‘Come on what, Dom?’

  ‘If they haven’t told you stuff, it’s because they’re not allowed to. I get that must be hard, but it’s procedure.’

  ‘I’ve got every right to know.’ Miller was spinning his wedding ring. He had no desire to take it off, though truth be told he had fingers like sausages and he wasn’t convinced that, short of amputation, he’d ever be able to. ‘We were married. Alex and me, I mean, not me and you. Remember what that’s like, matey? Watching shit TV together and putting the bins out and having daft arguments about nothing. Knowing that person better than anyone else in the world, while they know you every bit as well, and thinking about them a thousand times a day and only ever being happy if they are.’ Miller stopped and smiled again. ‘Ringing any bells, Dom?’

  Baxter glanced around and, when he finally spoke, he lowered his voice which Miller thought was ludicrous, because there wasn’t anyone else within fifty yards of them.

  ‘I told them I didn’t know where Alex had gone that night, because I didn’t.’

  Miller whispered, just to play along and so Baxter wouldn’t feel quite such a tit. ‘Is that normal?’

  ‘It’s not abnormal,’ Baxter said. ‘It’s . . . unusual, maybe.’

  ‘Shouldn’t all that stuff be logged?’

  ‘Yeah, it should be, but it doesn’t always happen. Sometimes you have to do things on the hoof, you know? This kind of work.’

  Miller knew that Baxter was right, having heard much the same thing from Alex often enough. It didn’t make him feel any better, though. ‘Why didn’t she take her phone?’

  ‘I’ve no idea.’

  ‘What about her work phone? I know she had a separate one, but strangely nobody seems to know what happened to it.’

  ‘She had it with her,’ Baxter said. ‘I’m pretty sure she did, anyway. I heard the tracking was turned off, though.’

  ‘Heard from who?’

  ‘Someone on Forgeham’s unit.’

  ‘So they tell you stuff, but they won’t tell me.’

  ‘They can’t. Look, we’ve already . . .’ He stopped when Miller began shaking his head.

  It wasn’t as if they’d never told him anything, of course. Almost every week – for the first month or so anyway – Miller had received a dutiful call or an email and, on one memorable occasion, there’d even been a visit at home. There’d been a card signed by everyone on Forgeham’s team which Miller had swiftly binned and a bottle of wine which he’d necked in twenty minutes. Each time, in so many words he’d been told – sorrowfully, but firmly – that the investigation was ongoing.

  Miller always tried to stay calm, to not laugh out loud or throw anything, but he knew what that meant.

  Ongoing nowhere, ongoing backwards.

  ‘What was she working on?’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘She must have talked to you about that.’

  ‘Well . . . nothing that you don’t already know,’ Baxter said. ‘The usual stuff. Cutler, Massey, one or two others.’

  Cutler and Massey. The two arseholes of the apocalypse who, thanks to the very recent murder of Cutler junior, were individuals Miller would have to deal with in the days to come. He knew he should probably tread carefully and that he had about as much chance of doing that as a three-legged giraffe on ice skates.

  ‘Listen, I need to get going,’ Baxter said.

  ‘Course you do.’

  Baxter keyed his remote and the central locking on his newish motor honked like an emphysemic goose.

  ‘You know where I am, right?’ Miller winked. ‘If there’s anything you’re itching to tell me.’

  ‘It’s good to see you back, though.’

  ‘Is it, though?’

  ‘If you’re sure you’re OK.’

  ‘Oh, I’m ticking along nicely, Dominic,’ Miller said. ‘I’m raring to go.’ He turned and began walking back across the car park, hearing the Volvo start up and accelerate away behind him.

  Back at the moped, Miller tightened his high-vis jacket and fastened the chin strap beneath his crash helmet. He yelped and shouted ‘Ballbags’ when the plastic clip snagged a piece of skin on his neck. He’d just fired the hairdryer up when he heard the familiar roar of a Yamaha Tracer 9 and turned to see the big bike pulling up next to him.

  The leather-clad biker revved the engine, then reached to lift up the black visor.

  ‘Race you,’ Xiu said.

  For the second time that day, Miller watched the black and red bike speed away into the distance and he was grinning as he stamped the moped into gear and puttered after it. Stalled, started the bloody thing again and then puttered after it. No, coming back to work had not been a walk in the park and he knew the day was going to get harder before it was finished, but teaming up with Posh Gravy had definitely been a highlight.

  ELEVEN

  From the end of a small street high above the town, Miller stared out to sea, hoping that the shushing of the waves against the shore far below, the stillness and the dark, might clear his mind a little and help him make the decision. It didn’t. The only decision he’d ever reached where the sea was concerned was to avoid it whenever possible and certainly to steer well clear of ever getting in it. It was cold and wet and there were things in there he didn’t want to think about for very long.

  Alex, of course, had felt very differently. She’d swum on mornings when the sand had glittered with frost for God’s sake and had greedily sucked in the smell of the water and the weed at every opportunity; closing her eyes and humming with contentment, the same way he might if it was deep-fried doughnuts or bacon sizzling in a pan. She couldn’t get enough of it and had laughed at Miller’s aversion to the water, even when he’d discovered there was an actual word for it.

  ‘It’s called thalassophobia,’ he’d told her. ‘I’m a thalassophobe.’

  She’d told him he was a wuss.

  It was what she’d call him now, Miller knew that. He turned back to look at the shabby, single-storey building he was far more nervous about entering than the one he’d just left.

  It made sense, that’s what he told himself, because there was so much more in there to be afraid of. There just was. So much he didn’t want to face up to or remember. He had every right to be a little apprehensive, more than a little, and surely nobody who’d been through what he had could be blamed for saying ‘sod this for a game of soldiers’, climbing back on to their moped and going straight home.

  It’s what anyone in his position would do.

  If they were a wuss . . .

  When Miller eventually stepped through the cracked and creaky door carrying his crash helmet, they all turned to look at him and a couple of them even gasped. It wasn’t unlike the moment he’d stepped back into the incident room that morning, except that most of the people in here were a good deal older – a lot older in some cases – and, more important, they all looked pleased to see him.

  At a variety of different speeds, the group hurried across to greet him.

  Howard and Mary were certainly in their mid-seventies while Gloria and Ransford could not have been that far behind them. Ruth was in her early forties, same general ballpark as Miller, and Nathan (the baby of the group) wasn’t yet thirty. Nathan and Ruth weren’t a couple, but Miller had long suspected that Nathan harboured ambitions in that direction.

  Miller liked the lad immensely, though it was fair to say that they hadn’t bonded over a shared taste in music. Nathan had – for example – casually declared that Jay-Z was the new Shakespeare. As Miller didn’t know an awful lot about the old Shakespeare, he’d felt unqualified to comment, but he wasn’t about to let Nathan’s next pronouncement go unchallenged.

  ‘The Beatles? They’re not even the best band to come out of Liverpool, never mind the best band in the world. One word – overrated!’

  Miller had responded with a word of his own and, even if it was one they’d all heard before, it was said with such vehemence that Mary had needed to take a break for fifteen minutes and sit down with a large gin.

  ‘We knew you’d be back,’ Mary said now.

  ‘Oh, yeah?’

  ‘Didn’t we, Howard?’

  ‘Yeah, we knew,’ Howard said.

  Miller shrugged and looked around, taking it all back in. It was just a big old shed, basically. The Sea Scouts used it at least one night a week to practise not drowning, and assorted community groups held jumble sales there, or sparsely attended coffee mornings, but three nights a week it became something else.

  ‘Well, I’m glad you did,’ Miller said. ‘Because I wasn’t sure. I’m still not.’

  ‘You can’t just give up,’ Ransford said. His voice was surprisingly high and light for such a big man, the Jamaican accent now tinged with a Lancashire burr.

  ‘I wouldn’t have been . . . giving up.’

  ‘No, right. I didn’t mean giving up.’

  ‘Things are just different, obviously.’

  Ruth stepped across and punched him on the arm. ‘You’ll be grand, love.’

  ‘Yeah, course you will.’ Nathan leaned in for a slightly uncoordinated high-five. ‘It’s good to see you, mate.’

  Mary nudged her husband and beamed at Miller. ‘It’s wonderful, and what’s more, Alexandra would have thought you being back here was wonderful, too.’

  Miller nodded. He was still wondering if it wasn’t too late to turn tail and get back on the moped, but Mary made sure that wasn’t going to happen when she reached across and took his hand. He felt some of the weight lift when she squeezed. These were friends, after all, and this shitty old scout hut was an escape. It had been their escape, his and Alex’s, but there was no reason why it shouldn’t still be his. Somewhere he could come for a few hours to leave murder behind and all the nonsense that rattled round his stupid head when he was at home on his own.

  All the same, it remained to be seen if—

  Mary, who was as bossy as she was arthritic, clapped her hands. ‘Right then, let’s start with something nice and easy, shall we? Declan . . . you can partner me.’

  Miller quickly raised his hands. ‘Whoa, not yet, Mary.’ He began walking across to the knackered old piano in the corner, shouting back to the others who stood and watched him. ‘Just some accompaniment tonight, I think. Ease myself back in gently.’

  He dumped his jacket and crash helmet on the floor, sat down and began to play. Miller was happier on guitar than piano, but he could bash out a tune if he needed to. After no more than half a minute’s bashing, he became aware that Mary was standing directly behind him. He stopped playing like they were in a saloon and a badass gunslinger had just walked in.

  ‘You need to get back on the horse, love.’

  Miller stared down at the keys.

  ‘Seriously?’ Her voice was stern, suddenly, like she had every mind to slap his legs. ‘You’re going to stand me up? I’m a bloody pensioner!’

  ‘I don’t think I can do this,’ Miller said. ‘Not without . . .’

  ‘Well, there’s only one way to find out, isn’t there?’ Mary clapped her hands again. ‘Nathan, you come and play . . .’

  Reluctantly, even though he knew that arguing with Mary was pointless, Miller stood up and Nathan moved across to take over. Miller sighed and hoped the tremor in his legs wasn’t too evident as Mary led him to the centre of the room. He tried to smile when she put his arms where they needed to go and leaned in close.

  ‘Just a simple paso doble, a double-step . . . get you back into the swing of things.’

  ‘No.’ Miller stepped away. ‘Not that one.’

  ‘Oh, right.’ Mary shook her head like she was an idiot. ‘Of course not that one. How about a waltz, then? Nathan . . . ?’ She pulled Miller back and repositioned his arms. ‘I promise I’ll be gentle with you.’

  Nathan started to play, more or less in time and, a few moments later, Miller, Mary and the rest of them began to dance.

  It had always been, to put it politely, a mixed ability group, but none of them fell over very often. Gloria needed to sit down fairly regularly, Howard was known affectionately as the ‘toe-crusher’ and on one occasion Ransford had turned his ankle quite badly during an over-ambitious tango, but generally speaking, everyone was . . . competent.

  Miller watched them over Mary’s shoulder, remembering.

  ‘That’s it,’ she said. ‘Just relax and . . . one two three, one two three . . . there we go, love. See? It’s all coming back . . .’

  Miller relaxed, because it genuinely felt like it was.

  He closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, everything had changed.

  It was Alex looking up at him and a smile spread across her face as the lights from a huge glitterball floated across it. The orchestra kicked in and everyone else moved back to the edge of the floor to watch as Miller and his wife began to move in perfect sync. Miller’s tuxedo was immaculate and he could feel the sequins on Alex’s dress beneath his fingers as the two of them rose and fell together, stepped and slid and stepped again, living and breathing their dance.

  It was faultless, it was effortless.

  Their shoulders moved smoothly and stayed perfectly parallel to the polished floor. Intuitively they lengthened their steps and Alex’s eyes were fixed on his while Miller led her into space.

  Every move, silk on silk, like they’d done it a million times.

  Box step, natural turn, reverse turn, backward passing change until finally, as the music swelled and grew louder, the routine moved like clockwork towards its climax. Miller’s arm snaked around Alex’s slender neck. It slid down to support her as she slowly arched her back and let her head drop, staring up at him with love and with the widest smile, as the audience got to its feet and began to cheer . . .

  . . . and Miller opened his eyes.

  Nathan’s final, somewhat iffy piano chord echoed off the grubby white walls as Miller awkwardly hoisted Mary back up. He was struggling to get his breath back and to stay on his feet. All smiles and equally breathless, Howard, Gloria and the others were already gathering around and they nodded enthusiastically when Mary announced that it was a mightily good effort for someone who was understandably rusty and you know, considering.

  ‘Let’s all have a cup of tea,’ she said. ‘Then we’ll try something else.’

  She rubbed Miller’s arm and said that he should feel very pleased with himself. She told him that he’d be back to his sparkling best in no time at all and that, most importantly, the tears were nothing to be ashamed of.

  TWELVE

  It would have been hard to slip a cigarette paper between Michelle Cutler and her mother-in-law, pressed tightly against her on the sofa in Michelle’s living room. Michelle stared at the wall or down at her hands, looking anywhere but at her brother-in-law Justin, and especially not at Wayne, who was watching her from an armchair on the other side of the room. When her father-in-law wasn’t giving her evils, he was up and down every five minutes, slipping into the hall to make phone calls he clearly did not wish to be overheard.

  Michelle sat there and wished that she’d cried more, or even at all.

  Somehow she just hadn’t been able to manage it, so instead she’d done her bit keeping the teas and whiskies coming, while everyone else did the weeping for her. That said, she was relieved that the kids weren’t around to see their grandparents so upset. They’d already seen enough blubbering and heard enough raised voices to last them a lifetime. Michelle had packed them off to stay with her mum first chance she’d got, which was a treat for all of them. Although her mother only lived fifteen minutes away, she barely got to see her grandchildren because Jacqui always had first dibs; smothering them the same way she smothered everyone else, with what looked like affection but Michelle knew was something else entirely. It was about staking a claim and marking out what was hers, same as she’d always done with her precious son.

  Jacqui sighed and leaned into her again; the reek of perfume and that soggy cheek – she’d done plenty of crying – pressed against Michelle’s noticeably dry one.

  ‘How did this happen?’

  Michelle had been asking herself the same question for a long time. She’d been to a good school, which her mum had sacrificed everything to pay for. She’d worked hard and got good grades, had ambitions which everyone told her she could easily fulfil.

  Journalism, maybe, or something in fashion. Plenty of people had said she could have been a model. Still said it.

  The world had been Michelle Conroy’s oyster.

  So how did she end up being crushed against a woman like Jacqui Cutler while Wayne Cutler eyeballed her like he knew something she’d rather he didn’t? How did she end up being a bloody Cutler in the first place?

  Because Adrian was not like his father. That’s what he’d told her. Because he could charm the birds out of the trees whereas his old man would simply have taken a shotgun to them. Well, Adrian had charmed Michelle out of her knickers on their second date and that had been that. The world wasn’t her oyster any more, however many they ate and however many pearls Adrian bought for her. Welcome to the family . . .

  Now, six years and three kids later, what was she left with? Well, the kids, obviously and she’d die for her babies, but even keeping hold of them might be a struggle. Jacqui wouldn’t let them go anywhere without a fight, least of all now, when Wayne didn’t even have to pretend that he liked her any more.

  He was looking over at her again and Michelle was damn sure, same as always, that he knew exactly what she was thinking. What she’d been thinking for a while.

  What the hell was going to happen now?

  The Family Liaison Officer had been with her from that first knock on the door, and she was nice enough, but Pippa Shepherd wasn’t daft. She knew that the woman wasn’t just there to make sympathetic noises and keep the kettle boiling. The spouse was always a suspect, wasn’t that how it worked in detective novels and on TV shows?