Chapter 9

The Cornwall address confirmed itself on a Tuesday morning, and Melissa understood, reading the local force’s careful, cooperative reply, that she had finally, after weeks of chasing an honorific alone, found Reverend Alasdair Crane — eighty-nine years old, living quietly in a small bungalow overlooking a fishing harbour that could not have looked more different from Kinloch’s own if it had been deliberately chosen for the contrast, cared for by a private nurse who visited three mornings a week and a niece who checked in by phone less often than either of them would probably admit.