It is late September, six months since Stephen Leigh-Grace first met Nita Patel and left Portbridge. He is bringing his boat Finbar II back up the river to her winter mooring, having spent the summer cruising around the Channel Islands and the South Coast of England with his daughter Emma and her family, Mary and Richard. He has kept in touch with the detective he'd first met while hospitalized following an attack he'd suffered at Eastertime. He has arranged to meet her at the NCB wharf in Portbridge to catch up on what has happened in their lives since April.