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seeing you on Christmas Eve. Don’t disappoint her, Andy.’
    Horton forced himself to remain calm, though he was thinking how dare she say that when he had never disappointed his daughter in her life. ‘Who’s looking after her tonight?’
    She hesitated. Her eyes flickered to the function room. He knew instantly why.
    ‘Your mother and father are here too.’
    ‘Yes. I’ve got a babysitter.’
    ‘Who?’ His stomach clenched at the thought of Emma being abandoned to a stranger.
    ‘A girl from the village called Michelle. She’s highly reliable,’ Catherine replied defensively.

    He had to trust her he told himself. No matter what Catherine did to him he knew she wouldn’t endanger Emma, but part of him was thinking that she could have stayed with him. Yet how could she on his boat? It was totally inadequate for a child. It was inadequate for him. And then there was his job.
    He didn’t need to be here working at midnight, but how could he have got away by seven or eight o’clock, which was probably when Catherine had wanted to leave for her function?
    Admitting defeat, he said, ‘Enjoy your evening,’ and walked away. It wasn’t until he had reached reception that he paused and turned back. Catherine had vanished but he caught sight of another familiar face and he felt a tiny flicker of jealousy inside him. Staring up at an elegantly dressed dark-haired man in his late thirties was Frances Greywell. She didn’t look as though she was going to protest either when he placed his arm across her naked shoulders.
    Outside Horton breathed in the night air hoping to banish his acute sensation of isolation, but the fog was as suffocating as ever. He climbed on his Harley and rode home carefully and slowly. His route took him along the mist-shrouded seafront where the sound of the booming foghorns filled the air. There were young people milling around outside the nightclubs, and a police wagon was parked in front of the pier.
    Later, when club land spewed its contents on to the pavements, there would be drunken young people and scantily clad girls everywhere. He wondered if this would be Emma’s fate.
    God, he hoped not. He wanted to play a part in her upbringing, and he knew deep in his heart that it had to be more than just a once-a-week visit.
    Would the sleek, sophisticated Frances get him what he wanted? Or did she think him a loser? Had she spoken to Catherine at that dinner and dance? If so, what kind of picture had his estranged wife painted of him? With something akin to despair he climbed on board Nutmeg and gazed around it: two bunks, a small stove and portable toilet. It wasn’t much to show for a lifetime’s slog.
    He lay back in the darkness, resting his hands behind his head, trying to blot out that picture at the hotel, of people laughing and drinking, of Catherine and Edward Shawford.
    It wasn’t that he enjoyed that sort of event himself; on the contrary he’d loathed those parties and dances. But he was expected to attend the police dinner and dance which always took place in January and was seen as a bonding exercise by higher brass between all the units and stations across Portsmouth. Who was he going to take this year? He had thought briefly about asking Frances, but now that idea was scuppered. Once again he felt like the outsider and memories of his childhood came flooding back, the child standing alone.
    It churned his guts.
    Mentally he pulled himself together. There was still work, and with an effort he turned his thoughts instead to that burnt body. There were many questions bothering him but one more than all the others stood out: why had someone wanted to kill a man who was already dying of cancer?

Three
    Thursday: 7.45 a.m.
    The question was still troubling him the next morning when he fetched a coffee from the machine and weaved his way through the crowded incident room. Of course, one answer had sprung to mind last night and that was perhaps the murderer didn’t know that