Gabriel Rush was already in his office and as Joanna walked into the station Sergeant Alderley met her and jerked his head to the left. ‘He wants to see you.’
‘Hmm.’ Her job already threatened to become a little less pleasant. Rush was planted behind what she would always think of as Colclough’s desk and he was watching her with narrowed eyes. He looked like the sort of copper who enjoyed filling out forms, someone who would love protocol and methodology, and flow charts, budgets and reports. She felt her optimism curl up inside her like a piece of stale bread.
‘I suppose I should congratulate you, Piercy?’
Don’t strain yourself, she thought. It’d be nice but unexpected.
He just about managed it, squeezing the words out like pips from a lemon. ‘Well done,’ he said tightly, without a note of enthusiasm.
And she answered with the obligatory, ‘Thank you, sir.’
‘An unusual case.’
‘Yes, sir.’ She was missing Colclough already and he hadn’t even had his leaving do.
‘So what next?’
‘We’ll get Renshaw on a murder charge, Sir, and Freeman on conspiracy, but the payoff is that I don’t think we’ll get much to stick on Diana Tong.’
Rush tried to make a joke out of it. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘as the song says: Two out of three isn’t bad.’
It was all she could do to stop herself from rolling her eyes.
She returned to her office even more apprehensive about the future. ‘I’m going to take a few days off, she said, ‘play the happy housewife and keep my husband contented.’
‘Get out of Rush’s way, you mean.’
‘No. Strive for marital bliss.’
Korpanski eyed her. ‘And how long do you think that’ll last?’
She tried to make light of it. ‘I make it a policy never to answer a difficult question on an empty stomach and a sober mind. I think we should celebrate with lunch at the pub dead on twelve o’clock.’ She smiled. ‘So we have four hours to get some work done.’
Matthew was home early too. As she parked her car she could see him looking around their garden, something in his hand. She watched him for a moment. Long-legged in chinos and a grey sweater, the light bouncing off his hair, which was never quite tidy. For a moment he appeared absorbed in the bulbs which coloured the garden – daffodils, tulips, some bluebells which had blown in from the churchyard and self-planted. He looked up, saw her, smiled and, when she reached him, slipped his arm around her. ‘We’ve a letter,’ he said. ‘Looks like Caro’s writing. And a London postmark.’
He handed it to her. A neat blue envelope. ‘I’ll open it inside,’ she said. ‘Brr. It’s a bit cold.’
‘Yeah. Let’s go in.’
But as they entered the front door, he spoke. And shared his thoughts. ‘This place is too small for us, Jo,’ he said. ‘We should have more of a family home.’
Her heart sank. Right to the bottom of that deep wishing well.
‘I’m taking a few days off,’ she said lightly. ‘Shall we go away?’
He kissed her cheek very gently. ‘I have a better idea, Jo,’ he said. ‘Why don’t I take a few days off too? We can have a stay-cation and look at properties.’
The dismay she felt was as powerful as a thump on the chest. Was Matthew thinking about starting a family? It was her nightmare.
As she walked into Waterfall Cottage, her joyful heart had been replaced with an organ of solid stone.