‘I know someone you can talk to.’ He pulled her into his arms, held her close. Kissed the top of her head. ‘She’s a friend of mine. Really nice.’
Lucy leaned back in his arms. Sent him an arch look. ‘A friend? What sort of friend?’
Mac looked baffled.
‘Not this sort of friend, I hope?’ Lucy wound her arms around his neck and twined her body close, sliding one of her thighs between his and taking his lower lip between her teeth, gently biting it.
Mac’s eyes darkened.
‘No.’ His voice was hoarse. ‘Definitely not that kind of friend.’
He practically carried her to his car. They didn’t speak as he drove. Nor did they say a word when they reached his apartment. They made love with a silent, intense passion born out of separation and distance, and when Lucy came she curled her fingers at the nape of his neck and said his name. ‘Faris.’
‘Lucy.’
‘God, I’ve missed you.’
‘And I you, my love.’
Later, wearing one of his shirts, she poured them both wine and took the glasses into the sitting room where Mac had lit the fire. When she’d first seen the logs, twigs and branches ablaze she’d chastised him – Bristol was in a smoke control area – and he’d laughed. She’d been totally taken in by the faux gas fire.
They talked about their weeks. Mac had charged a suspect with murder after the body of a fifty-two-year-old man had been found earlier in the week. Lucy was in the thick of trying to track down a gang for a series of acid attacks in Middlesbrough.
‘Thank God it’s Friday,’ she murmured.
They rang Hotline Thai Takeaway. Ate red and green curries, prawn crackers, jasmine rice. Lucy was scraping her bowl of black sticky rice pudding with mango – her favourite – when her phone rang. She looked at the display.
‘Mum,’ she told Mac. She wasn’t sure whether to answer it or not. The last time they’d spoken, they’d rowed.
‘Say hi from me.’ He began picking up plates and moving them into the kitchen, making it clear he thought she should answer.
Lucy sighed. Mac was right. She couldn’t ignore her mum. They may have quarrelled, but she still loved her to bits.
‘Hi, Mum.’
‘Lucy.’
One word and Lucy bolted upright, eyes wide open, her mind suddenly flaring with colour. She’d been diagnosed with a type of synesthesia where a cognitive pathway led to an automatic, involuntary reaction of colour when she was stimulated in some way. Usually, the colours became most intense when she was under duress or struggling to find a connection in a particularly complex police investigation. Right now, the colour was shimmering a warning amber.
‘What’s wrong?’
‘It’s, well… It’s Rambo.’
‘Rambo?’ Lucy repeated, frowning. ‘You mean Ricky Shaw?’
She’d gone to school with Ricky, otherwise known as Rambo because of his obsession with the fictional action-adventure hero. At twelve years old, Ricky had been the fattest kid in class but then he’d grown his hair long, donned a sweatband, a US Army field jacket and combat boots. It had been his uniform until he’d left school and although he’d looked pretty daft – his stomach was a dough ball compared to Sylvester Stallone’s six-pack – he was so earnest and endearingly polite that the nickname had been given out of affection as much as ridicule. Lucy guessed it was a good move on his part because it was certainly better to be called Rambo rather than ‘that fat Asian kid’.
‘He’s murdered someone. A woman.’
The policewoman in Lucy knew that people were capable of anything but the kid in her reacted differently. ‘What?!’
‘He’s at Kensington Police Station. He wants to see you.’
2
‘Kensington?’ Lucy repeated in surprise.
‘That’s right.’
The last Lucy had heard, Superintendent Magellan had been promoted to Chief Superintendent and was now working out of the posh shop, as she thought of it. It had been Magellan who’d kicked her out of the Met, and it was only thanks to her old boss that she hadn’t been fired, but ‘voluntarily transferred’ to Stockton. It had been a particularly traumatic and horrible time and Lucy had as much desire to see Magellan again as to swim in a vat of turds. In fact, she’d take the turd-swimming option any day. At least it would smell a lot sweeter.
‘Why me?’ Lucy asked her mother. ‘I haven’t seen Ricky for ages. And it’s not like he was my best friend or anything.’
‘You were at school with him.’
‘Well, yes. He was in my year and we shared classes, but I never really knew him.’
‘Come on, Lucy. He wants you to–’
‘I can’t see how I can help,’ Lucy overrode her. ‘It’s not my jurisdiction, remember?’
‘But I told Jaya you’d go!’
Jaya had been her mother’s friend for as long as Lucy could remember. They’d become comrades at the school gates when they’d discovered they were both single mums. However, where Lucy’s dad had buggered off to Australia with a yoga teacher called Tina, Jaya’s husband had run off with another man. Even now, Lucy’s mother reckoned she’d got off lightly in comparison.
‘Oh, Mum…’ Lucy rubbed her forehead.
‘She’s depending on you, you know.’
Lucy wasn’t going to fold over any kind of emotional blackmail. She hadn’t seen Mac for three weeks, dammit. Why should she have her weekend hijacked?
‘I’m not with the Met any more, remember?’ Lucy firmed her resolve. ‘Tell her I’m sorry, but I can’t help.’
Small silence.
‘You’re not saying that because of… well, our last conversation?’
Lucy blinked.
‘I know I was a bit harsh,’ her mother went on, ‘but I don’t think you should take it out on Jaya.’
Lucy sprang to her feet, suddenly furious. ‘How could you say such a thing?! I’d never do something so shitty! I’m saying I can’t help Ricky because I can’t, not because you won’t tell me where my father is! What sort of person do you take me for?!’
‘Okay, okay. Sorry.’ Her mother took a deep breath. ‘We’re just a bit upset over here, as you can imagine.’
‘Right.’ Lucy fought to rein
