I’ll get over it, she told herself. Jane Bailey isn’t worth the trouble, it turns out.
The lights were on in the living room, throwing yellow light onto the front lawn. It revealed a pair of scooters—pink and purple in daylight, but gray and orange in the shadows. Harry and Rosie were angels in many respects, but they did have a somewhat casual attitude to tidying up after themselves. Smiling to herself, Cathy picked up a scooter in each hand and instead of going to the front door, went to the side gate—always open when someone was home—and went around to the back garden. The lights weren’t on in the kitchen, so the long and narrow garden was thick with shadows, and she could barely make out the shed at the very bottom. Still, she knew it well enough to get there in the dark.
“All right, from tomorrow, they put these away after themselves or I lock them in here for good.” Cathy dropped the scooters and opened the shed door. There was a smell, bad enough that she instinctively covered her nose. “Christ. Something died in here.” With one hand she felt around for the light switch, but when she flicked it, nothing happened.
Sod it. This is a job for Dave. I keep telling him to clear this place out.
The idea of putting the scooters in the shed with something rotting was repulsive. Rubbing her hands on the front of her coat, Cathy turned to go, but not before she heard something—a small intake of breath, a sniff from someone suddenly very close. A shudder moved through her whole body.
“Who —?”
Something leapt at her from the dark, and Cathy went down hard, smacking the back of her head against the small gravel path. The night sky lit up with multicolored stars, before they were blacked out by a shape leaning over her. Hard, strong hands closed around her neck.
“I’m here now.” The voice in her ear was soft, almost friendly. “I’m here to take you home.”
Cathy squirmed, trying to throw the stranger off, but every movement summoned a bright flower of pain from the back of her head. Desperately, she turned her head away from her attacker, looking back at the house. Someone upstairs had turned a light on. She willed them to open the curtains. Look out the window. Look out the window.
“I am home,” she croaked. “This is my home …”
CHAPTER31
IT WAS LATE, and cold, and raining.
The police station existed in its own little oasis of light. Heather stood in the car park with her biggest coat on, her hood up against the persistent wet, and tried not to feel like a criminal.
She knew he was in the station. She also knew, logically, that he would have to come out to his car eventually, but as the hours passed by this piece of reasoning looked shakier and shakier. Perhaps he was pulling an all-nighter, perhaps the case had broken in some way and he’d already left, slipping out and leaving in a police car when she was looking in the wrong direction. Yet, every time she thought about giving up and leaving, she remembered their night in the kitchen, and the shape and the warm weight of him in the dark. She thought of how he brought her wine and laughed at her terrible jokes over Chinese food.
“There might not be anything left to salvage,” she murmured to herself, her hands thrust deep inside her pockets. “But I at least owe him a proper apology.”
To her own mild dismay, she recognized his silhouette as soon as he appeared at the big double doors. He paused there, in conversation with a colleague, then came down the steps, pulling his coat collar up against the cold. As he came to his car, Heather stepped out of the shadows.
“Hey.”
He stopped, his shoulders dropping, before glancing back toward the well-lit station.
“Heather, I can’t really talk to you right now.” He sighed. “And it’s pissing down out here. Have you been waiting all night?”
“Listen, I just wanted to say sorry properly, okay? Explain myself a bit maybe.” She pulled her hood down, ignoring the fat drops of freezing rain that immediately began dribbling down the back of her neck.
“You mean, see what else you can wring out of me for your article?”
She winced, the guilt in her stomach gaining weight.
“I deserve that, I know. I just want a couple of minutes. Then you can tell me to piss off, I promise.”
He sighed and pulled a key fob from his pocket. The car blinked into life.
“Get in.”
He didn’t look at her once they were in the car. It was as untidy as it had been the last time, a crumpled-up McDonald’s wrapper in the footwell.
“I’ll drive you back to your mum’s,” he said, his voice terse. “You really shouldn’t have come here today.”
“No, listen, I don’t want to go there. Can we go somewhere else?” Heather rubbed her hands over her face. “You don’t owe me anything at this point, obviously, but I really can’t face that place at the moment. Is there somewhere else we can go?”
For a long time he didn’t say anything at all, but as they drove Heather gradually realized that they weren’t driving toward Balesford. Instead they were heading east, toward Hoxton way, and she bit down several caustic comments about hipsters and man buns. Eventually, they drew up outside a smart block of new build flats, a few doors down from a 24-hour bagel shop. Ben took his hands off the wheel, and spoke, still not looking at her.
“This is my place. If you want, you can come in for ten minutes, say whatever it is you need to say. You can have a cup of tea, or coffee, if I have any. And
