Callan nodded. He had already run out of conversational steam.
‘Where’s Jessie?’ Ahmose asked.
‘The beach.’
‘It was a lovely day for it. You didn’t fancy going?’
Callan cast him a sideways glance. ‘I wasn’t invited.’
‘Ah.’
‘She went down to talk to one of her patients, a woman called Carolynn Reynolds.’
Ahmose was silent for a moment. ‘Why does that name sound familiar?’
‘She was on the news last night.’
‘The child murder?’
‘Yeah. She’s the mother of the first girl who was murdered two years ago.’
‘Of course, yes. I saw it on the news back then. It was a terrible tragedy. She was tried for her daughter’s murder, wasn’t she?’
‘Tried and acquitted due to lack of evidence. Then she disappeared, went to ground.’
Callan clocked Ahmose casting him a narrowed glance across the table. He’d clearly noted his cynical tone, but when Ahmose spoke his voice was neutral.
‘I didn’t realize that Jessie knew her.’
Callan rolled his eyes. ‘I don’t think Jessie does know her. Jessie was treating her and swallowed a pack of lies.’
‘So why is Jessie meeting with her?’
‘To convince her to contact DI Simmons, who is the SIO for both cases, tell him where she is. He wants to speak with her about Jodie Trigg’s murder.’
‘And was she successful?’
‘No.’
Setting his wine glass carefully on the table, Ahmose sat forward, steepling his fingers. ‘And you’re debating whether you should let DI Simmons know where this Carolynn woman is living? Go behind Jessie’s back?’
Callan met the old man’s searching dark gaze. The more time he spent with Ahmose, the more he understood why Jessie so valued his advice. He was clever, perceptive, astute.
‘Yes. Should I betray her trust, to put it bluntly?’
Reaching for his glass and taking a long, slow sip, Ahmose nodded contemplatively. Callan kept a lid on his impatience as he waited for the old man to answer.
‘I think, generally, that Jessie is a good judge of character,’ he said. ‘She is good at her job and that job requires an understanding of how people think, an intuition about what makes them tick, that most of us lack. And she likes me.’ He paused, winked. ‘And you, despite my early reservations.’
Callan nodded, unsmiling. He wasn’t in the mood for cheery banter. ‘So you’re saying that I should respect Jessie’s decision, do nothing?’
Ahmose cut him off with a raised hand. ‘But … I’ve never seen her like this before. She is strung very highly, very brittle. Being invalided out of the army hit her hard.’ He reached over and patted Callan’s arm. Callan resisted the urge to pull away, unused to paternal-type contact. ‘You need to make good decisions for both of you. That is one of the most important parts of being in a relationship, making good decisions when the other cannot, guiding them when they lose their way.’ Ahmose withdrew his hand and lifted his shoulders in a small shrug. ‘How do you say … feel free to tell me to mind my own business.’
Callan nodded. He had spent most of his life avoiding committed relationships. The army and relationships didn’t mix well and he’d been happy to use his job as an excuse to play the field, screw around, for want of a better expression. Until Jessie.
‘She doesn’t want my help,’ he muttered.
‘She doesn’t know what she wants,’ Ahmose countered. ‘She is not in a good place right now. She wasn’t before this woman. Now, she is even less so, by the sound of it.’
‘What would you do if you were me?’
Reaching across the table, Ahmose tapped his finger on Callan’s mobile. ‘I’d make a call,’ he said.
‘She’ll hate me for it.’
‘She will, without doubt, for a while.’
Callan’s gaze found the horizon, the sun sinking now, its bottom edge dipping below the line of hills in the distance. The sky was a rainbow of fire colours, red, washing to orange, to magenta and pink high in the sky. Raising the beer bottle to his lips, he drained it.
‘Give me a minute, Ahmose,’ he said, pushing himself to his feet.
Palming his mobile, he walked to the end of the garden, scrolling through the numbers in his contacts until he found the one he was looking for.
25
‘Did you go to her funeral?’ Cara asked, as they walked, in the fading light, along the tarmac path that looped around the edge of Lambeth Cemetery.
Workman gave him a brief, tense smile. ‘We weren’t invited, if that’s what you mean. But we kept an eye.’ She pointed. ‘From there, under those trees, hiding in the shade, as if we were in some Z-list thriller.’
They found the small grave easily, threading through scores of others, littered with cuddly animals, damp from yesterday evening’s rain, plastic toys, china figurines and photographs, each the grave of a dead baby or child. Workman couldn’t understand why cemeteries grouped the graves of children together, as if the death of one child wasn’t horror enough for visitors.
Zoe’s headstone was of black marble, the gold inscription simple: Zoe Reynolds. Taken too soon. Forever loved. No teddies or Wade whimsies on her grave. Just a plain black marble vase at the base of the headstone.
The last time that Workman had visited, just over nine months ago, a few days before the end of the trial, when she could see the way it was going, see that they hadn’t been able to provide the jury with enough hard evidence to convict Carolynn, she had caught an Uber from outside the Old Bailey, telling Marilyn she was visiting a family friend, unwilling even to open up to him about where she was going. She had felt self-indulgent. What right did she have to feel the child’s death more than anyone else on the investigating team?
The vase had been empty then, a thin layer of frost frilling the black headstone, as if it had been decorated with paper doilies. Today it was filled with a spray of pure white roses, almost luminous in the semi-darkness. Workman knelt and fingered one spongy bud.
‘They’re fresh,’ she said.
‘What are you thinking,
