Strike put his arm around Lucy, who rested her head on his shoulder, as they sailed back to shore. Rozwyn, the elder of Polworth’s daughters, broke into sobs initially provoked by the sight of the urn vanishing in the distance, but sustained by her enjoyment of her own grief and the sympathy of her mother. Strike watched until he could no longer see the white dot, then turned his eyes toward shore, thinking of the leg of lamb waiting for them back at the house.

His phone vibrated yet again, minutes after he’d regained firm ground. While Polworth helped Ted tie up the boat, Strike lit a cigarette and turned away from the group to read the new text.

I want to die speaking the truth people are such liars everyone I know lies in such if them swant to stop pretending

“I’ll walk back,” he told Lucy.

“You can’t,” she said at once, “lunch’ll be ready for us—”

“I’m going to want another one of these,” Strike said firmly, holding up his cigarette in her disapproving face. “I’ll meet you up there.”

“Want company, Diddy?” asked Polworth. “Penny can take the girls back up to the house.”

“No, you’re all right, mate,” said Strike. “Need to make a work call,” he added quietly, so that Lucy couldn’t hear. As he said it, he felt his mobile vibrate again.

“Goodbye, Corm,” said Kerenza, her freckled face kindly as ever. “I’m not coming for lunch.”

“Great,” said Strike, “no, sorry, I mean—thanks for coming, Kerenza, Joan was so fond of you.”

When Kerenza had finally got into her Mini, and the family’s cars were driving away, Strike pulled out his phone again.

Never forget that I loved you goodbye blues x

Strike called the number. After a few rings, it went to voicemail.

“Charlotte, it’s me,” said Strike. “I’m going to keep ringing till you pick up.”

He hung up and dialed again. The number went to voicemail for a second time.

Strike began to walk, because his anxiety required action. The streets around the harbor weren’t busy. Most people would be sitting down to Easter lunch. Over and again he dialed Charlotte’s number, but she didn’t answer.

It was as though a wire was tightening around his skull. His neck was rigid with tension. From second to second his feelings fluctuated between rage, resentment, frustration and fear. She’d always been an expert manipulator. She’d also narrowly escaped death by her own hand, twice.

The phone might be going unanswered because she was already dead. There could be sporting guns at the Castle of Croy, where her husband’s family had lived for generations. There’d be heavy-duty medications at the clinic: she might have stockpiled them. She might even have taken a razor blade to herself, as she’d once tried to do during one of her and Strike’s more vicious rows.

After calling the number for the tenth time, Strike came to a halt, looking out over the railings at the pitiless sea, which breathed no consolation as it rushed to and then retreated from the shore. Memories of Joan, and the way she’d clung so fiercely to life, flooded his mind: his anxiety about Charlotte was laced with fury, for throwing life away.

And then his phone rang.

“Where are you?” he almost shouted.

“Bluey?”

She sounded drunk, or very stoned.

“Where are you?”

“… told you,” she mumbled. “Bluey, d’you ’member…”

“Charlotte, WHERE ARE YOU?”

“Told you, S’monds…”

He turned and began to half-run, half-hobble back the way he’d come: there was an old-fashioned red telephone box twenty yards back, and with his free hand he was already pulling coins from his trouser pocket.

“Are you in your room? Where are you?”

The telephone box smelled urinous, of cigarette butts and dirt from a thousand silt-clogged soles.

“C’n see sky… Bluey, I’m so…”

She was still mumbling, her breathing slow.

“One one eight, one one eight?” said a cheery voice through the receiver in his left hand.

“Symonds House, it’s a residential psychiatric clinic in Kent.”

“Shall I connect—”

“Yes, connect me… Charlotte, are you still there? Talk to me. Where are you?”

But she didn’t answer. Her breathing was loud and becoming guttural.

“Symonds House,” said a bright female voice in his other ear.

“Have you got an in-patient there called Charlotte Ross?”

“I’m sorry, sir,” said the receptionist, “we don’t disclose—”

“She’s overdosed. She’s just called me from your facility, and she’s overdosed. You need to find her—she might be outside, have you got grounds there?”

“Sir, can I ask you—”

“Check Charlotte Ross’s whereabouts, now, I’ve got her on another line and she’s overdosed.”

He heard the woman speaking to someone away from the phone.

“… Mrs. Ross… first floor, just to make…”

The voice spoke in his ear again, still professionally bright, but anxious now.

“Sir, what number is Mrs. Ross calling from? She—in-patients don’t have their own mobiles.”

“She’s got one from somewhere,” said Strike, “as well as a shitload of drugs.”

Somewhere in the background of the call he heard shouting, then loud footsteps. He tried to insert another coin into the slot, but it fell straight through and came out at the bottom.

“Fuck—”

“Sir, I’m going to ask you not to talk to me like that—”

“No, I just—”

The line went dead. Charlotte’s breath was now barely audible.

Strike slammed as much change as he had in his pockets into the slot, then redialed telephone inquiries. Within a minute, he was again connected to the female voice at Symonds House.

“Symonds House—”

“Have you found her? I got cut off. Have you found her?”

“I’m afraid I can’t disclose—” said the harassed-sounding woman.

“She got hold of a mobile and the means to kill herself on your watch,” said Strike, “so you can bloody well disclose whether she’s dead—”

“Sir, I’d appreciate you not shouting at me—”

But then Strike heard distant male voices through the mobile clamped to his other ear. There was no point hanging up and ringing: Charlotte hadn’t heard his ten previous calls. She must have the mobile on silent.

“SHE’S HERE!” he bellowed, and the woman on the payphone line shrieked in shock. “FOLLOW MY VOICE, SHE’S HERE!”

Strike was bellowing into the phone, well aware of the almost impossible odds of searchers hearing him: he could hear swishing and cracking, and knew that Charlotte was outside, probably in undergrowth.

Then, through the mobile, he heard a man shout.

“Shit, she’s here—SHE’S HERE! Fuck… get an ambulance!”

“Sir,” said the shell-shocked woman, now that Strike had stopped yelling, “could I have your name?”