She spots the boat before she sees Jake, listing to one side and partially submerged. It was their home for twelve years and now it’s officially a wreck. Spent. All she saw from the train window was a glimpse through the trees. Up close the sight is even more shocking. Confirmation, as if it were needed, that what Jake and she had together is over.

  And then she sees Jake, behind the towpath, sitting on the grass on his own, leaning back on his arms, tree-trunk legs stretched out before him. A fallen giant. He is staring at the boat and is yet to see her. For a moment she stands still, thinks about walking quietly away, catching the next train to London, but she’s come this far now and they should talk.

  53

  Silas

  Silas looks around the empty platform. It took him a lot less time than it should have done to get here, his single blue light allowing him to skip plenty of red ones as he imagined Conor leaping in front of a high-speed train. He dropped everything after failing to access the security cameras on the station platform. All of them were down.

  He lights up a cigarette, the first he’s had in a while, and walks back to double-check on the shelter. If Conor has been here, there’s no sign of him. It’s deserted apart from some old cans in the corner. Silas used to know when Conor had returned in the night to sleep in their shed at the bottom of the garden. He could smell the weed in the woodwork. Perhaps he has taken a train west or retreated into the countryside. Silas looks up at the woods on the hill, wondering if he’s out there somewhere.

  He’s about to call Kate on his mobile, ask her if she’s still in the village, when Strover rings.

  ‘Any luck?’ she says.

  It’s good of her to check, but he knows she hasn’t called about his missing son.

  ‘What have you found?’ he asks.

  ‘You might need to talk to the boss again.’

  Strover gives him the details, far worse than he feared. Three more super-recogniser units whose main players have disappeared. One in Madrid four months ago, another last month in Amsterdam. And a third in Hamburg two weeks ago. No publicity, all three forces keen to keep their units out of the limelight. No one yet to make the link.

  ‘Civilians or cops?’ he asks.

  ‘Civilians.’

  Strover explains how their families have been appealing for information, but so far there’s been no specific mention of their police work or the units – no suggestion that their disappearance has anything to do with their job. One reason why they haven’t come onto anyone’s radar before.

  He thanks Strover for the call and heads back to his car. More dots. The disappearance of so many key super recognisers is sounding more coordinated by the minute. There’s no time to drop in on Kate now.

  54

  Kate

  Jake doesn’t get up. He just smiles and watches as Kate approaches and sits down beside him on the grass in silence, both of them staring at the sunken boat. The sight of it is suddenly overwhelming. This was their home. She turns from Jake, wiping away a tear. The towpath is empty and no boats are moored nearby. People are keeping their distance, out of respect or maybe something else. The fear of fire is contagious.

  ‘I saw it from the train,’ she says eventually. ‘And then we stopped and I—’

  ‘It’s good of you to drop by,’ Jake says, interrupting her.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Jake.’

  ‘I’ve managed to save some of your stuff—’

  ‘I was on my way up to London, to see Rob,’ she says. ‘I need to call him.’

  There’s no reason to introduce Rob so abruptly, but she’s suddenly racked with guilt. She hasn’t told Rob she’s not on the train. He was going to meet her at Paddington.

  ‘Are you OK?’ Jake asks, still looking ahead at the boat. ‘About seeing him?’

  ‘Why wouldn’t I be?’ she says, turning to Jake for the first time.

  Jake doesn’t answer. No need. He knows her too well, her too-quick reply. She is nervous about the encounter with Rob. Meeting him face to face, on a crowded platform at Paddington station. Maybe that’s why she jumped off the train. A part of her believes – hopes – that he will seem his old self and take her in his arms. That everything that’s happened in the past two days can be forgotten as if it were a bad dream. But she can’t help worrying. What if her head tells her he’s his double? She’s not sure she can cope with that. Not yet. She will remind herself that she probably has Capgras, and that it’s likely to be temporary. But it won’t be easy.

  ‘Want some tea?’ Jake asks.

  She manages a smile. Jake used to believe everything between them could be sorted with a mug of tea. And for many years it could be, until things deteriorated too much.

  ‘Back at Bex’s?’ he adds.

  Ten minutes later, she’s sitting in Bex’s kitchen, a stray cat at her feet, waiting for Jake to come through from the other room. It’s strange seeing him in Bex’s home. She used to spend hours here, with Bex, complaining about him and their failing relationship.

  On the walk up from the canal she told him that she’d seen someone who might be DI Hart’s missing son, but she didn’t go into details. They also talked about the dead man in Cornwall and who might have killed him. He seems to agree with DI Hart that it’s drug-related, internecine rivalry. She’d forgotten that gang crime used to be his journalism beat, before he chucked it all in to write books.

  ‘I rinsed it as best I could, but it’ll need a proper wash,’ Jake says, coming back into the kitchen with an old orange dress of hers. He used to like her wearing it; one reason she left it behind.

  ‘It stinks of diesel.’ She sniffs the material. The smell takes her back. All her clothes used to smell. ‘Thank you – for rescuing it.’

  ‘You need to ring Rob,’ Jake says, trying to sound casual as he pours the tea. ‘Tell him you’re running late.’

  ‘I will.’ She casts an eye over Jake as he fetches the milk from the fridge. He’s lost weight and his hair is neat at the sides, like it was when they first met. Even his clothes are smarter than she remembers. Making an effort but not for her. He didn’t know she was coming. She hopes there’s someone new in his life.

  ‘You liked him, when you met at the hospital,’ she says. ‘The real Rob.’

  ‘“Like” might be putting it a bit strongly.’ He sits down opposite her.

  His beard’s trim too. She’s pleased for him. Only his eyes look tired. Maybe some good will come out of the boat fire, force him into new things, a better life. She’s not sure he’s ever fully accepted that their relationship is over.

  ‘Rob’s a decent man,’ she says, for her own benefit as much as his. ‘Kind and generous.’

  Jake bends down to stroke the cat. He’s kind and generous too, but it wasn’t enough in the end.

  ‘I just don’t know what’s happened to that person,’ she adds. ‘Where he’s gone.’

  She’s determined not to cry, particularly in front of Jake.

  ‘It’s pretty hard to impersonate someone, you know,’ he says, straightening up and resting his hands on hers on the table between them. ‘You can’t just take over another person’s life, assume their identity and carry on as if nothing’s happened. It’s not that easy. Almost impossible, unless perhaps you’re an identical twin. And he hasn’t got one of those, has he.’

  She shakes her head and withdraws her hands, wondering why she didn’t flinch when he first took them.

  ‘Dr Varma will know more,’ Jake says. ‘I’m no expert, but what you’re experiencing sounds remarkably like Capgras. This whole thing with the doubles – it must all be in your head. Must be.’

  She turns away. It’s the first echo she’s heard of their old relationship. Jake used to think she imagined a lot of things, their lack of money, the leaks in the boat windows, her unhappiness. Maybe he thought she’d imagined his affair too, the one she saw with her own eyes on the cameras.

  ‘And this lookalike who met Rob on a beach in Thailand nine years ago – is he in my head too? You tell me – you’re the one Kirby poured his heart out to.’

  She’s suddenly angry, struggling to keep her voice down. One false step and they seem to slip so easily into their bad old ways.

  ‘I’m just saying there’s likely to be a simple explanation for all this, that’s all.’

  Jake was never one to raise his voice in return, always preferring to avoid conflict. It was Kate who did all the shouting.

  ‘I shouldn’t have come here,’ she says. Too many memories are flooding back and not all of them are great.

  ‘Why did you get off the train?’ he asks, glancing up at her.

  They look at each other in silence. And then his eye is caught by something in the other room.

  ‘What is it?’ she asks, watching him walk through to check on Bex’s computer.

  ‘It’s probably nothing,’ he says, coming back into the kitchen and closing the door behind him. ‘The computer screen just came on, that’s all.’

  But she can tell he’s worried.

  ‘Will you walk me back to the station?’ she asks.

  It’s time she went to see Rob.

  55

  Silas

  It’s as Silas is driving away from the station that he sees Kate and Jake strolling through the village, past the vegan café, now closed and boarded up. He slows beside them, opening his window. They made a good couple. Silas is sad that their relationship ended how it did. Guilty too.

  ‘I was going to call you, but I’ve got to head back to Swindon,’ he says to Kate. Jake looks a little sheepish standing beside her. The last time Silas spoke to him, it was about his hastily arranged boat insurance.

  ‘Did you see him?’ Kate asks.

  ‘No luck.’ Silas pauses. ‘Thanks for calling it in though. Like old times, eh?’

  Kate turns away. Silas regrets the comment at once, wishes Strover were there to keep him in check. She’s going to ring Kate later, tell her about the matches for Rob that they’ve found around the world.

  ‘Want us to put some of those up in the village?’ Kate asks, nodding at a pile of laminated missing person posters on the passenger seat. Silas has already tied one onto the metal railings down at the station.

  ‘Would you?’ he says. ‘I’m out of time.’

  ‘Sure.’ Kate takes a couple and passes one to Jake.

  ‘Maybe in the pub? Post office?’ Silas suggests, but Jake is still staring at the image of Conor.

  ‘I’ve seen him,’ Jake says. ‘In the village yesterday. Down by the water meadow.’

  ‘Really?’ Silas glances at Kate. Her own sighting suddenly seems more credible.

  Jake looks at Silas, as if he’s contemplating whether to tell him something. ‘By the crossing,’ he says. ‘Waiting for a train.’

  ‘And what happened?’ Silas can hardly bear to hear the answer.

  ‘The train came and I pulled him out the way.’ Jake says the words quietly, no suggestion of heroics on his part.

  ‘You didn’t tell me any of this,’ Kate says, turning to Jake.

  Jake shrugs. ‘We went for a walk afterwards, up in the woods. I left him there.’ He pauses, studying the photo again. ‘Is this really your son?’

  Silas nods.

  ‘We need to talk.’

  56

  Kate

  ‘I’m so sorry about the boat,’ Kate says to Jake as the train draws up at the platform. They haven’t discussed where he might live. They haven’t talked about a lot of things.

  ‘Thanks for coming,’ he says, avoiding eye contact.

  ‘Thanks for the dress,’ she says.

  She’s folded it up in a separate plastic bag, to stop the smell of diesel from infecting her other clothes.

  ‘You’ll feel better once you’ve seen Dr Varma,’ he says, looking at her.

  ‘Rob first,’ she says, trying to sound upbeat.

  She rang Rob after they met DI Hart in the high street, told him that she’d changed onto the wrong train at Exeter and would now be arriving an hour later. That suited Rob better, he said, as, predictably, he was running behind with work.

  ‘It’ll be fine,’ Jake says. ‘And that beach-bum Gil in Thailand? I bet he looks nothing like Rob these days.’

  Jake is always full of optimism. It’s what did for them in the end, blinded him to the reality of their circumstances.

  ‘Wait, there’s something else I saved from the boat,’ he says as she boards the train. In his big hand is a tiny paintbrush, a kolinsky. It was a present from him when she was struggling with a difficult portrait. At the time she knew they couldn’t afford it and she’d been cross with him.

  ‘I hope you’re painting again,’ he says.

  ‘I am.’ She takes the brush as the door closes and mouths the words, ‘Thank you.’

  But Jake is distracted, looking down the platform. She presses the button and the doors open again.

  ‘What is it?’ she asks, peering out of the door.

  ‘Ah, just some late-runner cutting it fine,’ he says.

  ‘You’d know all about that.’

  Jake always used to leave it until the last minute when he was a commuter, jogging down the towpath, waving at the train driver to wait for him.

  They smile at each other and the doors close.

  57

  Silas

  ‘He was standing over there, by the kissing gate,’ Jake says, pointing across the water meadow towards the railway track.

  Silas takes in the scene, trying to imagine what was in Conor’s head as he waited for the train to come. Was he full of anger towards Silas? Maybe even guilt? Silas is flattering himself. If Conor’s drug-soaked brain was thinking of anyone other than himself, it would have been his mum. They were always close. He will have to tell her that their only son nearly took his own life. And he will be blamed.

  ‘Thanks,’ Silas says. ‘You know, for saving him.’

  ‘I don’t think he was that committed, to be honest,’ Jake says. ‘We chatted about it afterwards. I’m no expert, but I’m guessing it was a cry for help.’

  And Jake answered it. Silas was planning to head back to Gablecross to talk with Strover about the missing super recognisers she’s discovered, but he’s decided to stay in the village. He waited around while Jake saw Kate off on her train and the two of them then headed out here.

  ‘What else did you talk about?’ Silas says as they cross the water meadow towards the railway. Jake suggested earlier that there was something Silas needed to know.

  ‘It’s not my business, but Conor, he… He didn’t look too well.’

  ‘He’s had some issues,’ Silas says. ‘Drug-related.’

  It started with skunk at university, which led to psychosis, dropping out, homelessness and heroin.

  ‘As I say, this really isn’t my business, but I think he might be dealing in drugs too,’ Jake continues. ‘Might have got himself involved in county lines.’

  The sun is warm on their backs as they reach the railway line, but Jake’s words chill Silas to the bone. The suggestion is sickeningly plausible. ‘What makes you think that?’ he asks.

  ‘I took a punt, asked him about the Bluebell, which you’d told me was a drugs pub.’

  ‘Did he know it?’ Silas asks.

  ‘He said he didn’t, but I think he was lying.’

  ‘How come?’ Silas asks, but he isn’t surprised. Lying has become second nature to Conor.

  ‘Because I also asked him if he’d “gone cunch”. He didn’t deny it, just told me he had no choice and that he operated out of Swindon. I’m guessing the Bluebell is part of the same set-up. It would make sense.’

  They have reached the kissing gate where Conor contemplated killing himself twenty-four hours earlier. Silas rests his hands on the curved metal bar and closes his eyes. This is about as bad as it could be. If Conor has got involved in a county lines network, he’ll soon be arrested, and Silas’s own shame will be complete. His career could be over too.

  ‘Why here?’ Silas asks, looking across the water meadow back towards the village. ‘In this village?’

  ‘That’s the other thing I wanted to talk to you about.’

  Silas turns to face Jake. He doesn’t want to look at the track any more, imagine what could have happened here. He’s seen the results before.

  ‘I can’t be certain,’ Jake says, hesitating, ‘but I think he might have been the one who torched my boat.’

  The two men stare at each other. Silas doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry. He senses at once that it’s true. Jake asks some awkward questions at the Bluebell and that night his boat is set on fire. The county lines ringleaders would use someone else to do their dirty work, someone expendable like Conor.

  ‘Oh Christ,’ Silas says. ‘I’m so sorry.’

  ‘Not your fault,’ Jake says, trying to make light of it.

  But Silas knows he is to blame, in more ways than Jake will ever understand. He was close to his son when Conor was a young boy, a toddler on the beach, playing in the park. It was all so easy back then. Build a sandcastle. Fly a kite. Kick a ball. Look at that new man, what a great dad he is. So in touch! The teenage years were the problem: as Silas’s working day got longer, Conor became more withdrawn. They seemed to lose touch with each other, drift apart. No common ground or shared interests.

  ‘It’s just a hunch,’ Jake says. ‘And maybe I’m wrong. But I’ve never seen him around here before. And then he’s hanging about the next day, lighting his cigarette with a match. Most people have lighters now, and, well, I heard a match being struck just before the boat caught fire.’

  ‘The investigation’s ongoing,’ Silas says. ‘If Conor’s involved, he’ll be brought in, of course.’

  He doesn’t know why he’s saying all this. It’s for his own benefit as much as Jake’s. The reality is that the investigation is going nowhere. No fingerprints on the abandoned jerrycan. No witnesses. More serious crimes to deal with. And Jake’s hunch is hardly compelling evidence. As flimsy as matchwood.