“Maisie?” I asked, when neither her nor Shaun spoke up. “I heard you hit a boy. What’s your excuse?”

“He was making fun of me,” she replied.

“So? That’s no excuse for hitting someone.”

“He said I looked like a monster.”

“Oh.” I rubbed my face with my hands, suddenly overcome with tiredness. Maisie usually handled abuse calmly and never reacted to it. At least, not that I knew of. Perhaps she had more of a temper on her than I realized.

“That’s not what happened,” Shaun said softly. Maisie looked towards him. I couldn’t see the look on her face, but Oliver bit his lip and tried to suppress a smile. Maisie had one hell of a deadly pout when she was displeased and right now Shaun was probably on the receiving end of it.

“Yes, it was,” Maisie insisted.

“Jack kept talking about Olly,” Shaun said. “Kept saying that he was a waste of space and shouldn’t still be playing rugby.”

“So you hit him?” I asked.

“He deserved it.”

Now it was Oliver’s turn to look devastated. “Maisie, I don’t need you to fight my battles for me.”

Maisie crossed her arms in a sulk. She didn’t look in the least bit sorry or apologetic. It was a good thing we had Hodgson on our side.

“Chief Superintendent Hodgson,” I asked. “Would you mind letting Maisie and I speak alone?”

“Actually, Michelle, let me have a word with her,” Oliver insisted.

I nodded in agreement and left the office with Shaun and Hodgson followed soon after.

“She’ll be fine,” Hodgson said to me. “These things happen. If I’d got to them earlier I wouldn’t have even booked them. No need to ruin your evening.”

“Thank you, but it was about time we stopped drinking anyway. There’s only so much of that beer I can handle.”

Hodgson laughed. “Did he make you drink English bitters? They can take some getting used to.”

“No, I had lager tops in the end.”

“Ah, lager and Sprite. Now there’s a refreshing drink. That’s just what I like after a long day.”

I sensed Hodgson was about to leave, but I wanted to find out what the deal was with the officer who threatened Oliver. “What was all that about with the other detective?” I asked. “The one who spoke to Oliver.”

Hodgson laughed. “Oh, don’t worry about Winston. That guy has had it in for Oliver for years. He’s one of your lot actually.”

“American?”

“Yeah. Moved here when he was young though, so he doesn’t have much of an accent. He’s convinced Oliver had something to do with an illegal betting syndicate and is trying to bring him down. I can assure you, that’s complete nonsense. Oliver’s as straight as they come. Anyway, I had better be going. You have a nice evening, Ma’am.”

“Thank you again, officer.” Hodgson passed me her card and told me to call if there were any issues with Maisie and then walked off.

I turned to smile at Shaun, but didn’t know what to say to him. We hadn’t spoken a lot and he was a shy kid, the complete opposite to Maisie.

“It’s not true,” Shaun said. “What Superintendent Winston thinks about Oliver.”

“I know,” I said. “Oliver would never do anything like that.”

“My dad did,” Shaun said. “And Oliver was his friend. That’s why the cop thinks Oliver was involved, but he’s not.”

Shaun sat down on a bench and didn't say anything. I looked into Hodgson’s office and saw Oliver leaning forward and talking casually to Maisie. He said something that made her smile, and then something else that made her laugh.

I smiled too, even though I had no idea what they were laughing at. How could Oliver have changed so much? Shaun probably had a lot to do with it. Adopting your dead friend’s child certainly would force you to grow up.

Maisie had a similar effect on me. I wasn’t her mother, but she looked up to me and I earned most of the money that supported us. It had made me serious and a touch grumpy, whereas Oliver had taken it all in stride. It probably helped that he earned millions a year playing sports, mind you.

They stood up and I moved away from the door so they wouldn’t know I’d been watching them. Oliver had his arm around her, and there were signs of tears on Maisie’s face, although whether that was from laughter or sadness I didn’t know.

“Sorry, Michelle,” Maisie said. “I shouldn’t have lost my temper.”

“Don’t let it happen again,” I said, sounding more Mom like than ever.

Maisie came up and threw her arms around me for a hug. Damn, it was hard to stay mad at her.

Hodgson quickly processed Maisie’s paperwork and it looked like she was in the clear.

“You going to be at the game on Saturday?” Oliver asked Hodgson.

“Nah, going to have to miss that one. This place doesn’t run itself.”

“Well next time you’re free, give me a shout. I’ll sort you out with some good seats. Don’t tell Winston though. He’ll do me for trying to bribe a police officer.”

Hodgson gave a hearty laugh. “Depends on how good the seats are. I hope you two are going to the game?” she asked Maisie and me. “Rugby’s a real sport, not like that silly one you play with all the body armor. I tried to watch a Super Bowl once, but gave up after ten minutes. It just looks like an excuse to play adverts.”

“That about sums it up,” I admitted. I didn’t actually hate football, but I didn’t have a lot of love for it either. It seemed easier just to agree with her for the time being.

“Anyway, I’d better get back to work. See you later. Pleasure to meet you both.”

The fresh air hit me the second we walked outside and I realized that the aftereffects of the alcohol were definitely still lingering.

“Can we get some food?” Maisie asked. “I’m starving.”

“Punching people gives you an appetite does it?” I asked. “We can eat something at the hotel. I’ll get room service for us.”

“Awesome. You want to come, Shaun? Oliver?”

“I’d love to,” Oliver said, looking at me as he spoke. “But we should probably head home. Remember Maisie, you were lucky tonight. If Hodgson hadn’t seen you, you could have been in a lot of trouble.”

“I know,” she said. “And I am sorry.”

“How did Hodgson know to step in anyway?” I asked. I’d been assuming she stepped in because of Shaun, but Shaun wasn’t the one who had been arrested. “She said ‘I saw her.’ It sounded like she recognized Maisie.”

“She did,” Oliver said. “She wouldn’t want me to tell you this, but Hodgson was the one who caught the men who attacked Maisie. It happened after you left the country of course, but she had the photos of her in hospital. She’s not hard to recognize and the name is firmly lodged in her mind.”

“I didn’t think anyone was ever caught,” Maisie said, taking the words right out of my mouth.

“They weren’t arrested for that attack, but they got them on other charges. They were definitely the ones who attacked you though. I’ve seen the evidence, but they couldn’t show it in court.”

“Wow,” I exclaimed. “I feel like we should go in and thank her.”

“No,” Oliver replied. “I’ll get no end of grief. She’ll insist she was just doing her job. I know she loved seeing you again tonight though. I could see it in her eyes.”

“You can come back to the hotel,” I said. “We don’t mind. I know I’m not going to be able to sleep for a few hours yet.”

“Thanks,” Oliver said, “but we should get back. I still need to have words with this one.” Oliver motioned to a sheepish looking Shaun. “It seems that small gathering of friends tonight got a bit out of hand and a load of randoms turned up.”

Maisie and I got into a taxi which took us back to the hotel. Now that things had calmed down, I remembered the worst part of what Maisie had done tonight. She’d managed to time her arrest just as Oliver and I were about to kiss.

Maybe I should be thanking her. Oliver seemed pretty keen to pretend the entire thing had never happened. Better I find that out now than after we’d taken things further. We could have gone back to the hotel together. I had no doubt that my “wait until at least the third date” rule would have not been applied in the case of Oliver. If he’d kissed me, I’d have stood no chance.