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just legalize it. Get it over with. Going to happen, isn’t it? Backward and forward this country. Can’t have a smoke in a pub but you can drink a liter of supermarket cider for two pounds fifty! And all this nail-gun business! By Christ but that’s vicious.”
    “We’ve tried to find examples of similar techniques used nationally, but we’re having no success, sir. These people seem to have appeared out of nowhere. They took over, and now they’re having their way . . .”
    “But cannabis? Why not cocaine? Ecstasy? Heroin, even?”
    McAvoy feels a vibration in his pocket, and discreetly retrieves his mobile phone. He has to fight to keep the smile from his face.
    “We’ve made a significant breakthrough, sir,” he says firmly. “An informant of Detective Superintendent Pharaoh has supplied us with the location of the current bulk of the cannabis operation. We’re hopeful a raid will be imminent, and that the perpetrators of the foreshore attacks will be present.”
    Tressider holds his gaze for a fraction of a second longer than McAvoy is comfortable with. He is not sure what the chairman is thinking, or whether he is about to be praised or bawled out.
    “It’s a relief to find some bugger who knows what he’s doing,” says Tressider at length. “Sounds like you’ve got a busy day ahead of you. We won’t detain you further.”
    McAvoy begins to stand.
    “Actually, a piss would be nice. Shall we call a break?”
    Amid mutterings of both consternation and agreement, the committee members stand. McAvoy gathers his things.
    “A shambles,” says Everett under his breath. “Bloody shambles.”
    McAvoy presumes the remark to be directed at himself. Chooses not to hear it.
    Squeezing through the throng of bodies and careful not to touch anybody with his damp clothes, he makes his way out of the room and down the stairs. He can feel a fizz of excitement building inside him. Pharaoh has made progress. Leanne has an address. And within the hour they could have everything they need to kick in some doors and slap on handcuffs.
    He emerges back onto the High Street to find that the rain has paused for breath. The cold wind grabs his soaking clothes and instantly brings goose pimples to his skin. He shivers. Looks at his watch and tries to decide what to do for the next hour. He has some time to kill before meeting Pharaoh, a five minutes’ walk away in one of the quieter pockets of the city center, and were he to drive back to the office he would only have to turn around and come back again. He looks around.
    Next door to the Police Authority stands the Hull and East Riding Museum. He has been here plenty of times with Roisin and Fin, but Lilah is probably still too young to appreciate the giant woolly mammoth that stands in the entrance, or the siege gun commissioned by Henry VIII, which was dug up by archaeologists excavating the city walls and placed on display alongside other exhibits from the city’s colorful past.
    His feet take him past the entrance and down to the water’s edge. The River Hull gives the city its name, and scythes into the city center, then onward into the dark, muddy waters of the Humber. He stares down at the dirty water. At the feet of thick mud, which sit like so much chocolate mousse against the brick and timber walls of the footpath upon which he now stands.
    To his left is the
Arctic Corsair
, an old-fashioned sidewinder trawler transformed into a floating museum by well-meaning types keen to ensure that everybody get a chance to experience the hell of life on board a distant-water fishing vessel.
    Idle, directionless, he walks along the towpath by the river. Looks up at the busy divided highway overhead. Past the overpass, to where the curious, curving pyramid structure of the city’s aquarium sits, incongruously modern and shiny, on the muddy spit of land called Sammy’s Point.
    The rain begins to fall again. He wonders for a time whether he should huddle under the bridge