More noise outside. This time he forces himself to sit still and listen, straining his ears. Silence, only broken by a return hoot from a female tawny owl, further away. His own breathing has become shallower.

  There’s one thing about Rob that troubles Jake more than anything else. The first occasion he met him – the first time Kate met him – was at her hospital bedside, when the two of them were deep in conversation about art. Kate had already told Jake on an earlier visit that it was over between them and his arrival was clearly an unwelcome interruption. It wasn’t that, though. It was the ineluctable feeling that Jake had seen Rob somewhere else, a few weeks earlier. Before the accident.

  He’s thought about it a lot since, wishes he had Kate’s powers of recognition, but he can’t remember where he could have seen him. Maybe in the Slaughtered Lamb, the village pub? He’s done a lot digging online, dusting down his old journalism skills to search through Rob’s various companies and high-profile life, but with no results. Perhaps it doesn’t matter if he’s seen him before. It just makes the apparently chance nature of Rob’s first encounter with Kate seem less serendipitous.

  Another sound outside, this time followed by a telltale seesaw rocking motion. No imagining this time. Someone has either just stepped on or off the boat. Jake rushes out into the cockpit and sees a shadow disappearing down the towpath. He shouts after it, a deep, guttural roar. No response. And then a strong smell of petrol. The strike of a match.

  Out of the darkness, a line of flames licks into life, racing along the towpath towards him like a burning snake, slithering up the mooring rope and onto the bow, where it rises into a fireball that lights up the night sky.

  Jake is thrown backwards by the sudden heat, holding up his arms to shield his face. Instinctively, he grabs the rusty fire extinguisher from the locker under the seat, praying that it’s not too old, and tries to approach the fire on the foredeck. He knows already his efforts are futile. The fire is quickly taking hold of his old wooden boat, wrapping it in its flaming embrace. He curses himself for stacking so many logs on the roof to season.

  And then he is aware of people on the towpath, rushing towards him from other boats moored along the canal. Some are calling out his name, others beckoning him to come ashore. He’s not abandoning his old boat yet. He’s had her for too long to let her go down without a fight.

  ‘Buckets!’ Jake shouts as his extinguisher runs out. ‘Get some buckets!’

  He ducks back inside the cabin, now swirling with thick black smoke. Struggling to breathe, he grabs a rusty bucket from under the sink and goes back outside. The heat is intensifying, the bow of the boat starting to drift away from the shore, no longer held by the burnt-out rope. He leans over the stern, scoops up the canal water and hurls it onto the flames, desperate to save his beloved boat.

  To his relief, other people on the shore have started to fill buckets too and are throwing water at the fire. A human chain of sorts has formed and with it a kernel of hope.

  ‘More buckets!’ Jake shouts, encouraged, ignoring the heat. The fire can be beaten, his boat saved, but then a man’s thick arm is stretching out into the cockpit. Jake grabs hold of it and is pulled onto the towpath.

  ‘Is there anyone else on board?’ the man asks close to his ear, an arm round his shoulders. It’s a fireman. ‘People? Any pets?’

  Jake shakes his head, watching as the whole boat starts to list and drift into the middle of the canal, shrouded in smoke and flames like some ancient fireship. He needs to talk to Kate.

  19

  Kate

  ‘Don’t answer it,’ Bex says as Kate’s phone vibrates. It’s Jake.

  Bex and Kate are sitting in wicker chairs on the terrace, watching the moon rise above the horizon like a polished sixpence. Her phone is on the glass table between them.

  ‘Ignore it,’ Bex urges as the phone starts to vibrate again. Her voice reminds Kate of when she was training Stretch. ‘I’ve switched mine off for the weekend and I suggest you do the same. How often does he ring you?’

  ‘He hasn’t for a month or two,’ Kate says.

  They’ve had the occasional terse text exchange about practical matters – could he return an overdue book to the library, can he remember to forward her mail once a week – but no conversation in months. She’s still too angry.

  ‘So why’s he suddenly calling you now?’ Bex asks. ‘At eleven o’clock at night?’

  ‘I’ve no idea. That’s why I want to answer it.’

  ‘Well don’t. He’s a two-timing little—’

  ‘Please, Bex.’

  Kate knows Jake must be calling her for a good reason. He rang her once, a week or so after she’d left hospital and was living with her mother. It was late at night and he was drunk, on his way back to the boat after a session in the pub. He was asking her to come back, let him explain, give him another chance. She told him never to ring her again.

  ‘Does Rob know Jake still calls you?’ Bex asks.

  ‘I told you, he hasn’t rung me in ages.’

  The phone starts vibrating for a third time. She reaches across to pick it up, but Bex snatches it away and turns it off. Kate knows Bex is right. Jake is her past and she must keep moving forward.

  ‘Tell me about today,’ Bex says. ‘What happened.’

  Kate takes her through her swim out to the platform, playing down the cramp attack, the possibility that she might have been poisoned, but her mind is still on Jake, trying to work out why he’s calling her so late and so persistently. Something’s wrong. He wouldn’t keep phoning. She knows him too well. Perhaps his elderly mother has died. They were close and Kate misses seeing her. Jake would want her to know.

  ‘You really frighten me sometimes,’ Bex says. ‘The things you choose to care about in life. You seem more troubled by Rob’s choice of coffee than the fact that you nearly drowned today.’

  ‘He told me tonight that he has a flat white when we’re apart because the taste reminds him of me.’ She thinks again of the relief she felt on the phone.

  ‘That’s alright then. I’ll try not to think that I wasted my bloody time at Paddington.’

  ‘You didn’t. And I’m very grateful.’

  ‘Maybe you should see someone, Kate. You know, your dishy Dr Varma.’

  ‘I saw him earlier today.’

  ‘You never said. I would have caught an earlier train.’

  ‘He’s married, Bex.’

  Bex has met Ajay once and flirted so much with him it was embarrassing. Ajay was having none of it.

  ‘Did you tell him about Rob? About believing that he’s…’ Bex hesitates. ‘That he’s been replaced by a double? I was thinking about that on the train. That’s not a normal thought, Kate. Not normal at all.’

  ‘I will. I’m seeing him again at the end of next week.’

  ‘So you didn’t tell him.’

  Jake is still trying to ring her. She can feel it.

  ‘Are you OK?’ Bex asks as Kate gets up from her seat.

  She knows she should tell Bex about the court case, that Rob thinks her coffee might have been spiked, but she needs to speak to Jake first.

  ‘Just going to the loo. Back in a sec.’

  She walks into the kitchen, sweeping up the cordless telephone from the sideboard with the deftness of a thief. Once inside the bathroom, she locks the door and dials Jake’s number, pressing the keys as quietly as she can. It’s engaged. She tries again. Still engaged.

  ‘You alright in there?’ Bex is outside the door.

  ‘Fine. Won’t be a sec.’

  She loves Bex, her concern for her, but sometimes she wishes she’d cut her some slack.

  ‘Don’t want you cramping up again,’ she says.

  ‘I’m OK. Honestly.’

  Kate waits a few seconds, confident that Bex is back out on the balcony, and redials Jake’s number. This time the phone rings.

  ‘Kate,’ Jake says.

  She knows at once that something is badly wrong. ‘What is it?’ she whispers.

  ‘The boat. It’s burnt out.’

  For a moment she thinks he’s drunk, complaining about the boat’s engine. He was always mending it, head down in the sumps, asking her to pass him a spanner. And she was always saying they needed to replace the boat with one that didn’t break down all the time, didn’t leak and didn’t constantly smell of diesel fumes. She knew he never would. He loved it too much, arguably more than he loved her.

  ‘What do you mean?’ she asks.

  ‘Someone set fire to it tonight. It’s gone, completely destroyed.’

  ‘Are you OK?’ she asks, trying to take in what he’s saying.

  ‘I was on board when they torched it, but I got off just in time. Everything’s gone. Some of your stuff too.’

  She only left a few things with him, old clothes and books that she was going to collect one day, but she’s still sad. Not for their value but because a tiny part of her left them there deliberately.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Jake,’ she says, wiping a tear away. ‘You’re safe, though.’

  ‘I’m fine. Why are you whispering?’

  ‘I’ve got to go. I’ll call you tomorrow. Have you got anywhere to stay?’ she adds.

  ‘One of the other boats, they’re going to let me sleep the night with them. Remember Bruce and Sue?’

  Of course she does. How could she forget? They lived on the water together for twelve years, got to make some great friends. People take care of each other on the canal.

  ‘Look after yourself,’ she whispers.

  ‘Is Rob there?’

  She pauses before answering. ‘He’s had to go back to London.’

  ‘Business?’

  ‘Yeah.’ She doesn’t know why she’s telling him this. ‘He’s usually down for the whole weekend.’

  ‘It’s nice to hear your voice,’ he says.

  She hangs up.

  Back outside on the balcony, she sits down next to Bex, trying not to cry. They both look ahead, staring out into the inky darkness of the sea. There’s a warm wind and the lights of a few fishing boats dot the water beneath Nare Head.

  ‘You called him, didn’t you?’ Bex says. ‘On the landline.’

  ‘Yes,’ Kate says, sniffing.

  ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have tried to stop you. I’m not your bloody mother. I was just worried you—’

  ‘It’s OK,’ Kate says, swallowing hard. ‘It’s nothing like that.’

  She can’t hold back the tears any longer.

  ‘What is it, Katie?’ Bex comes over to kneel down beside her, a hand on her shoulder.

  Kate leans forward and lets her hug her, staying like that for a minute or two until the sobs subside.

  ‘I knew something was wrong,’ she says. ‘He hasn’t rung me for months, I promise. That’s why I wanted to pick up.’

  ‘What was it?’ Bex asks. ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘His boat, the one we lived on, it’s been gutted by a fire. Tonight. Totally destroyed. He thinks deliberately.’

  ‘Oh my God. Is he OK?’

  ‘He’s safe. Sounded pretty shaken up. Who would do that, Bex? Burn a beautiful old boat deliberately? And knowing someone was on board?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Bex looks for her phone and turns it on. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she says as her phone comes to life and starts to ping with messages. ‘Loads of people in the village have been texting me about it. I shouldn’t have switched my phone off.’

  ‘What are they saying?’ Kate asks, trying to picture the scene on the canal. It was a good community, tight-knit.

  ‘Same as you. Everyone thinks it was arson.’ Bex scrolls through a few more messages. ‘They found a metal jerrycan up at the lock,’ she says, reading. ‘The fire brigade took fifteen minutes to get down there, by which time the boat was too far gone. I’m so sorry.’

  ‘No one hurt, though?’ Kate asks.

  ‘No.’ Bex pauses. ‘Shit. And I was so off with him today.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Jake. I saw him at the station. When I was going up to London to spy on your Rob. Poor bloke.’

  ‘You never said.’

  Bex raises her eyebrows at Kate. ‘I didn’t think I needed to.’

  ‘Where’s he going to live?’ Kate asks.

  ‘The pub maybe. They’ll put him up for a few days. They’re good like that. And he’s given them enough business over the years. If not, he can always stay at mine.’

  ‘Yours?’

  Bex nods.

  Kate’s shocked by the offer. Bex has never shown any inclination to be kind to Jake, even before they split up.

  ‘Why not? It’s just sitting empty.’

  ‘Thanks, Bex.’

  They sit in awkward silence.

  ‘What is it, Katie my love?’ she asks quietly. Bex knows her too well, senses that she’s holding something back.

  ‘Rob thinks that my coffee might have been spiked today, before I went for a swim.’

  ‘Spiked? Bloody hell, Kate. Who by?’

  She tells Bex about the court case, her role in it, the assurances she was given at the time that she wouldn’t be in any personal danger. Jake was convinced at the beginning that her car crash hadn’t been an accident, but Kate was just surprised it hadn’t happened before. She’d started to drink and drive, something that she’d never done before. She was a total wreck, wrung out from the work she was doing, her empty life with Jake.

  ‘I mean, I know it was exciting and all, but that job was so not you,’ Bex says. ‘You’re free of it now.’

  Kate’s not sure she’ll ever be free of it.

  20

  Silas

  Silas can see the stationary fire engines up ahead, their blue lights sweeping across the water meadow and reflecting off the dark canal. He’s parked as close as he can get and wonders how the units managed to get so much nearer.

  ‘You didn’t have to come out,’ he says to Strover, as they walk along the towpath. He’s impressed that she’s there.

  ‘Not so easy to ignore a text from your boss,’ she says.

  ‘You’ll learn.’

  There’s no need for a torch. It’s a clear night. At least it was, until a column of black smoke from Jake’s boat rose up and stained the firmament. There are no casualties, but Silas wonders how the author will cope. Bets are off that he didn’t have any insurance.

  ‘You think it’s arson?’ Strover asks.

  ‘Let’s see. If he hadn’t brought in that CCTV footage today, I wouldn’t be here now. It’s the timing that worries me.’

  They walk on in silence, approaching the burnt-out shell, smouldering and partly submerged like a stricken submarine. An area of the bank and towpath has been cordoned off with police tape. There’s still a crowd, but people are starting to disperse. One of the fire units is also about to leave. It feels strange to be back on the canal. Last time Silas was there, a year ago, he’d taken charge of an Armed Response incident. He would rather be tucked up in bed right now, but when he heard over the radio about a fire on a narrowboat belonging to a local author, he told a surprised Control Room that he’d take a look.

  ‘Thanks for coming,’ Jake says, walking over to Silas and Strover.

  ‘Have you given a statement?’ Silas asks, nodding in the direction of the two uniforms on site.

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘Strover will take one.’

  She pulls out her notepad and pen on cue.

  ‘It was deliberate,’ Jake says, turning from Silas to Strover. ‘I saw someone running away moments before.’

  ‘You can tell Strover everything you saw in a minute. First I want to know what you did after we met for lunch today.’

  ‘Me?’ Jake says, blanching like a guilty schoolboy.

  Silas knows at once that he’s right. He’s had a hunch ever since this afternoon, when he paid the Bluebell pub a visit. The barman in the CCTV footage wasn’t there. According to the unhelpful landlady, he left six months ago, around the time when Kate’s drink was spiked. She also revealed, after a little persuasion, that someone had been in earlier asking questions.

  ‘Did you talk to anyone at the pub?’ Silas says.

  ‘Do you think the fire’s connected?’ Jake asks, ignoring his question.

  ‘Did you talk to anyone?’ Silas repeats. He’s sorry about Jake’s boat, but he’s also annoyed with him.

  ‘I spoke to the landlady and the barman – not the man in the video,’ Jake says.

  ‘And were they pleased to see you?’

  ‘I’ve had warmer welcomes.’ Jake stares at his feet.

  Silas shakes his head, glancing across at the narrowboat behind him. It seems to have sunk lower into the water, tilting drunkenly. ‘It might not be such a cosy country pub,’ he says. ‘More into drugs than draught beer.’ He doesn’t want to say too much.

  ‘County lines?’ Jake asks.

  Silas nods, remembering that Jake used to be a crime reporter before he became a writer. County lines is a force-wide priority for policing in Wiltshire now, as it is for the whole country. Drug networks in London and Manchester, keen to develop new heroin markets, are extending their reach to towns like Swindon, targeting surrounding villages through secondary local lines.

  ‘You shouldn’t have gone,’ he says. ‘Should have left it to us. Looks like you poked the wrong bear.’ He glances again at Jake’s boat.

  ‘So what was Kate doing there?’ Jake asks.

  ‘That’s what I was hoping to find out.’

  Silas has a horrible feeling that she wasn’t at the Bluebell by chance. Kate had taken to her police work, became intoxicated by her ability to identify criminals. He had too. It was like investigating on steroids. But the unit had to be focused and the priority at the time was modern slavery. When Silas started to suspect that the gang they were investigating might also have links to a new heroin network operating out of Swindon, he was told by his boss to stick to his brief and leave county lines to the force’s dedicated Proactive Team. It was a frustrating time for Silas and the super-recogniser unit, particularly Kate, who was not used to being told what to do.