Chapter 59

Although Juliet doesn’t tell me much when she calls, I surmise from what she says that I shall be at the station for the rest of the day. I say goodbye to Janey and wish her a happy weekend before leaving to pick up my car at the station car park.

“Thanks,” Janey says, her voice heavy with irony, “you, too.”

I drive the short distance to the station and am just getting out of the car when I see Patti Gardner getting out of her white van. Awkward as a schoolgirl, I begin to tremble and wonder if I can avoid her by sitting here until she’s safely inside. But it’s obvious that I’m bound to bump into her inside and in any case I haven’t done her any wrong: rather the opposite. Slowly I climb out of the car and see that she’s standing motionless beside the van. I approach her at a snail’s pace, but I can see she’s determined to wait for me.

“Patti!” I say as breezily as I can. “What brings you here?” I realise how foolish the question is as soon as I’ve said it.

“I work here,” she says crisply. “Perhaps you’ve forgotten. Sometimes I’d like to forget it myself. How are you? I don’t think I’ve seen you since the baby was born.”

“Of course I haven’t forgotten. It was a really silly question. I’m fine,” I gush. Patti’s like Freya - she brings out the worst in me. Something to do with how close they’ve both been to Tim, I suppose.

“You’re back at work?”

“Yes. This week.”

“Great. Tim said . . .”

She pauses. She’s suddenly confused.

“What did Tim say, Patti? Do tell me. And when did you last get the chance to talk to him? I’ve barely seen him myself for the last couple of months.”

Patti looks down at the ground. She’s frowning and her mouth is working. I make no attempt to help her.

“Look, Katrin,” she says at length, trying to fix me with her guileless blue eyes, “I don’t know what Tim’s told you, but I hate concealing the truth, especially as it’s nothing like you think it is. But this isn’t the time and place . . .”

“Oh, I think it is.”

“I’ve got an emergency job to do. Juliet thinks they’ve found something belonging to Ayesha Verma in the river.”

The news electrifies me, but I won’t be put off.

“Fine,” I say. “We can go in together. You can tell me as we walk.”

“But we’ll be inside in a couple of minutes. Someone might overhear . . .”

“Overhear what?”

“All right, Katrin, you win. I’ll tell you the details later if you want to hear them, but basically Tim spent the night before last in my hotel room because he was too ill to get back to his sister’s. He wasn’t drunk, either: it was something to do with the medication he’d been taking. Nothing happened, nor did either of us have any intention that it should. He was passed out on the floor until he woke up and left in the early hours.”

It’s my turn to be speechless.

“Satisfied?” Patti says. “You should know Tim better than to think he would cheat on you. He’s one of the most principled men I know.”

She turns her back on me quickly and stalks off towards the station doors. As she takes out her swipe card, I see her brush the back of her hand across her face. I’m miserable, but in no mood for tears.