany have been in touch, asking Silas for advice.

  He knows that there might not be any connection between the Dublin and Nottingham mispers and Kate. Each one might have been targeted independently by aggrieved local criminals. But the fact that all three are super recognisers – and the best performers in their unit – is hard to ignore. And Silas can’t shake off the feeling that the disappearances could be more coordinated, part of a pattern. A bigger picture.

  ‘Are you going to tell the boss?’ Strover asks.

  ‘Not yet. Ask your friend to search the Dark Web too. There might be some chatter around. And get onto forensics about that pub CCTV footage. We still don’t know who got hold of it or how. Or why they sent it to Jake.’

  52

  Kate

  ‘No, I can’t be certain,’ Kate says, walking down from the station towards the canal. ‘But it looked like him. Same eyes.’

  It’s odd talking to DI Hart again about a ‘spot’ in the field. It used to part of her daily work. Only this time it’s personal, a possible sighting of Conor, Hart’s missing son. And if she’s right, it’s further evidence that her powers of recognition are returning. Technically it was also a ‘dirty spot’ – partial view, bad light. The hardest type.

  ‘And he was on the westbound platform, you say?’ Hart says.

  ‘In the waiting room on the opposite side from me – I was going to London.’

  She’s already told him that she’s stopped off at the village because she needs to talk to Jake. He struggled to hide his surprise, didn’t buy into her casual tone, her acting as if the whole thing was planned. She’s surprised too.

  ‘Did he look depressed?’ Hart asks. ‘Suicidal?’

  Oh God, it never crossed her mind. She hadn’t realised Conor was in such a bad way. ‘I couldn’t see,’ she says. ‘I’m sorry. He wasn’t near the edge or anything like that.’

  ‘I’ll take a look at the station cameras.’

  ‘Any news on the body?’ she asks.

  ‘Not yet. I’ll keep you posted.’

  He pauses. She thought he might have more answers by now, an official explanation for the death of the man in Cornwall.

  ‘I’m sorry it was you who found him,’ he adds.

  Her too. She hangs up, pushing away an image of the dead man’s brutalised face, and walks on down the towpath, worried that she’s wasting Hart’s time. Should she go back, check that the man at the station is OK? If it was his son, he might have moved on already, although she remembers teenagers used to hang around the shelter all day, not going anywhere.