She has her feet up on the blue tartan First Capital Connect seats, beside a sign saying Do Not Put Feet on Seats. She pulls at her eyelid, peeling it away from the eyeball in an attempt to relieve the scratching. The infection has moved from irritation to pain and yet, when she has passed a chemist – on Hampstead High Street, at King’s Cross Station – the urgency of buying the antibiotics has gone from her mind. No chance now – it’s 8 p.m. and she has to be in early tomorrow for the Crimewatch briefing.
She told the Hinds to brace themselves for renewed press interest – photographers back on their doorstep – when the televised reconstruction of Edith’s last journey home with Helena Reed is broadcast on Wednesday evening. Telling them about Tony Wright hadn’t been easy, despite his alibi. She recalls the look of terror on Lady Hind’s face, which prevented her from describing what had become of his last victim – how he had beaten her about the head with the knife handle so that her face was purple and enlarged. Two weeks after his conviction, she killed herself.
Manon’s mobile phone vibrates somewhere deep in her bag. A text, number not recognised.
She smiles. Buying the coat for Fly had brought her myriad unlooked-for pleasures, as if satisfaction were refracted into a fresh rainbow. Picking out a hot-pink sequinned number and saying to him, ‘This is a good look for you’; his dry look in response, as if she were the silliest object he had ever come across. Him picking the designer labels, to which she would turn the swinging ticket and say, ‘In your dreams.’ Most of all, when they had selected together a padded cornflower-blue coat, with white stripes at the chest, she had noticed what pleasure there was in keeping him warm: the thought of the softness of the fleece lining against his skin, the waterproof outer layer sheltering him from rain. It was the best twenty-five pounds she had spent in a long time.
She is smiling to herself, up the steps of HQ, into reception, thinking how she must type up her notes, prepare for tomorrow’s briefing. Her head is down, unaware of her surroundings, when Bob on the front desk says, ‘Sarge, someone to see you.’
Manon looks up, and there he is: his flappy coat, the stoop, horrifying and wonderful – Alan Prenderghast.
‘Hello,’ he says. ‘I didn’t expect to see you. I was just dropping this off.’
He holds out a small white paper bag, folded over at the top, with a green chemist sign on it. Manon opens it and takes out an oblong box. The label reads: Chloramphenicol eye drops, for the treatment of Conjunctivitis.
‘Crikey,’ she says.
‘I feel a bit like a criminal caught in the act,’ he says.
‘Gosh – I haven’t had time, as you can see.’
‘Look,’ he says, rather urgently, ‘I don’t know the form for this. Am I still a witness or something, in the case?’
‘No, why?’
‘I was wondering if I could take you out. For dinner or something. Or a film, where we sit in the same row. Adjacent seats, even.’
There is a red patch creeping up his neck.
‘I don’t know, I’ve got a lot on at the moment.’
They both look down at the white chemist’s bag.
‘Why don’t you think about it?’ he says. ‘I’ll give you my number.’
He puts a hand out to take the chemist bag back off her and pats his pockets for a pen, only to find Bob holding one out to him. ‘I enjoyed our coffee after the film,’ he says, while writing on the bag against his palm.
‘Thanks,’ she says, looking down at his writing. The numbers are all bunched up and tight. ‘Look, I’d better go – got to prepare for a briefing first thing. Just had a murder come in, plus it’s Crimewatch this week,’ and she lays it there, her job as a police officer, which he must admire, what with his very pedestrian work as a systems analyst.
‘Well, OK then,’ he says, and she watches him go out of the station doors and down the steps to the car park.
When she turns, Bob is frowning.
‘What d’you do that for?’ he says.
‘What?’
‘Turn down a nice chap like him?’
‘What would you know about it, Bob?’
‘I know it’s nice to have someone to come home to.’