Chapter 1

It was a flat November morning, a morning when colours run and the mist hung in the jaws of the estuary above the liver-coloured flott. A slatternly wind was ruffling the tussocks of coarse grass that grew along the littoral, doing nothing to shift the grey curtain. The air smelt of salt and older, darker things. Even the normally raucous gulls were muted, their endless carping muffled by the damp air. No horizon was discernible. The sky coalesced into the iron water, leaching all colours into unrelieved gradations of greyness. Only the dogs seemed unconcerned. They pursued their normal doggy rituals of sniffing at and pissing on every small feature they encountered on the beach. I trudged behind them, collar turned against the cold, pockets stuffed with icy hands. I called them away from worrying at a dead crab. I love my dogs but their habits are distinctly unsavoury. Their world is roughly divided between food and not-food. Sometimes the boundaries blur.

The morning suited my mood. I'd come up to the cottage this weekend to get away from London. The cottage belonged to some sympathetic friends. "You need a break," they said, "why not use our place in Norfolk." I agreed in a moment of weakness. I guess in Samuel Johnson's eyes I was tired of life. London held no attraction for me since I split with Steph. We'd been together for about four years. Suddenly, instead of my Earth being flat and stable, she'd let me know it was really round and spinning. I wasn't 'exciting anymore, ' whatever that means. I'd never felt particularly exciting. Steph provided all the brightness in my dull little lawyer's life. If I'm completely honest, the world of restaurants and wine bars through which she sparkled like a meteor was alien to me. I tagged on to her coat tails with a fixed grin and an open wallet. The denizens of these places all seemed to know Steph. In their eyes I was as much an accessory as her Hermes scarves or Gucci handbags, only less explicable.

I'd met her quite by chance in a little gallery in the Fulham Road. The one fruit of my success that I truly enjoy is collecting bronze miniatures. She was in there with another woman, gushing over a small piece by an unknown artist called Angela Sable. I'd bought it a couple of weeks previously and had just popped in to collect it. Conversation was inevitable. The three of us went to a coffee shop to continue the discussion on the merits of Auguste Renoir. The other woman, I don't recall her name, left after about twenty minutes. I took Steph to supper at Green's. Things progressed from there. Within six months she'd moved into my home in Kensington and had started rearranging my life. My wardrobe underwent the first transformation. It's now full of Dior and Balmain. My Crombie overcoat and Sackville suits were laughed out of court. "You're so predictable, Darling. You dress like a lawyer!" I reminded her that I am a lawyer; it cut no ice.

Steph glided through life, I plodded. I've always been a plodder. I'm a 'details' sort of person; Steph was broad-brush. That was all part of the attraction. I was thirty-seven, unmarried and reasonably successful. Actually, that's too modest, very successful. Although I'm a barrister, I've rarely appeared in Court. I'm a tax specialist. I provide opinions for smart arses who want to sail close the wind. Steph thought I should be more glamorous but Tax isn't sexy, it's just very well paid. Before Steph, my life was simple. I worked; I walked my dogs. Winters were for ski-ing holidays in Cervinia and summers were spent in Scotland or the Isles. She was right, I was, am, predictable. But there is comfort in certainty. Steph changed all that.

In Steph's mind, summers were to be spent at House Parties in Tuscany. Ski-ing was to be at Klosters or St Moritz. Dog walking was to remain my solitary occupation. Sensible shoes didn't figure in Steph's wardrobe and as for picking up dog-logs in Kensington Gardens, well! I went along with it. She brought something into my life that hadn't been there before. I won't say it was missing. That would suggest that I felt the lack. Steph was a member of another species whose existence I'd barely believed in, like Bigfoot or the Loch Ness Monster. She moved in different circles. My few friends were bemused by her and she by them. Sometimes a sympathetic glance would be cast in my direction as if to say, 'what have you got yourself into this time?' I didn't have an answer.

Of course it couldn't last. Could I say it was fun while it lasted? Probably not. I didn't have fun; I had Steph. I was consumed by love, blind as Oedipus. The inevitable happened. She collided with another meteor. I got burned in the fall-out. All of which led me to a Norfolk beach on that dismal November morning. Once I was there, I couldn't help wondering if I wouldn't have been better off staying in London. Still, the dogs were enjoying themselves.

I have a Siberian Husky called Trotsky and a Retriever called Magic, because he's black. I don't usually let Trotsky run free because he's a bolshie sod and is liable to vanish into the next county, if the mood takes him. However, that morning, with no one else in sight, I'd let him go and he and Magic were thoroughly enjoying the change of scenery. Kensington Gardens is a good place by London standards but this was real freedom. They were oblivious to the weather and Magic was charging in and out of the sea, always contriving to shake himself violently next to me. It's some kind of unwritten doggy law. Trotsky was behaving himself for a change and living up to his name as he followed his nose along the tidemark. I shambled along between them wishing I'd put another pair of socks on under my wellies. It wasn't that cold really, it was the damp that seemed to penetrate and chill my bones to the marrow. Moisture clung to my coat in grey pearls. All in all, I was thoroughly miserable.

We'd gone a little over a mile when I saw another figure, bundled against the weather, trudging up the beach towards me. Trotsky chose that moment to disgrace himself and took off like a cream and brown rocket straight for the stranger. Magic started to follow but responded to my whistle. I could see Trotsky bouncing up at the figure. Whoever it was didn't seem concerned, thank God. They were ruffling his fur and pushing him away in a playful manner. He can be a complete tart to strangers. If I try to play with him, he'll gaze at me with injured dignity writ large in his ice blue eyes. He fawns all over someone new as if to say 'look at me, love me!' Huskies aren't all that common in England so he usually attracts lots of attention. He laps it up. Magic, on the hand, is your typical Flat-coated Retriever; sunny disposition but as daft as a brush. I swear that dog has brains he hasn't used yet.

As I drew closer, I could see Trotsky's playmate was a young-ish woman. Dark brown hair stuck out from under a woolly fisherman's hat. She wore a thick quilted jacket over a chunky Arran sweater, cord trousers and wellies. Trotsky was still going through his 'bounce and bow' routine and she was laughing.

"I seem to have found an admirer," she said.

Her voice was low and well modulated with just the trace of an accent I couldn't place.

"I do apologise," I replied, "I'm afraid he has no manners."

Magic wandered up, dismissed her as a source of potential food, and wandered off back to the water. She turned to look at me. Her eyes were every bit as piercing as Trotsky's.

"Who needs manners when you're beautiful?" She turned back to the dog, "You are beautiful, aren't you?"

He gave her his famous husky grin - all teeth and lolling tongue - then wandered back to me with a hint of innate superiority in his stride.

"I have not seen you down on this beach before. Are you a visitor?"

"Yes. Up for the weekend. I'm staying in the old Coastguard Cottage. It belongs to some friends. I take it you live here?"

"Yes. The tranquillity is good for me. Very few people come here after the summer."

"What do you find to do in such an out-of-the-way place?"

"I sculpt."

This made my ears prick up. There aren't too many sculptors that I haven't heard of. Sculpting is still largely a male preserve, at least among the commercially successful. The cogs whirled and something clicked into place. "Good God," I said, "I think I know you! I mean, I think I know who you are. You're Angela Sable." She smiled.

"I am, but how did you know? Someone in the village, perhaps?"

"No, no. I have three of your pieces. They're among my favourites."

"Ah, you are a collector?"

"In a modest way. I always wanted to be a sculptor but I lacked that vital ingredient called talent. I'm Martin Booth, by the way, and this disreputable animal is Trotsky."

"Pleased to meet you, Trotsky." She laughed out loud as he wagged his great bush of a tail and gave her his best play-growl. "It is truly a horrid morning, this mist! What is the other dog called?"

"Oh, that's Magic. You like dogs then?"

"I adore them. I would like to do this one. I've never done animals. I think he would look grand in bronze."

I tried to imagine what Trotsky would like in a Bronze by Angela Sable. All her pieces were figure studies but were tortured somehow; both riveting and painful at the same time. She saw the look on my face.

"Oh no," she said, "him I would do natural."

"How long have you lived in Norfolk?"

"Almost ten years now. I came here when I came to England. It reminds me a little of home."