‘This is where we were two months ago. You took a decision to call a halt. I didn’t get much of a say, remember?’
‘I know. That didn’t work out too well.’
‘Maybe because you still have feelings for me.’
‘Certainly because of that,’ I admitted. I didn’t want to lie to him, even though it would have been easier. ‘No question about it. But that’s not helpful for either of us.’
‘Maeve—’
‘No. Listen.’ I made myself look at him. ‘I’m not going to do this to you. Not any more. This go-away-come-back thing is too hard on both of us.’
‘I can live with it.’
‘You really can’t.’
‘What’s the alternative?’
I gathered all of my resolve. ‘We end it. Properly. Now.’
‘That’s it?’
Say it like you mean it
. ‘That’s it.’
‘That’s not what I want.’
‘I can’t help it.’ I took a sip of coffee and regretted it instantly as the thin, bitter liquid seared my tongue. ‘I really miss you, Rob. But I miss the closeness. The jokes. I miss getting to talk to you without an underlying agenda. I miss you being around all the time. I miss that feeling I get when you’re there – that sense that everything’s going to be all right.’
‘None of that is incompatible with a proper relationship. You do know that, don’t you? In fact, it’s a pretty good place to start.’ Rob at his most persuasive, the anger replaced by a tenderness that was somehow harder to bear.
‘We were idiots to think we could get away with this. I don’t want to lose a friendship just because we sleep together now and then.’
He leaned back. ‘What I want to know is why you assume it will all end in tears? Why can’t we be friends and have great sex and not lose anything at all?’
‘Because it doesn’t work that way.’
‘That’s how it’s supposed to be. That’s what people spend their whole lives looking for.’
‘Dec is splitting up with his wife.’ I blurted it out because it was uppermost in my mind. Rob’s forehead creased in a frown.
‘I’m sorry to hear that. But that doesn’t mean all relationships in the world are doomed to fail.’
‘Maybe not. But they were devoted to one another, they have kids, and they still couldn’t keep it together.’
‘It’s sad. But it’s not a reason to walk away from this.’
‘You don’t understand.’
‘I don’t, as it happens. And I don’t think that what you’re suggesting would make either of us happy, so I don’t see the point. Honestly, Maeve, you’re like one of those dinosaurs that needed two brains to coordinate themselves, one in their head and one in their arse. The one in your head appears to be kaput.’
I concentrated very hard on my coffee spoon, twirling it around and around.
‘Maeve, look at me.’ I dragged my eyes up to meet his again. ‘What do you want? What’s your version of a happy ending for us?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Well, neither do I. But I don’t want things to stay like this.’ The silence lengthened. I could sense the fight was going out of him and it wasn’t a surprise when he said, ‘Maybe a clean break is for the best.’
I nodded slowly.
‘But if that is what we’re doing, that’s the end of it, okay? Not friends with benefits. Not sneaking around now and then. We’re finished.’
‘It sounds worse when you say it,’ I whispered.
‘That’s because I won’t change my mind.’ He waited, but I didn’t say anything else. This was what I had wanted, though it was hard to remember that when I was sitting across a table from him.
‘Right then. Done.’
‘Done,’ I repeated. ‘And I’m sorry.’
‘I’ll survive.’
‘I’m sure you will.’ I drank another mouthful of coffee before I remembered how it tasted. I pushed the cup away. ‘So what do we do now?’
‘Business as usual.’
‘Do you think things will ever go back to the way they were?’
‘That’s up to us, isn’t it?’ He was looking past me as he said it, the frown fading as he waved at someone behind me. I twisted to see Liv standing in the doorway, looking lost. She saw us a split-second after I saw her, and beamed before starting towards our table.
‘I’d better go. Leave you to catch up with your new pal.’
‘Stay where you are.’
‘I’ve got to head off, Rob.’
‘What’s the matter with you? Just sit there and be nice.’
I didn’t have time to say anything else before Liv arrived. She stood with one hand on the back of an empty chair, looking tentatively at me. ‘Do you mind if I join you?’
‘Not at all. I was actually just about to go—’ I caught Rob’s eye and changed horses halfway through. ‘But I can stay for a few more minutes.’
Rob stood up. ‘Let me get you something. Tea? Coffee?’
‘Coffee, please. White, two sugars, and no lecture about my sweet tooth if you don’t mind.’
‘I won’t say a word. Maeve?’
‘I’m okay.’ I gave him my best shitty look though:
how dare you leave me sitting here alone with Liv when I didn’t even want to talk to her in the first place
. He knew exactly what I was thinking; the grin on his face as he turned away said it all.
‘I hope I’m not interrupting.’ Liv was looking wary.
‘Of course not.’
‘It’s just that …’ she hesitated. ‘Are you two together?’
‘Absolutely not.’
‘Oh. Because I thought—’
‘There’s nothing going on between us.’
Not any more
…
‘Right. Do you always have really intense conversations with the people you work with?’
‘Invariably. Your time will come.’ I smiled. ‘Bet you can’t wait.’
She looked past me, to where Rob was standing at the counter, charming a smile out of the sullen woman who ran the canteen. ‘It seems a shame, though. Rob’s a nice guy.’
‘Yes. Yes, he is.’ I was dealing with a spasm of jealousy so strong that I was struggling to breathe through it. ‘Rob said you’ve been working with him on the Tancredi case.’
‘It hasn’t been a lot of fun. At least with Rob you can have a laugh while you’re waiting to get shat on by the judge for arresting the wrong person.’
‘Was that what happened?’
‘He wasn’t impressed, put it that way. And DS Mortimer wasn’t there, so we had to take the blame.’
‘I’d be surprised if Morty was in this postcode. He doesn’t like being in trouble.’
‘Oh well. We took it on the chin.’
There was a kind of intimacy about the ‘we’ that made me feel sad all of a sudden, but I forced myself to laugh as Rob set a cup in front of Liv.
‘Drink at your own risk.’
‘I was going to warn you,’ I said, contrite. ‘I gave up on mine. It tastes like something died in the pot.’
‘As long as there’s caffeine in it, I don’t really care.’
Rob raised one eyebrow. ‘To be honest, I doubt you’ll be able to taste the coffee with all that muck in it.’
‘I told you, no lectures,’ Liv snapped.
‘Just saying.’ Rob held up his hands and backed away a step, colliding with someone who was walking behind him. ‘Sorry.’
‘It’s all right. It was an accident.’ The young woman smiled at him forgivingly, then ran a hand through her long red hair, shaking out loose ringlets so they cascaded over her shoulders and down her back. It was like watching an out-take from a shampoo ad, but if she was hoping to jog Rob’s memory, it worked.
‘Rosalba Osbourne, isn’t it?’
‘And you’re DC Langton. You have a good memory for faces.’
‘Sometimes.’
She gave a tinkling laugh and I looked at Liv, who raised her eyebrows.
Rob rallied. ‘How are things in the legal world?’
‘Busy. Nothing as exciting as last year, though.’
‘Last year was a bit too exciting for me.’ Rob looked down at us as if he’d forgotten we were there. ‘Rosalba is a solicitor. She represented Selvaggi last December.’
Not my favourite case, and definitely not my favourite criminal. I frowned. ‘So that’s why I don’t remember you. I was in hospital.’ If Rosalba knew why I had been there, she didn’t let it show. She was far too focused on Rob to think about what I’d said anyway.
‘It’s nice of you to suggest I was his solicitor. I just sat in on the initial interviews. I’m far too junior to have such an important client.’
‘You did okay, as I recall.’
‘I don’t remember you being in the room.’ She wrinkled her nose, as if confused. ‘I’d have thought I would.’
‘I watched most of the interviews on the monitors.’ Rob glanced down at me and Liv, as if realising we were distinctly surplus to requirements. I folded my arms.
Flirt if you want to, but I’m not going anywhere, mate
.
‘I do remember seeing you in court a few times,’ the solicitor said slowly.
‘I came along to see the show once or twice.’
‘You know, it’s funny meeting you like this. I always wanted to hear about the arrest straight from the horse’s mouth. It sounded so dramatic.’
‘It was eventful,’ Rob agreed. Only someone who knew him very well would have spotted the corner of his mouth lift in amusement. ‘Eventful’ was the understatement of the year.
She stepped closer, moving so she was between us and Rob, and dropped her voice, but what she said was still perfectly audible. ‘Look, I’d really like if we could go for a drink some time.’
I waited for Rob to get rid of her.
‘Sure. Why not.’
‘You don’t have a girlfriend or anything, do you?’
‘Not currently.’
‘Great. Don’t take it personally. I always check.’
‘Very sensible.’
‘So when do you want to go out? Are you free tomorrow?’ She had taken out her mobile and was thumbing through the calendar. ‘We could meet somewhere around here. There’s a great bar down the road, near St Paul’s. Six o’clock?’
Rob was looking very slightly nonplussed. I gathered he wasn’t used to dating alpha females.
‘Fine by me.’
She took out one of her business cards. ‘Here you go. My mobile number’s on there. Text me so I’ve got yours.’
He took the card obediently and said goodbye before Ms Osbourne wiggled off, barely keeping her balance on skyscraper heels. We all watched her go, which I suppose was the idea behind the clinging suit and teetering footwear.
As if nothing had happened, Rob pulled out his chair and sat down. Liv gave him a shrewd look.
‘Fast worker.’
‘Isn’t she, though?’ He tapped on the table, fidgeting just enough so that I was sure it wasn’t a coincidence that he hadn’t looked at me yet.
‘I was talking about you.’
Rob blinked, wounded. ‘Were you listening to the same conversation as me? What did I do? I just knocked into her by accident. Next thing I know, she’s asking me out.’
‘Yeah, I noticed you trying to resist her. The kicking and screaming was embarrassing.’
‘I didn’t want to be rude.’
Liv looked across the table. ‘Maeve, back me up. He was panting.’
Before I could answer, a ringtone shrilled and the three of us reached in unison for our phones. It turned out to be mine, of course, and a sick feeling came over me as I saw the caller’s name displayed on my screen. I half-turned away, jamming my free hand to my ear to block out the noise of the canteen.
‘Hello?’
‘Where the hell are you?’
Good morning to you too, DI Derwent
. ‘I’m at court.’
‘What the fuck are you doing there?’ He sounded more bad-tempered than usual. Something told me there had been another murder, even before he said it. ‘We’ve got a body. If you’ve quite finished farting about, maybe you’d like to do some actual policing for a change.’
I gritted my teeth. ‘I’m here because of another case. I did tell you I was going to be in court this morning. But I’m free now, so if you’ll just tell me where I need to go—’
‘Don’t tempt me, darling. You’re making it too easy.’ His tone changed. ‘Tell me about this very important court case. Was there any need for you to be there, as a matter of interest? Or were you just making up the numbers? Because I would have thought that an active murder investigation might have been your priority, especially when we have a fresh corpse waiting for your attention.’
Be reasonable
, I warned myself, but I couldn’t keep the irritation out of my voice completely. ‘Well, I didn’t know that.’
‘You should have.’
‘How could I have known?’ Fuck diplomacy; he had annoyed me out of being meek.
Rob was frowning at me. He pointed at the phone and mouthed, ‘Derwent?’
I nodded, pulling out my notebook and uncapping a pen one-handed before scrawling the address down as Derwent dictated it. ‘Okay. I’ll see you there shortly. As soon as I can.’ I disconnected before the inspector could say anything else. It was a pleasure deferred, of that I had no doubt, but I couldn’t bear to sit there and listen to any more of Derwent’s abuse at that moment. To Rob, I said, ‘I’ve got to go. There’s another body.’
‘Shit.’
‘Exactly.’ I started to gather my things, glad of the distraction of a new crime scene in spite of the fact that I dreaded it more than a little.
‘Was he giving you a hard time?’
‘That’s all he does.’ I stood up. ‘Liv, it was nice to get to talk. We must do it again some time.’
‘I’m free tomorrow night,’ she said innocently. ‘There’s a great bar near St Paul’s.’
I laughed, properly this time, and headed for the door with an unexpected spring in my step. It looked as if Rob had been right about Liv after all. Which, I reminded myself, did not mean that he had been right about anything else.
The address DI Derwent had given me over the phone took me to Flocking Street, two quiet, shabby rows of pebble-dashed maisonettes, purpose-built flats with their own meagre front doors, in an unfashionable part of Brixton untouched by gentrification. Looking at the map, it would only have been about ten minutes’ walk from Ivan Tremlett’s office, and fifteen at most from Barry Palmer’s house. The third point of the triangle gave us an area of operations that was encouragingly small, and I walked towards the crime scene with a degree of optimism. I didn’t need to check the number of the flat I was looking for. The usual hum of activity was centred on an address about halfway down the street – the vans, the police cars, the officers in T-shirts or fleeces who were searching front gardens, probing drains and gutters, the neighbours looking on. The street was closed off so the media were trapped at either end, not that there were too many of them yet – a couple of cameras and a handful of journalists making notes. They seemed to be mainly interviewing each other, I thought sardonically, slipping past them unnoticed. We had got away without anyone spotting the connection between Barry Palmer and Ivan Tremlett; I had a feeling that someone bright might just put it all together now that there was a third body. And media attention was not going to help us one little bit.