Gavin rolled over and smiled as he tried to dislodge a corner of duvet from beneath his slumbering girlfriend.
Her soft breathing tickled his skin as he gently extricated his arm from under her and rubbed at bleary eyes.
It was still dark beyond the curtains of his bedroom, an enthusiastic blackbird warming up its vocal chords in the postage-stamp-sized garden below. The early morning traffic began to grind its way past the turning for the cul-de-sac, the thin windows of his tiny two-bedroom modern terrace doing little to counteract the sound of an ambulance siren streaking by.
Leanne mumbled gibberish under her breath and then raised her head, her dark hair mussed up and frizzy. ‘Gav? What time is it?’
‘Five. Go back to sleep.’
She snuffled, turned over – taking most of the duvet with her – and promptly did just that.
Her shift had ended at nine the previous night, and she wasn’t expected to report to the county fire services’ search and rescue unit for another two days.
She was exhausted.
Gavin reached out and switched off the alarm on his phone then cupped his hands behind his head and stared at the ceiling.
Sleep forgotten, his thoughts turned to work and the robbery at Adam’s vet practice.
Frustrated at the lack of time he had spent on the investigation, and resigned to helping Barnes with the interviews associated with Felicity and Gary’s deaths, he had had little time to think about his own workload.
The news that Adam was due to return to work at the end of the week with no progress to report on who had attacked him weighed heavily on Gavin.
As the light beyond the crack in the curtains began to turn a faded shade of grey, doubt crept in and he sighed.
Had he asked Scott and Stephanie the right questions when he’d interviewed them?
Had they told him something in passing that he’d missed?
He closed his eyes, recalling some of the CCTV footage he’d been watching, both from the files Scott had provided, and those from the town council’s cameras.
The way everything in the practice had seemed peaceful, normal after Stephanie left work for the day.
The minutes counting down in the right-hand corner of his computer screen as he watched Adam, head bowed while he sat hunched over his laptop.
The sudden terrible moment when Adam realised something was wrong, but had no time to defend himself, and the subsequent pause when his attacker perhaps wondered whether he had gone a step too far in his quest for the drugs.
Gavin’s jaw clenched at the memory of the thief crouching at Adam’s prone figure and removing his keys a split second before pivoting and rushing at the secure cabinet, and the haste with which the drugs were then swept into a canvas bag.
‘Come on,’ he mumbled, opening his eyes. ‘There must be something.’
He sighed, threw back what little bedclothes he’d managed to retain, and looked at his phone screen.
Six o’clock.
‘Bugger it. Might as well go in,’ he snorted.
‘What’s that, Gav?’
He glanced over his shoulder to see Leanne sitting up, the duvet tangled around her, and smiled at the sight of her sleepy face.
‘Nothing – going in early, that’s all.’ He crawled closer and kissed her. ‘I’ll see you later. Fancy going out to dinner somewhere tonight?’
She yawned. ‘Sounds like a great idea. Call me later?’
‘Will do.’
He gathered up his clothes, reckoning on a quick shower before heading out the door, already planning what he would do when he got to the incident room.
‘Gav?’
He turned at the sound of Leanne’s voice. ‘Yes?’
‘Don’t let it eat away at you, all right? The breakthrough will come.’
‘It’d better.’