When I Wasn't Watching (12 page)

‘Lucy?' he whispered, moving the hair off her face and kissing the side of her cheek. He felt uncharacteristically shy and in need of reassurance; something he hadn't felt since he had been a child.

Lucy blinked and then smiled at him, kissing him back warmly. She sat up and stretched, her movements languorous, all the earlier tension gone.

‘That was amazing.' She looked back over her shoulder at him. Matt grinned.

‘You sound surprised.'

‘It's been a while. That release was...needed.'

Matt reached up and stroked her back, loving the way she leaned into his touch, accepting it, enjoying it.

Then she got off the bed and reached for her clothes.

‘You're going?'

‘I want to get back before Ricky does. His curfew is half ten. Sorry, I don't mean to rush off, but I didn't expect,' she smiled down at him, ‘this to happen.'

Matt got up himself and pulled his clothes on, feeling self-conscious. He wasn't used to having a woman rush off on him – hell, it was usually the other way around – and he didn't like the feeling. He realised he wanted her to stay, which was unusual for him.

‘Perhaps next time –' he hoped there was going to be a next time ‘– you could stay the night? If you can arrange it.'

Lucy hesitated.

‘Maybe. The thing is, I told Ricky I was out with Susan. Well, I left a note.'

‘I understand.'

He did, of course. It was too much, too soon, to expect her to mention this – whatever
this
was – to her son yet. Especially after what she had told him. Matt liked the kid, felt almost as protective of him as he did his mother, and certainly didn't want to be a catalyst for upsetting the boy, who was clearly more fragile than he had realised on meeting him.

But he couldn't help feeling disappointed when Lucy even refused coffee and left him at the doorstep with a chaste kiss on the cheek, leaving him staring after her as she got into her cab.

‘I'll call you tomorrow,' she whispered. He nodded and watched her walk down the steps, then on impulse called her back. She turned expectantly, her blue eyes huge in the light from the street lamps. Matt smiled.

‘Tonight was great. You were great.'

‘So were you.' She gave him an impish wink, and was gone. He watched her cab until it disappeared round the corner, then went in and shut the door behind him. The house felt empty, and he was restless, noticing his aloneness at a time when he was usually happy with his own company.

Tonight had been a beginning, had set something in motion; that much he was sure of.

He just wished he knew exactly what.

Lucy reached home feeling lighter than she had in weeks. All the tension that had been building in her had broken in the midst of that shuddering release in Matt's arms. Collapsing into the pillow afterwards she had been expecting to weep from the sheer intensity of it.

Instead, a calm had settled over her. Almost glad that she had to leave early, she wanted nothing more than to lie in her own bed alone, wrapping her new-found peace around her like a blanket. To savour it while she could.

Because in her experience the old saying was true: any calm invariably foretold a storm.

Chapter Seven
Monday

The next morning however saw Lucy still feeling an almost eerie peace, punctuated with a quiet rush of joy whenever she thought about Matt and recalled their urgent, frenzied love-making.

Bustling around getting ready for work she hid her smile from Ricky when he first came slouching down the stairs with school uniform and hair crumpled, then saw he looked reasonably cheerful himself, considering his typical morning demeanour.

‘Do you want me to make you breakfast?'

‘Nah. I'll get something at the canteen.'

Lucy reached to straighten his tie and he darted away, but without his usual scowl.

‘I met a girl.'

Lucy's mouth made a small ‘oh' of surprise before stretching into a smile.

‘At school?'

‘Yeah.'

That was clearly as much as he was prepared to share and she held back from questioning him further. Watching him go she noticed how he seemed to have grown even taller over the past few weeks. He would be as tall as Matt soon.

The thought of Matt made her smile again and his image was still in her mind when the day's paper dropped onto her mat. So much so that when his face stared out at her, grainy and pixellated, she blinked to clear her vision.

His face remained, along with a headline that froze her smile and left her grimacing in shock.

The calm was fast disappearing, and the storm clouds gathering a great deal sooner than she could have anticipated.

Once again Matt walked into the station to eyes that didn't quite meet his.
What the hell has happened now?
His first thought was that it would be Prince, or something to do with him, but when the desk sergeant smirked and turned away from Matt rather than ducking her eyes in the embarrassed sympathy he had seen on the day of Prince's release, he knew that this particular drama was going to be about something very different.

When he saw the morning's
Telegraph
sitting next to his coffee, with no sign of Marla, his stomach sank with foreboding, guessing what it was going to say before he picked it up to see his own face staring back at him, along with a fetching picture of Lucy getting into a cab, her dress hiked up to show a glimpse of a toned and slim thigh.

Shit.
The headline was more reminiscent of a tabloid than a local paper – and no doubt they would jump on the story next – and his first reaction was to check the byline and breathe a sigh of relief that it wasn't Carla's name printed there. A relief swiftly replaced by anger as the words sank in.

‘Fallen Hero? ‘Hero' cop seduces mother of murdered Jack Randall.'

Great; they were painting him now as some opportunistic player, taking advantage of Lucy. An accusation that hit all the harder because he had worried about that himself. Although he had been the one left feeling vulnerable the night before. To the general public however the headline, coupled with the picture of her leaving his house dressed to the nines, looked damning. And they had to resurrect that damned ‘hero' tag as well. Dailey was going to go ape-shit.

His first port of call was not his no-doubt seething superior but Lucy herself. God only knew how this would affect her and Ricky, who she had been so anxious to protect. Matt cursed as he repeatedly tried to ring both her mobile and her house phone only to find one turned off and the latter engaged. She was probably fending off reporters already.

‘Detective Inspector?' Matt jumped as Marla came up behind him, her lined mouth puckered, ‘Chief Dailey would like to see you. In his office. Right away, he said.'

‘Thank you, Marla. I suppose he's seen this?' He gestured towards the newspaper. Marla raised an over-plucked eyebrow at him. Her disapproval was almost tangible.

‘I think everyone has seen it,' she said in clipped tones, walking off without another word. Matt held his breath for a moment before going to Dailey's office. He was angry; more, he was fuming. At the paper, certainly, but mostly at himself for not being more careful. Resentful, also, that he couldn't be left alone to date who he damn well pleased.

‘Sir,' he said a few minutes later to Dailey, who indeed looked thunderous, invoking in Matt a sense of rebelliousness. It was like standing in front of the headmaster.

A copy of the
Telegraph
sat accusingly on his desk, and Dailey jabbed at it with a fat finger. His voice was ominously quiet.

‘Is this what it looks like, Winston?' He only used surnames when he was royally pissed off. Matt sighed, and gritted his teeth. He liked and respected Dailey, but he wasn't going to be reprimanded like a naughty puppy for something that, as far as he was concerned, had nothing to do with his superior.

‘Myself and Ms Wyatt are friends, yes sir. But with respect, I don't think this has anything to do with anyone else, or my ability to do my job. Ms Wyatt isn't involved in a current case; her son's murder was eight years ago.'

‘I'm well aware of when it was, Winston; thank you. I'm also aware, as is every other person in this god-damned city, that you were the arresting officer on the case. Yet you see no conflict of interest here?'

‘If it wasn't for the fact that Prince has just been released, no one would even be interested sir.'

‘But he has, hasn't he? And in light of the media interest surrounding his release, I would have expected one of my most well thought of officers to have a little more sense – or failing that, discretion.'

Matt swallowed down his anger.

‘I didn't expect reporters to be skulking around the bushes, sir. It's hardly something either myself or Lucy – Ms Wyatt – were anticipating.'

Dailey sat back in his chair, surveying Matt with a bland expression that Matt knew of old was a foil.

‘I've never questioned your commitment to your role, have I, inspector? And yet your choice of personal relationships might give reason to wonder about your loyalties. First a journalist – who I was under the impression you were still involved with – and now the mother of an old victim.'

‘I don't see the connection,' Matt said stiffly. For Christ's sake, when he had first got with Carla she had been working on the fashion pages of the local university magazine. Hardly any ‘conflict of interest' there.

‘Perhaps not, but when the story hits the bigger news outlets – as it will, given the furore over Prince – your personal life will no doubt get poked around in. There isn't anything else is there that's likely to come to light? No other “seductions?”'

‘Clean as a whistle, sir. I don't make a habit of “seducing” women I meet on the job.' Matt's voice dripped with sarcasm but the retort he expected from Dailey didn't come. Instead the older man waved at the seat opposite him and his voice, when he spoke, was warmer.

‘Sit down, Matt. I want to talk to you.'

Matt did, wondering where Dailey was going with this. He was very much
not
the sort of guy who went in for heart to hearts and yet this was the second time in a week the Chief had invited his confidence.

‘Do you know I worked a similar case to little Jack Randall's? Over in Ashbourne. Almost twenty years ago now.'

‘No, sir.' Matt's throat felt tight. Dailey nodded, his eyes looking now not at Matt but through him.

‘Six-year-old girl it was, found bludgeoned to death. By her older cousin who was supposed to be looking after her, as it turned out. Lad of nineteen, special needs, though no prior indication of violence. Of course, life meant life then.'

‘Okay.' Matt didn't add the words on his lips, but Dailey answered them anyway.

‘You're wondering what my point is? Well, that case got to me for a long time, Matt; I was still wet behind the ears, still believed victims could be saved and the bad guys locked away for ever. Then a few years later, I bumped into the girl's father. At the market, of all places. He had a new wife.'

Matt thought of Ethan Randall and wondered if it was a common male reaction. He nodded at Dailey, interested now but still puzzled.

‘Go on.'

‘I wanted to go over and say something, befriend the guy almost. As if there was a link between us; I found his daughter's body, saw the guy break down when he was told. But he looked right through me. Didn't even recognise me; or didn't want to.'

‘With respect, sir, I don't see what this has to do with myself and Ms Wyatt.'

‘Is it serious?' Dailey asked abruptly, his very words making Matt uncomfortable.

‘I don't know. It's early days and I haven't asked her. It's delicate, as you imagine.'

‘That's precisely my point. Answer this; would you be bothering with this woman if she wasn't Jack Randall's mother?'

His question made Matt pause. Would he? His first reaction was yes; Lucy was attractive and he would find her so regardless of the situation in which he met her – but would he have met her? If she was merely an attractive woman, even one with a similar tragedy in her past, would he feel the same sense of protectiveness, of
responsibility
towards her?

‘I'm not sure,' was his honest answer. Dailey steepled his fingers together and leaned over the desk slightly.

‘You see, when that girl's father didn't acknowledge me that day, it made me realise something.
I had my done my job
. That was the extent of my importance to him and that's as it should be. If you continue to pursue this woman, you will always be the officer who dealt with her son's murder. Neither of you will ever move on from that.'

Matt didn't answer. He knew this, Lucy herself knew this; they had spoken of it and yet had still gone to bed together, almost as though their coupling was somehow inevitable. This impromptu relationship counselling from Dailey he didn't need.

‘I think that's for me and Ms Wyatt to decide,' he said, looking directly at Dailey, gaze unwavering. The older man looked as if he would say something further, then thought better of it.

‘Very well, Winston; you can go. But be aware that if any complications arise that effect your performance as a police officer, then we will be having this conversation again. In the meantime, I'd appreciate it if you didn't give any comment to the press.'

Clearly dismissed, Matt nodded and rose to leave, feeling irritated. He had no intention of talking to any press, though Dailey's mention of Carla made him wonder how long it would be before that particular member of the press felt the need to talk to him.

As it turned out, about three hours. When a call was put through ‘from a female asking to speak to you, sir' Matt snatched at the phone, hoping it was Lucy returning one of the dozens of calls he had attempted to put through to her during the course of the morning. Instead, Carla's high-pitched tones greeted his ears.