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building, to where a group of smokers had gathered in the same place, underneath an overhang of thatch: three men, all of whom I recognized but didn’t really know. They nodded. I nodded back. Then I looked across the beach.
    On the other side of it, next to the cove, were two huge lights: one faced up the beach, lighting the way to the village hall; the other was partially obscured in the cove itself, facing the direction the body had been found. Although he’d done his share of stupid things in the past, if the police were still there Healy wasn’t going to be sniffing around the crime scene. But something had got to him, which meant he probably had some sort of plan in place.
    Something reckless.
    â€œDavid?”
    I turned. A woman emerged from the pub—gray-haired and slightly stooped, in her late sixties or early seventies—a silhouette for a moment against the brightness of the interior. Then, as she came further out into the drizzle, I remembered seeing her at the bar: she’d been sitting on one of the stools, talking to the guy who ran the butchery in the village. I hadn’t paid much attention to her then, but now, as the light from the pub cast a glow across her face, something about her struck a chord with me.
    â€œDavid?” she said again.
    I stepped toward her. Nodded.
    â€œDon’t you remember me?”
    I smiled as though I did, but the truth was, I couldn’t recall where I’d seen her; whether it had been in and around the village over the past few months, or before that, when I’d been here as a boy. I’d maintained a pretty low profile since moving down from London, rarely going out, healing in isolation, so it was more likely the second.
    She saved me from embarrassment: “It’s me. Vera Kane.”
    It came flooding back: she was the aunt of a girl I’d dated when I was in my mid-to-late teens. Emily. We’d gone out for almost eighteenmonths, and then tearfully ended it when I’d got a university place in London. I took a step toward the old woman, and we moved all the way back under the thatched overhang. “Mrs. Kane. How are you?”
    â€œI’m doing okay—for an old woman. How are you?”
    â€œI’m well. You look good.”
    â€œYou liar,” she said, winking.
    â€œI’m surprised I haven’t seen you around.”
    â€œOooh, I don’t live here,” she said. “I’m down in Kingsbridge. I don’t come back very often because my bloody hips are agony and I’ve got no family here anymore. But when I heard what was going on . . .” She stopped; nodded to the beach. “Well, I’ve still got friends in the village and I was worried one of them might be the person that they . . .”
    I followed her gaze. “Right.”
    â€œHow long have you been back?”
    â€œFour months.”
    â€œIn your parents’ old place?”
    â€œThat’s right.”
    She nodded. “So, I wonder who it can be?”
    I glanced down at the beach again. “I don’t know.”
    â€œI thought your policeman friend might have said.”
    She meant Healy. “No. Unfortunately, he didn’t.”
    A flicker of disappointment in her face. I understood then: she was after some fuel to take back into the pub, something fresh she could use. I didn’t blame her. Knowledge was power in a village where everybody knew everything about everybody else. There was no way she could have known Healy’s history, the fact that he was an ex-cop with a life as patched up as mine. She would have just seen him being led to the body by Prouse the fisherman—and then into the village hall by the investigating team for a cozy chat.
    â€œHow’s Emily?” I asked.
    She took a second to tune back in. “Oh, she’s good, love.”
    â€œShe still local?”
    â€œTotnes, yeah. I’m seeing her tomorrow.”
    â€œWell,