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that Donaldson, at Henry’s insistence, had backed off and given him his own space.
    â€˜What’s the job?’ Donaldson asked.
    Henry drew a breath. ‘One likely to attract lots of attention and scrutiny. Minute fucking scrutiny. Female teenager murdered, something the press will love to bits  . . . and I guess I’m not up to it.’ He shrugged pitifully and swallowed something hard and sour tasting at the admission.
    â€˜Why do you say that?’
    â€˜Just feel I’ve lost all my drive, my rhyme and reason. I typed out my intention to retire report yesterday, you know? Three lines and a date. Just waiting to be printed off and submitted.’
    â€˜That what you want?’ Donaldson lounged back and watched Henry grapple with the question.
    â€˜I have no idea what I want.’
    â€˜Let me ask you another question. What were you put on this earth to do?’
    Henry knew the answer, but fought the response.
    â€˜But more importantly, H,’ Donaldson said, ‘let me tab back to the previous question and ask not what you want, but what would Kate have wanted you to do?’
    Donaldson had gone. Henry was alone again, swirling the dregs of his coffee, watching the grains as though they might give him inspiration, like reading tea leaves. Nothing. He refitted the plastic lid and put the cup in the bin before leaving the restaurant and stepping back into the clear, warm morning.
    He crossed the prom and retraced his earlier walk, not so quiet now as the day came to life and people and traffic began to move. He walked up to North Pier, Blackpool Tower on his right, but his gaze was drawn across to the north-west, where the hills of the Lake District were etched clearly on the horizon. It was a place Kate had loved and where Henry, following her wishes, had scattered her ashes.
    Everything had happened so quickly, no preamble, no warning. Henry, emerging from a very bad situation in the village of Kendleton, having been shot in the left shoulder – not seriously, as it happened – then had to deal with the detritus that included police corruption and multiple murder, including the death of a policewoman. He had been overwhelmed with the paperwork and interviews and inquests and trials and the CPS and the forensics and the press. The list seemed endless. His mind was completely waterlogged with tasks and it had been a month later, during a breather from the mountain of statements he’d brought home to read that, seemingly, for the first time in weeks, he’d looked at Kate and thought, ‘She looks as whacked as me.’
    Her words in response to his enquiry had been simple and uncomplicated. ‘Henry, I need to tell you something.’
    He put down his highlighter pen, saw the tear emerge from her right eye and tumble down her face, and that night he held her tightly as they both cried in each other’s arms.
    It was a lump in her left breast. Though they acted quickly and decisively, the cancer could not be halted, spreading aggressively through her body. They fought, she fought, but then reached a point when she looked exhaustedly with half-blind watery eyes at Henry and he knew it was over. It had won. She had lost and her final weeks were a mixture of ecstasy, agony, happiness and hopelessness, but above all dignity and love.
    The last month of her life was spent in a hospice where the speed of deterioration was terrifying.
    And Henry held her as she died quietly.
    Now, Henry looked out to the Lakes, his mind whirling with all of those images. He had immersed himself in work for the last two months, even though his heart was not in it. He had thought this was the best way to tackle things. But it always felt as though he was running ahead of something that was coming up from behind with the intention of smothering him. He always knew it would catch up and maybe that morning it had.
    The opening chords of Wild Horses interrupted his reverie. He