Karel Dibcek woke up and thought for a moment that he was still in Prague. He lay warm inside the duvet, his head covered and his eyes still closed, listening for the familiar sounds of the trams and the car tyres skidding on the cobbles as they took the bend outside his apartment window. But it was quiet. He had slept deeply, more deeply than he had slept for weeks, and now he was coming to in a strange room. As soon as he let go of his lids and opened his eyes he remembered where he was. He propped himself up on an elbow and looked at his wristwatch on the bedside table, not sure whether it was still set to Prague time or British Summer Time. Either way, it was much later than he was expecting it to be. He got up and went straight to the window, pulling back the curtains on an overcast morning somewhere in Southampton.

Karel remembered that he had stayed up late talking and drinking with his host and old friend, Carol McLeod. He was in England partly on business but also for a short holiday. It was typical of Dibcek that he couldn't work out which part was supposed to be pleasure and which part was work. Certainly last night he had put quite a few hours into pleasure. This was most welcome, after one of the most gruelling few months he could ever remember working at the police station on Rybna on the edge of Prague's old town.

Carol had invited him to stay at her house as soon as she picked up the email saying that her friend would be in the country. She said that she insisted that he stay, and for as long as he liked. He was grateful. The moment he walked through customs and appeared in the melee of Heathrow arrivals she was there waiting for him with one of those cardboard signs the driver's carry that said 'Mr Gumshoe'. He was very pleased to see her. He was always very pleased that he had accepted his commander's offer of leave. "Get out of Prague for a while," old Smenic had growled.

So that's why he was pulling back the curtains and looking out over the docks, down Southampton Water to a power station in the distance. He was five floors up in Carol's new apartment. When he went out to the kitchen he found a note propped against a cereal box. Carol said that she would be back from London around eight. He was to make himself at home. She had left him a map of the city with her apartment block circled in red. She underlined the word 'Rest' and signed her name playfully with a 'K'.

He showered, dressed, and then flipped through The Guardian on the counter top. He felt that he should put in a few calls to forensics in Winchester but he stopped short, looking at Carol's note. She was right. He had done the business bit; it was now time for the pleasure. He went straight to the back of the newspaper and found himself looking at the classified football results. He was searching out the Bristol Rovers score. It was something he always did when he had the time to scour English football news. As he child he had an uncle who had told him tales of his time working in Bristol. The name had stuck and when he wanted to adopt an English football team just as his friends at school were talking about Manchester United and Liverpool he formed an emotional attachment with Rovers. He noticed that they had lost. Nothing had changed, he thought to himself. The same was true for Carol.

Carol had been married to his best friend until his death from cancer over ten years ago. She moved back to England and took a job as a counsellor. It was Carol who had helped him through when he was trying to help her with the loss of her husband, their friend. She was always the strong one. She had helped him through his divorce too. And for the past few years she had been helping Karel with what she firmly believed was clinical depression. But he laughed this off. He always tried to change the subject. Even so, he secretly depended on her. He was glad that email had been invented. He was no good at letters or returning phone calls, but there was definitely something easy about typing in a few comments and sending it off. Carol was good at replying promptly to his long and rambling messages in poor English. In fact, he kept the copies. Sometimes, late at night on Rybna, he would trawl through them, using them as a reference guide. It didn't matter what he dipped into, he could always find some nugget of wisdom from Carol.

Today she had written: "I got you Coco Pops because I know you have a sweet tooth. You also have a sweet mind, only it needs a bit of a therapeutic floss. Don't attempt to do any police work today. I have pulled the phone wire out, got the building under surveillance and have got in some Charles Bronson movies from the video shop. Eat crap and be merry. Back at eight." Karel admired her clear handwriting.