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‘Solid eight hours,’ I said. I got back into bed beside her. It was warm and comfortable and I
couldn’t resist it. Monday morning could wait a few minutes. Emma nestled into my shoulder.
‘I could stay here all day,’ she said.
‘Me too.’
She draped an arm across my chest and I watched her tea going cold and saw the face of my clock
count nine minutes before I forced myself to leave the gentle rise and fall of her sleepy breathing. As I
pulled the cover away, she roused herself and pulled my face to hers and we kissed. ‘I’ve got to get
up,’ I said.
‘Boring,’ she replied, but I knew that if I hadn’t said it, she would have. Emma was always
punctual. She smiled, as if to acknowledge my thought, and then she sat up and reached for her tea,
grimacing at the first tepid gulp.
I put the ironing board up in front of the kitchen window and watched the red and white lights of the
commuter cars coming into the city as I did my shirt.
‘You cycling in?’ Emma asked when she appeared in her work clothes, hair smoothed and tamed
into a thick ponytail.
‘Yep.’
‘Trying to build up your celery legs?’ she said. She loved to tease. This wasn’t a side of her she
readily showed people either. It made me smile.
‘You love my celery legs,’ I said. ‘You should just admit it. You driving in then?’
She was wearing a business suit, fitted and shapely, and a pair of low heels. She had bright eyes,
and a quick smile that morning. She was ready to take on her day.
‘That’s correct, Detective Inspector Clemo, an excellent deduction. See you later.’
Emma and I travelled separately to work. Police officers are allowed to have relationships with
each other, it’s not forbidden, but the reality is that it can be frowned upon, because it could
complicate things if you end up on a case together. It was my suggestion that we keep our relationship
secret for now. We’d only been together for a few months, and I figured what we did in our spare time
was our business. Emma agreed. She said she wasn’t bothered if it was secret or not. She was easy
like that.
First I heard of Benedict Finch was when I was cycling in. I have a portable digital radio that I
listen to when I ride. By the time I left the flat the wind and rain had eased up and, as I dropped down
Jacob’s Wells Road towards the waterfront, I enjoyed the feel of the acceleration on the steep
downhill and skirted round the water that had pooled around the backed-up drains.
I barely had to pedal when I hit the flat beside the harbour, and, as I was cruising past the
cathedral, I caught a 07.30 news update on Radio Bristol. It said that an eight-year-old boy called
Benedict Finch had gone missing in Leigh Woods. It happened the previous afternoon while he was
out on a dog walk with his mum. Police and mountain teams were looking for him. They were
worried.
The city centre proper was starting to get sticky with early Monday morning traffic, but I made
good time, and I hit Feeder Road at 07.40 and cycled alongside the canal. The water level was high,
the surface pocked with drizzle. A fisherman sat hunched on the bank beside the road, shrouded in
waterproofs.
Overhead, traffic roared across the stained concrete flyover, oppressively low, a grubby landmark
that greeted me every day on my arrival at work. Behind it daylight was emerging, a slate grey sky
with low, racing clouds that were purple above and yellow below. It was a poisonous sky: the death
throes of last night’s weather. I remember thinking that it wasn’t a good night for a small boy to be