17

I was waiting for Una Burt when she got into work the following morning, watching the door. As soon as she arrived I shot out of my seat.

‘Ma’am?’

‘What’s up?’ She didn’t break her stride on her way to her office. In fairness she was weighed down with a thermos of coffee (made at home because she didn’t believe in spending money on takeaway coffee), her breakfast in a Tupperware container, her sensible raincoat and a bag-for-life full of paperwork. Contrary to its promises, the bag was threatening to split.

‘It’s just – could I have a word?’

‘If you’re quick about it. I have a meeting in five minutes.’ She dumped everything on her desk and started to fuss with the thermos. ‘Come on, come in. Sit down.’

I shut the door even though there was no one else at work yet and perched on the edge of the chair opposite her desk.

‘Let me guess. You’re leaving.’

‘No.’ I felt a wave of irritation sweep over me. ‘Why would you say that?’

‘The Met is a big organisation. You have other options than this team. You’d be very silly not to consider them.’ She sat down and folded her hands, adopting what I thought of as her listening pose. ‘But of course I’m glad if that’s not it.’

Of course.

‘It’s a little bit awkward,’ I began, and stopped. I’d spent all night worrying about whether I should say anything at all, to her or anyone else. It would be easy enough to tell Derwent and let him decide what to do about it, if anything, but there were complications to that approach, not least the timing … And if Burt asked him to work on the case, I’d have to tell her anyway, and she’d have to tell Derwent there was a conflict of interest, and then I’d have to say why. It was better to tell Burt, not least because she was in a position to give me proper advice. She would be able to look at the situation objectively, without her feelings for Derwent affecting her thinking. Not that I had feelings for Derwent.

Una Burt was starting to fidget. ‘You’re having a baby as well? Honestly, there are times I think it must be contagious. One member of a team gets pregnant and suddenly all the women go on maternity leave.’

‘No! Absolutely not. But it is sort of about a baby. Only he’s not a baby any more. And definitely not mine.’

Her eyebrows were hovering around her hairline. She poured coffee into the lid of her thermos and blew on it. ‘I don’t mean to hurry you, but I do have that meeting.’

‘Right.’ I took a deep breath. ‘Well, you might remember a few years ago there was a case where Josh Derwent was a suspect. His girlfriend was murdered when he was a teenager and her death had elements in common with the series we were investigating.’

‘I remember. He was in a lot of trouble for a while. You got him out of it, as I recall.’ Her voice was entirely colourless but I knew she was far from Derwent’s biggest fan. She had been almost disappointed to find out that he wasn’t a killer. From that point on she had taken the view that I was on his side rather than hers, and held me responsible for his worst behaviour whether that was fair or not.

‘Well, during that case I interviewed a woman named Claire Naylor. She was an old friend of the victim, and of Josh. She’s a single mother. From what she told me then, and from pictures I saw in her house, I worked out that Josh was the father of her son.’

‘Right,’ she said slowly.

‘And he didn’t know about it.’

‘Right,’ she said again, but this time with more understanding. She placed her cup on a coaster and cleared her throat. ‘And you didn’t tell him.’

‘I tried to convince Claire Naylor to tell him herself.’ I fidgeted. ‘Maybe I should have tried harder to persuade her, or taken matters into my own hands and blurted it out. It seemed easier to put it to the back of my mind. I thought if he didn’t know, it didn’t matter. But since he found Thomas …’

‘He’s changed.’

I nodded miserably. ‘Now I think he would have wanted to know and I should have told him straight away.’

‘Tricky situation.’ She turned the cup through ninety degrees, considering it. ‘But I think your instincts were correct. Presumably this Naylor woman had her reasons for not telling him he’d fathered a child.’

‘She felt he might be an unreliable parent and they were better off without him.’

‘Sensible woman.’ She looked up at me. ‘Why is this upsetting you now?’

‘I brought the son in for questioning yesterday in the Paige Hargreaves case.’

‘Oh shit,’ she muttered, and it wasn’t like her to swear. On this occasion I felt it was more than justified.

‘Yeah, that’s what I feel about it.’

‘Is he a suspect?’

‘I was up all night wondering about that. I don’t think so, but maybe I don’t want him to be. I liked him, even before I knew who he was. And I thought he was honest with us.’

‘Why was he brought in?’

I explained about the bag and she listened, frowning. ‘Well, at least one of the three of them is lying to you.’

‘Or maybe all three of them are. The prepared statement that we got from Orlando Hawkes is basically arse-covering in case we find anything in the house that ties in with Paige Hargreaves. I don’t know if it’s a prudent way of getting his excuses in first or if he genuinely has something to hide. Roddy Asquith refused to say anything at all. I don’t think he’s the sharpest tool in the shed and he seemed to be afraid he’d say the wrong thing even in a prepared statement. But the only link I can make between Paige and Luke is the bag, and that was shoved into his room behind the door, more or less in plain sight once you looked. If he’d wanted to hide it, he’d have done a better job, I think.’

‘It could have been one of the other two who left it there.’

‘That’s what I thought. The one thing we do know is that there’s a definite connection between Paige and Roddy Asquith because Paige herself wrote his name and phone number in the book I found. I think he was helping her with her Chiron Club story and now he’s terrified he’ll be kicked out of the club at the very least. Before he went no-comment on me, he more or less admitted he’d been talking to Paige about her story.’

‘And now he’s clammed up.’ Burt seemed to have forgotten all about her important meeting, or she’d decided this was more urgent after all. She leaned on the desk and ran her hands through her hair. ‘What a mess.’

‘Josh wasn’t in yesterday – he had a day off. If I have to bring Luke in again and he sees him—’

‘It could be awkward.’

‘He probably wouldn’t recognise him. He’s never seen him before.’

She pressed her fingertips against her forehead for a few moments, then dropped them to the desk. ‘I think you should tell him though.’

Not what I wanted to hear. ‘But I promised Claire I wouldn’t.’

‘Ordinarily, I would say you should respect her confidence. But did she tell you about Luke, or did you find out for yourself?’

‘She tried to hide it. I worked it out. Luke looked very like Josh when he was little, and Claire took his pictures down so I wouldn’t see them.’ The corners of my mouth turned up at the thought of him. ‘He still looks quite like Josh, if it comes to that, but I might not have made the connection now that he’s an adult.’

‘She didn’t trust you with any information; you worked it out. What you do with what you learned is up to you.’

‘But she begged me not to tell him or Luke.’

‘Claire knew Josh when he was sixteen. You know him now. What do you think you should do?’

‘Tell him.’

‘You’d want to know, if it was possible for you to be in his shoes.’

‘But then I have to think of a way to explain why I’ve known about Luke for so long and haven’t said a word about it. He won’t be pleased.’

‘I can’t help you with that, but I feel sure you’ll be able to work out how to break the news diplomatically.’ She actually looked sympathetic for once. ‘It might take him a while to get over it.’

‘Oh, he’ll blame me. That’s one reason why I was hoping you’d say I should keep quiet.’

She shook her head slowly. ‘Sorry.’

‘I know it’s the right thing to do. But I don’t think I should tell him now. I want to be sure that Luke’s in the clear first.’

‘Agreed.’ Burt glanced at her watch. ‘Crikey, I need to go. They’ll have started without me.’

I stood up and held the door open for her as she gathered her files for the meeting. The desks in the main office were still empty, I was glad to see. As she passed me, she said, ‘I’ll try to find something for Josh to do that will keep him out of your way. There’ll be a case somewhere that needs his attention, urgently.’

‘Thanks, I appreciate it.’

She stopped. ‘You know, he’s lucky to have you. It’s not every colleague who would be so sensitive about telling a man he had a secret lovechild.’

‘A secret lovechild who is all of twenty-five and about six foot two,’ I said drily.

‘And looks like Josh?’ She whistled. ‘I bet this Luke is trouble.’

‘He was on his best behaviour yesterday but I’d say so. He has a definite glint in his eye.’

Una Burt chuckled. ‘If you do have to bring him in again, let me know. I’d like to have a look at him.’

I returned to my desk feeling marginally better about the situation. Obviously, telling Derwent would give rise to a whole new set of problems, but it was honest. He prized honesty above all other things, even if he was capable of lying on a spectacular scale when he thought it was justified. And because I’d been hiding Luke, I hadn’t been honest with him for years. He’d forgive me, though, eventually.

At least, I hoped he would.

The door banged closed behind Una Burt and I smiled to myself: who would have thought she would be so human about it? But she had been kind, almost as if she really cared …

My train of thought sputtered into silence as Georgia straightened up from behind her desk and stared at me, her eyes wide.

‘I didn’t know you were here,’ I said. Then, with growing anger, ‘Were you hiding?’

‘I was changing my shoes. I cycled to work this morning so I was wearing my trainers.’ She held them up for me to see, as if I cared. ‘I can’t cycle in heels.’

‘What did you hear?’

‘Only what the boss said to you as you were leaving her office?’ It came out as a question: if I was horrified, Georgia was too.

‘Which was?’

‘Luke Gibson is Josh Derwent’s son and he doesn’t know it and you want to keep him from finding out.’

‘So, everything. Fuck.’ I covered my face with my hands. I couldn’t even look at her.

‘I’m sorry, I really wasn’t trying to listen!’ She sounded as if she was about to cry. ‘I won’t say anything.’

‘You’d better not. Not to anyone. No one knows apart from you, me and Burt.’

‘I promise.’

I put my hands flat on the desk and glowered at her. ‘I’m going to tell him.’

‘Of course.’

‘I just need to wait for the right moment.’

‘I understand.’ She was blushing. ‘I can’t believe Luke is actually Josh Derwent’s son. I had no idea. None. I mean, I was flirting with him.’

It was on the tip of my tongue to point out that it was hardly unusual for Georgia to flirt, but I stopped myself. If I was ever going to be nice to her, now was the ideal time.

‘Look, the main thing is to rule Luke out as a suspect. Then I’ll talk to Josh about him. In the meantime, do your best to forget you heard anything.’

‘I will, I swear it. You can trust me.’

The door banged and two of the other detectives came in, talking about football. Georgia blinked at me meaningfully and got up.

‘Tea? Coffee?’

‘Neither, thanks.’

She teetered away to the kitchen and I tried not to dwell on the thought that it was really only the least reliable people who felt they needed to tell you that you could trust them.