Prologue

If it hadn’t been for the break-in on the day of the funeral I might never have got involved. But that and Jack’s note urging me to take care of his wife, Rosie, obliged me. I had let him down in life; I wasn’t about to let him down in death.

Danger wasn’t usually my kind of thing, though. I was just happy to let things be. But the past has a nasty habit of catching up with you and mine had done just that. As I stood around Jack’s grave in the bleak Portsmouth cemetery in December the memory of another funeral fifteen years ago had rushed in and almost suffocated me.

I tried to shut out the image but I couldn’t. Some things never went away. They just lay in wait for you. I wanted to leave but knew I couldn’t.

I had closed my eyes and tried to block out the past but it refused to go. I knew then that it wouldn’t. I had run away once. This time I had a feeling that running away wouldn’t be an option.