“They knew how to tip, they did,” his granddad would tell him. “’Course things were less dear in those days, weren’t they, so tuppence went a mile and a shilling’d take you all the way to London.” He exaggerated like that, Mick’s granddad. It was, his mother said, part of his charm.

“I wanted to move the body,” Daidre Trahair said. “But he”-with a nod at the man-“said not to. It’s an accident. Well, obviously, it’s an accident, so I couldn’t see why…Frankly, I was afraid the surf would take him.”

“Do you know who it is?”

“I…no,” she said. “I didn’t get much of a look at his face.”

Mick hated to cave in to them, but they were right. He tilted his head in the direction of the door. “Let’s see him.”

They set off into the rain. The man brought out a faded baseball cap and put it on. The woman used a rain jacket with the hood pulled over her sandy hair.

Mick paused at the police car and fetched the small flash camera that he’d been authorised to carry. Its purchase had been intended for a moment just like this. If he had to move the body, they’d at least have a visual record of what the spot had looked like before the waves rose to claim the corpse.

At the water’s edge, the wind was fierce, and a beach break was coming from both left and right. These were rapid waves, seductive swells building offshore. But they were forming fast and breaking faster: just the sort of surf to attract and demolish someone who didn’t know what he was doing.

The body, however, wasn’t that of a surfer. This came as something of a surprise to Mick. He’d assumed…But assuming was an idiot’s game. He was glad he’d jumped only to mental conclusions and said nothing to the man and woman who’d phoned for help.

Daidre Trahair was right. It looked like some kind of accident. A young climber-most decidedly dead-lay on a shelf of slate at the base of the cliff.