Rather unexpectedly, Dalziel found he was.

Partly because his route back to the car would mean passing the old lady with the knuckle-duster prayer book, but mainly because his legs and his mind were sending from their opposite poles the message that he needed to sit down somewhere quiet and commune with his inner self.

He passed through the cathedral porch and had to pause to let his eyes adjust from the morning brightness outside to the rich gloom of the interior. Its vastness dwindled the waiting worshippers from a significant number to a mere handful, concentrated towards the western end. He turned off the central aisle and found himself a seat in the lee of an ancient tomb topped with what were presumably life-sized effigies of its inmates. Must have been a bit disconcerting for the family to see Mam and Dad lying there every time they came to church, thought Dalziel. Particularly if the sculptor had caught a good likeness, which a very lively looking little dog at their feet suggested he might have done.

His mind was trying to avoid the unattractive mental task that lay before him. But he hadn’t got wherever he’d got by turning aside when the path turned clarty.

He closed his eyes, rested his head on his hands as if in prayer, and focused on one of the great philosophical questions of the twenty-first century.

Didn’t matter if it was Ordinary Time or Extraordinary Time, the question was, how the fuck had he managed to misplace a whole sodding day?

08.25-08.40

Gina Wolfe watched the bowed, still figure with envy.

He no longer looked fat; the cathedral’s vastness had dwindled him to frail mortal flesh like her own.

She did not know what pain had brought him here, but she knew about pain. What she did not know was how to find comfort and help in a place like this.