"Is he our man?"

He could hear Mooney's hand going over the phone. Muffling it. Like he was talking behind his hand and trying for some privacy. Privacy was in short supply at the station.

"Everyone's thrilled, you know?"

"But?"

"It don't feel right. You know?"

"What's he say?"

"Who?"

"Who the fuck do you think? Sawyer!"

"Not much. He's dead."

"What?"

"You deaf?"

"Dead?"

"That's what I said."

Coleridge tapped the wheel with his spare hand while he was thinking. His stomach rumbled at him. Rain spattered the windscreen, small drops, then fat drops. He thought hard. Kept the phone to his ear.

"That's funny."

"Don't see why."

"What time did he die?"

"Don't know exactly, but he died in a corridor on the way to ICU."

"What was he doing on the way to ICU? He put up a fight?"

"He weren't in much of a state to put up a fight."

What the hell was going on? Something, alright, and it wasn't something Coleridge liked much.

"That's funny, because I spoke to him tonight, about twelve o'clock."

"Bullshit. He was dead by then, and if even if he wasn't, he was in no state to be calling anyone. You need to see it. It can't have been him."

"Then that begs the question, doesn't it?"

"It does. This stinks. You sure it was him?"

"Maybe not Sawyer. But our killer. Without a doubt.

"You need to see it," said Mooney.

"You find the heads?"

"You need to see it."

"They bagged anything up yet?"

"Not yet."

"Give me the address. I've got to stop on the way, but I'll be there in an hour. Two, tops."

Mooney gave him an address. Coleridge tucked it away in his head.

"Don't fuck about. You know how it is. Before you get there the place'll be stripped and the case'll be closed."

"I know. Make some bullshit up. I'll be there. I've got to make a couple of calls. Mooney?"

"Yep?"

"Thanks. I owe you one."

"You owe me about fifty by my reckoning."

"I'm checking my pockets, but..."

"Yeah, yeah. Hurry up."

"Hurrying," he said, and hung up. He swung back onto the road and drove as fast as he could the next ten miles. Stopped at the station he'd been working out of. A couple more calls to make. Calls he couldn't put off. Lifesavers, maybe, and Sawyer was dead. He wasn't going anywhere.

Chapter Forty-Six.

It began to rain just as Beth got into her bedroom. Her window faced out to the sea. There was no hint of it tonight. Just blackness, and rain, running down the window. She left the hall light and the policemen in the kitchen.

She stripped off, right down to nothing. Her scalp was sore, her arm red and angry. Things still seemed hazy through her injured eye, but it didn't seem to be anything she couldn't handle. Whatever damage had been done, she wasn't going anywhere soon. No hospital. Just bed.

She slid under her duvet onto the cold sheet. Even though she pulled the covers right up to her chin she shook.

For the last hour or so she'd answered questions about the deer, made tea, made nice.

Now there was just the quiet, and the dark.

Just her, alone in her bed where she'd always felt safe, even on the rare nights when Miles snuck into bed with her.

She wished Coleridge was in the next room. She wished she could hear his rasping snore. His snore was so powerful it was almost like having company even when he was asleep. It had a personality of its own.

She'd never realized how much she missed human contact. There was always Peter, but with Peter there was always the guilt. The guilt, eating away at her, every time she spoke to him. Every time she thought of him.

Her whole relationship with him was tainted by their son's death. She knew Peter would always love her, always look out for her, no matter what. But death threw a pale shadow over everything it touched.

Coleridge was different. He was hard, brusque. But he wasn't all business. He had a heart, and there wasn't any guilt.

She felt a weight settle in beside her.

"Night, Miles," she said.

"I'm going to kill you tonight," a man said, and ran a finger along her jaw.

She screamed and leaped from the bed. There was no one there. Nothing. She ran to the wall and flicked on the light as the policemen came running into her room. They charged her bedroom door and it smashed back against her wall.

There she was, nothing on, shaking all over, staring at her bed with nothing on it.

No. Not nothing. There was a dent on the other side of the bed. A dent where a man had lain.

She moaned, low in her throat. That was all she knew until morning, because she fainted dead away.

The policeman caught her and put her back into bed. He didn't look at her naked, but drew the covers up over her. His partner looked away, too. He flicked his head at his partner. They both left, walking quietly like a parent might, not because they didn't want to wake their children, but because they didn't want to deal with their children being awake.

Neither noticed the bed dip lower beside Beth, or heard the rustle of the sheets as they closed the door.

Chapter Forty-Seven.

A single sergeant manned the desk on nightshift. Coleridge nodded to him, considered pointing out the soup stains in his gray beard, didn't, and walked through the back in the hope of finding something to eat.

Even though it wasn't his station, he'd been working out of the back room for long enough to know where the grub was.

There was a tiny kitchen. He didn't hold out much hope, but he checked anyway to see if anyone had forgotten their sandwiches or left a cup-a-soup lying around. A Tupperware container of dry spaghetti with some kind of congealed cream sauce on it sat in the smelly fridge. That would do for starters.

He ate while he rifled through the sparse cupboards above a grubby kettle and an old microwave. Not much going on, but there was half a packet of biscuits, which he pilfered.

He made himself a cup of tea while he finished off the pasta, thinking all the while.

Thinking about a man called Gregory Sawyer and a charnel house. What he was going to see tonight. Thinking about loose ends and about messy cases with complicated motives, but kind of hoping this was a case with a simple explanation for strange circumstance. Sometimes it happened that way. Neat and tidy, everyone could sleep after, no bad dreams. Not many, at least.

But then he got to thinking about a dead deer outside Beth's door late at night, when Mooney reckoned Sawyer was already dead. He didn't know the timing of it, but Sawyer sure as hell wasn't hiding in the dark at Beth's and dying in a house in Norwich at the same time.

He ate pasta, washed it down with tea. The pasta was disgusting. Like worms might be, should he ever be hungry enough to eat worms. He ate and thought. Thinking was hungry work.

It could just as easily be two men working together, but it didn't feel right, and it didn't stop him thinking about putting a woman's word over his duty. Trusting Beth enough to forget his obligations as a police detective. He didn't take his job lightly. He might take a bung from time to time, but never when it mattered. He'd never turned his back in a pinch. He'd never let anyone walk he shouldn't have.

Could he trust Beth's word on this? A woman's word wasn't always the best, he figured. He'd trusted his wife, when she said until death do us part...

"Fuck."

He forgot his tea and rushed into the tattered office at the back of the station. He dialed a number by heart.

Someone groggy picked up and mumbled into the phone.

"The boss there?" he said.

"Coleridge?" Finch's missus. She'd had a few late night calls over the years. Shit, early morning. Two o'clock now. Where the hell had the time gone?

He's going to be pissed. More so than usual.

"Yeah, it's Coleridge. It's urgent."

"He's sleeping. He didn't get home 'til late."

"What about if I talk really loudly?"

"Alright, alright. Dave. David!" Sounds of bed sheets rustling. Probably some really comfy quilt. Nice and warm. With feathers in it.

He heard a mumble, then his name, then Finch came on the phone.

"Coleridge. You better have a fucking great reason for waking me up at..." There was a pause. "Two o'clock. Fuck, Coleridge, I've got a press conference at seven."

"It can't wait."

"Oh, fuck it. I'm awake now. Go on. You got news?"

"Yeah. I had a call from him tonight."

"What? Fuck. When?"

Coleridge heard Mrs. Finch in the background, asking if he had to swear quite so much. Coleridge smiled, even though his heart was pounding because he'd been busy eating while he should have been calling in the cavalry.

"A couple of hours ago," he said.

"What?"

"Yeah, I know. Can't be, right? It stinks, Finch, to high heaven. Look, I've been busy. The thing is, he's threatened my missus. It couldn't have been Sawyer, but it was someone, and he wasn't fucking about."

"Okay."