"Hello boy," he said.
The dog sneezed, shaking his head as he did so. Then he turned and disappeared from sight. Glancing at his watch, it was possible Saffy was asleep already. The emotional upheaval of the previous twenty-four hours must have thrown her entirely. He hung his coat on the nearest hook and went through into the kitchen. Alice was sitting at the dining table, holding a cup of tea with both hands. She looked across at him and smiled as he approached, leaning down to kiss her on the forehead.
"Hey you," he said.
"Hey."
"How are you doing?"
She screwed up her face in mock anguish. "I've had better days, but I'm all right."
"I'm sure," he said, placing a supportive hand on her shoulder and pulling out a chair so that he could sit down beside her. "And Saffy?"
Alice exhaled heavily, looking down at the table and running a hand through her hair. She looked exhausted, as if she was carrying a vast amount of mental weight. Unsurprising because she was, her own shock as well as that of her daughter's.
"At points today I thought she was doing okay, you know," she said, turning to face him, "and then she'd just… collapse in on herself emotionally."
"It will be hard to process it, for sure."
"Not only for her," Alice whispered, taking a mouthful of tea.
She put the cup down on the table and Tom saw it was one of her herbal teas. By the smell and colour, he guessed it was turmeric and something.
"The poor thing can't stop crying," she said. "Who can blame her. She knows what it's like to lose someone, her grandfather dying the year before last was her first, but…"
"But this is different," Tom said. Alice nodded solemnly.
"She was still too young really to understand when my dad died. Now, she knows what death is, but she's only seen it with her hamster and guinea pigs." Alice drew breath, sitting upright and closing her eyes, assembling her thoughts. "I wish I could shield her from all of this."
Tom had forgotten about the guinea pigs. It's a good job they weren't here because in all likelihood Russell would have paid the creatures a great deal of attention and he couldn't guarantee their safety. Terriers, after all, were naturally tremendously skilled ratters.
"It's good that she's crying, though." Alice looked at him, her eyes narrowing. "She can express herself, let out her emotions. That's much better than bottling it all up for a later date. The fall out would be much worse."
"Ah… you're probably right. She's just so young."
"But she is resilient," Tom said, taking Alice's right hand in his own. "And she has a great mum to look out for her."
Alice smiled. Her eyes teared and she squeezed Tom's hand affectionately.
"Have you contacted Rosie, was she okay?"
The name didn't ring a bell, and his expression must have shown that.
"Ade's sister," she said. "It's only the two of them now. Their mother died a few years back."
Tom shook his head. "I don't know. I've been out of the office most of the day. I would have thought so. Someone will have had to… well, you know."
Alice didn't reply, instead gazed into the liquid of her cup.
"Did Adrian ever talk to you about his work?"
Alice raised her eyebrows and pursed her lips. "When we were married, he used to talk about nothing else," she said, shaking her head. "At first I found his passion absolutely wonderful, but then, after a few years of it, it seemed to be all-encompassing. And that was when it caused problems."
"Problems?"
"There were three in our marriage, Tom." He glanced up at the ceiling as if he could see into the bedroom beyond and the sleeping little girl, but somehow he knew that she wasn't referring to their daughter. "Ade was wedded just as much to his work as he was to me. And it wasn't like he was out nine to five, or even nine till nine for that matter. The way he did things, the way he'd drop everything and everyone if he needed to, made him an incredibly frustrating man to be around. If you've ever lived with a workaholic, then you'd understand. Even when he was at home, Ade was never really here with us. Always distracted. Always looking for the angle."
"I'll bet," Tom said, suddenly feeling quite self-conscious and vulnerable. He caught her looking at him. She was thinking the same thing, he could tell.
"At least I know what you are up to, Tom Janssen." She cocked her head. "At least for most of the time. Catching the bad guys and keeping people safe. But with Ade it was different. He was chasing down leads, harrying witnesses, and generally trying to put the world to rights."
"Any idea what he was working on more recently?"
Alice fixed her eye on him. "Is that what you think that what happened to him had something to do with his work?"
"I'm not on the case, remember."
"And would you tell me if you were?"
Tom smiled apologetically. "No. Probably not."
"But you still want to know."
He nodded.
"I can't help you though," she said, lifting her cup and sipping. "I wish I did know. I mean, it would be great to make sense of all of this, if only so I could try to explain it to Saffy."
He felt guilty then. Having left so early that morning, he hadn't been around to help either Alice or Saffy cope with the news. He couldn't, he had a job to do, but he also hadn't picked up the phone to call home once during the day. Being wrapped up in himself and the Beckett case had detached him from what was going on in his personal life. His two roles were colliding and he had to find a
