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wondering why he was making excuses.
    â€˜It won’t matter,’ said Joe, scooping up the last of his soup before reaching behind his chair to grab his jacket. ‘This guy’s not in high school anymore, David, he can’t expect to ring the doorbell . . . and then run away.’

7
    Newark, New Jersey; very early the following morning
    D etective Harry McNally walked toward the cop waiting for him near the riverbank, his head down against the chill. His hands were buried in his large overcoat pockets and his woollen scarf was pulled up tightly over his slightly stubbled chin.
    â€˜Morning,’ he said as he reached her.
    It was 4 am, the sun was a good three hours from even thinking about rearing its head and McNally was still getting used to the fact that he could be called at any time of the day or night to attend a crime scene as point man in the investigation.
    McNally had been a good cop – better than good – for more than twenty years, and for two whole decades, wearing a Newark PD uniform had been more than fine with him. But then tragedy hit, and the better half of his life had been washed away overnight. After that, his job, despite its demands and responsibilities, seemed way too small to fill the emptiness left by her passing. And so, after years of nagging from a lieutenant friend from Newark PD’s Homicide Squad – a pestering that increased tenfold after his fellow officer wife’s death – he had finally swapped his silver shield for one that shone like gold.
    Which was how he found himself, at the ripe old age of forty-eight, playing the new kid on the detective block, receiving wake-up pages from the busy 3rd Precinct in the wee small hours of the morning. Pages that pulled him out of fitful sleep so that he could attend to some poor sod who would never be waking again.
    â€˜Morning to you too,’ said his friend and former squad partner Officer Carla Torres with a look of poorly concealed worry on her narrow pretty face. ‘How come they called you, McNally?’ she asked, and Harry knew the question sprung from her desire to protect him.
    â€˜The night shift guys were on another call and I guess they like the idea of dragging the newbie out of bed,’ he answered, keen to deflect her concern. ‘What about you, Carla? I thought you were working the day shift?’
    â€˜I was,’ she said, tilting her head to indicate he should follow her toward the water’s edge. ‘But I switched with Plaza. Ramon won his school’s Young Inventor award,’ she smiled, referring to her youngest son, Ramon Torres Junior. ‘And he’s getting some plaque with his name engraved on it at his school’s morning assembly. I even bought myself a new digital camera so I can record the moment for his dad.’ Carla’s husband, Ramon Senior, was a marine currently serving in Afghanistan.
    â€˜Good for Ramon,’ said McNally, smiling despite the cold, and they slowed their pace as they neared the levy.
    The Passaic River was shrouded in darkness, the only light coming from the beacons that shone twenty-four-seven above the train tracks at the nearby Newark Penn Station. The edges of the river were frozen, but a determined flow still pushed down its middle, forging a path to a similarly icy Newark Bay.
    â€˜So what have we got?’ asked McNally, finally willing his hands from his pockets so that he could put on a pair of clear latex gloves.
    â€˜A floa—’ Torres began, then caught herself. ‘Floater’ was police vernacular for a body found partially submerged, and Harry guessed the well-meaning Carla had decided using the colloquialism in his presence might be a little insensitive. ‘An unidentified drowning victim,’ she corrected herself. ‘An early-morning jogger called it in.’ Torres pointed to a skinny white-faced guy being questioned by another pair of uniforms a few yards to