"Dinner wasn't very nice."
He turned so he could face her, frowning, then glanced back towards the kitchen. "Yours or mine?" he asked, also whispering, knowing Saffy almost always had a different evening meal. She hadn't developed a taste for the same food as them, although she was partial to her mum's Jamaican chicken recipe.
"Yours."
He nodded gravely. "Okay. Thanks for the heads up."
Saffy gave him a knowing look and he winked his thanks as Alice appeared at the edge of the room, a tea towel in her hand, having just taken his plate from the oven and set it down on the table.
"What are the two of you cooking up?"
Tom and Saffy exchanged smiles, and he ruffled his hand through her hair before leaving. Saffy reached for the television remote and put on her cartoons.
"Ten minutes, little one," Alice said. "Then it's teeth cleaning and up to bed."
Saffy nodded but didn't turn her attention from the screen.
Tom pulled out his chair. Alice folded the towel in half, laying it on the table as she sat down opposite him.
"I swear one day I'll do something about how much screen time she gets every day.”
Tom offered her a supportive squeeze of her hand. "We can deal with that later," he said, glancing back to the little girl, mouth open, head propped up by her right hand as she watched. "Right now, it's numbing her."
"Is that a good thing?"
Picking up his fork, he shook his head. "I don't know. She is able to express herself, though, and we see a lot of children who can't. Maybe deflecting some of it isn't such a bad thing."
Alice agreed, rising from the table to continue the clearing up. He was grateful for the waiting meal, but Saffy was correct. It wasn't Alice's best effort.
"How's dinner?" she asked.
He was chewing at the time. Swallowing hard, he forced a smile. "It's lovely, thank you."
Alice placed her hands on her hips, watching him eat and chewing on her lower lip. "It's bloody awful, isn't it?"
He weighed up the correct response, only coming up with two wrong answers. "It's… different."
At first she looked dejected, and then a smile began to creep from the corners of her mouth. "Awful," she repeated.
"Yes, pretty much," he agreed, looking down at his plate with his fork hovering above it. "But all the constituent parts are lovely."
Alice smiled and threw the tea towel at him, which he deftly caught with his left hand before it struck his face.
"I'm taking Saffy up." She walked into the living room. "Come on, monkey. Time for bed."
Unusually, Saffy didn't argue or announce her displeasure at the inequality of the decision. She came back through and gave him a hug goodnight, Tom kissing her forehead. Once he heard the creaking of the stairs as they went up, he was safe to dispose of his dinner. Scraping the contents into the bin, he saw Russell waiting expectantly at the back door. Letting the dog out, he finished the kitchen clear-up before dropping two slices of bread into the toaster. That turned into four rounds of toast before Alice reappeared. All the while, having returned from outdoors, Russell sat at Tom's feet staring up at him, somehow willing him to drop a morsel that he could pounce upon. Much to the dog's disappointment, it failed to materialise. The thought playing over in his mind, however, was how to address the elephant in the room.
"Is she already asleep?" he asked.
"Out like a light. Poor thing's shattered."
He could see she noticed the smell of toast in the air, but she didn't comment. Her easy-going manner when he'd come home had hardened now. Previously, she must have been maintaining the pretence for Saffy's sake. Leaning against the worktop, she ran a hand through her hair and sighed. Suddenly she looked tired, worn out. The dark patches under her eyes showed she'd not slept well, unsurprising seeing as one of the nights had been spent being grilled by Tamara and Cassie.
"I've been putting off calling Carol," she said, folding her arms across her chest and looking at the floor.
"Carol?"
"Ade's sister. I should, I know I should, but…"
"Do you get on with her?"
"Used to," Alice said, looking at him glumly. "The friendship got a little awkward after the breakup. Ade and I kept putting her in the middle… it wasn't fair behaviour from either of us, looking back. In the end Carol had to make a choice and let's face it—"
"Blood is thicker than water."
She agreed with a sad smile.
"Do you know when the funeral will be?" she asked him. Something in her tone struck a chord in him, but he couldn't describe what it was that piqued his curiosity, or his fear. "Carol is the only family Ade had, aside from… me and Saffy."
"No. Not for a while, though," he said. "That's the nature of these things. Until the case is further down the road, Ade won't be released for burial."
"Right. Of course," she said, looking at the floor again.
An awkward silence followed. Neither of them spoke, although he was certain they were both skirting the same subject. In the end, he had to raise it. Initially Alice seemed relieved.
"You were with Adrian the day he died," Tom said, not wanting to look her in the eye as he said so. Usually that was exactly what he would do, analyse the response, assess the truthfulness. This time, he was worried for the answer.
"Yes. I saw him. At his place."
Tom considered the wording of his next comment carefully, avoiding a direct question. "You never said."
Now he looked at her, making eye contact.
"No. I didn't. I'm sorry."
"Sorry for what exactly?"
She shrugged. "I should have said… maybe I would have—"
"You were supposed to be at work. Except you weren't, were you? You were at Adrian's all day."
"I was," Alice said, fear evident in her eyes. "At work, I mean. I was there for the morning shift—"
"And then you went to Adrian's?"
Alice confirmed it with a curt nod,
