Nothing happened.

On the screen, a message flashed up: Out of paper.

‘Kim?’ he called, as his eyes searched the room. ‘Have we got any more printer paper?’

‘Is it on the shelf?’ Her voice came from the bedroom.

‘There’s none there.’

‘Then we must be out.’

He sighed and saved the file for later – it could wait if it had to. As he shut down the email program, he caught a movement at the edge of his vision. Turning his head, he saw Kim standing in the doorway, watching him.

‘What is it?’ he asked.

She shook her head. ‘Nothing.’

He held out his hand to her but she turned away and started down the stairs. Naysmith rubbed his eyes for a long moment, then reluctantly got to his feet and slowly followed her down to the kitchen. All this fuss over an exhibition for someone they barely knew – it was just getting silly now.

She had her back to him, standing at the sink and filling the kettle as he walked into the room.

‘Kim?’

She turned round, her eyes on him as she returned the kettle to its base and switched it on.

‘Yes?’

‘What’s bothering you?’ He realised that he had instinctively positioned himself directly between her and the doorway. He hadn’t meant to . . .

‘Who says anything’s bothering me?’ Her voice was measured, but she folded her arms as she spoke.

‘I do,’ he said softly. ‘Now what is it?’

The kettle began to steam and bubble on the counter. Naysmith waited patiently, his eyes locked on Kim until she finally raised her head and met his gaze.

‘Are you seeing someone else?’ she asked, quietly.

He had misread her. It wasn’t missing the exhibition that bothered her, it was the thought that he might be deceiving her. And he wasn’t, at least not in the way she thought . . .

‘No,’ he said, gently.

There was a long pause and Kim eventually lowered her head to stare at the floor. Didn’t she believe him?

‘Really no,’ he told her, more firmly.

Kim bit her lip and peered out at him between strands of hair that had tumbled down across her face.

‘Do you believe me?’ he asked.

She said nothing, absently toying with her hair as she stood with her back to the counter. Naysmith moved across the room and took her hand.

‘Do you believe me, Kim?’

She hesitated for a moment, then nodded slightly. ‘Yes.’

He moved closer, putting his arms around her shoulders. She remained still, passive, as he leaned forward, gently kissing her cheek, nuzzling her neck, loving the smell of her hair.

‘Rob?’ Her voice was soft, almost a whisper. ‘Are you keeping something from me?’

He paused, just for a heartbeat, and kissed her neck. Straightening up, he gazed down into her large eyes. So beautiful, so vulnerable.

‘Does it matter?’ He reached up and began slowly to unbutton her blouse, gradually revealing her smooth, pale skin. Her breathing was quicker now, her exposed chest rising and falling beneath his hands.

‘Please, Rob. Is there something?’

So perfect, her dark eyes shining, his brave little Kim.

‘Yes,’ he told her simply. At this moment, any other answer would have been unworthy of her, and unworthy of him.

Still gazing up at him, Kim blinked and sighed. It sounded almost like relief.

‘Thank you,’ she whispered. Her arms crept up to encircle his neck and she buried her face in his shoulder. It was a curious reaction, and he was surprised how much this glimmer of honesty had meant to her.

She yielded to his kiss, her body arching in response as his hands caressed her back, then stood pensively as he hitched up her skirt and calmly slid her underwear down to her feet.

‘Rob?’

‘What is it?’ he asked as he undid his belt buckle.

‘Will you tell me?’

Naysmith put his hands on her hips and lifted her up to sit on the edge of the kitchen counter, then gazed thoughtfully into her eyes.

‘Not yet,’ he said softly.

Kim nodded hesitantly, reaching out to touch his arm.

‘But one day you will?’

‘Shhh.’ He gently put a finger to her lips and smiled kindly. She studied him for a moment and shyly smiled back.

He caressed her smooth legs, spreading them apart and moving between them. When had she become so important to him? The door was open now – only slightly, but it would be almost impossible to close. He moved forward, kissing her slender neck, closing his eyes as he nuzzled her hair. Her body felt warm against his, and suddenly he didn’t care – the desire for her swept aside the growing turmoil of emotions.

For now.

46

Sunday, 16 September

Harland pulled the front door closed behind him and dropped his keys in the bowl. The house was silent but somehow that didn’t matter just now. He rubbed his eyes as he walked through to the kitchen. It had been a quiet day but he felt strangely weary as he shrugged off his jacket and draped it over a chair. Opening the fridge, he took out a bottle of sparkling water and held it against the side of his face, relishing the invigorating cold on his skin.

Work had settled down again, back to a dull routine that was almost welcome after the recent upsets and problems.

Almost welcome.

He’d spent an unrewarding afternoon behind a parade of shops on the Lawrence Weston Estate. There, between the commercial wheelie bins and the torn black refuse sacks, someone had noticed a pair of feet sticking out from under a piece of old cardboard. They’d called it in, and somehow it had fallen to Harland – perhaps as a punishment, perhaps because he didn’t have anything more important to do.

The worst of it was done by the time he got there, and it was outside, so the only real smell was the reek of the rubbish, but it wasn’t pleasant. There was nothing special about the body – a white male vagrant in his late forties – and he knew as soon as he arrived that it was just another miserable old soak, someone who’d finally lost his tenuous grip on life and slid into the dark. Tragic but meaningless. He knew that the investigation – and everything he was doing – wouldn’t really matter. When a person’s life had so little worth, his death didn’t seem to count.

He pierced the plastic covering on a pasta meal and put it in the microwave, setting the timer for three minutes.

At least these dregs jobs were keeping him away from Blake. He hadn’t seen the Superintendent since he’d returned to work, which was probably the way both of them wanted it. The less they said to each other the better. And Pope had been conspicuously absent too, first with the Shirehampton case, and then recently working on something ‘rather important’ over in Fishponds. Doubtless the little brown-noser was chasing the high-profile stuff, anything to get himself noticed, promoted. And good luck to the little bastard, just so long as it took him somewhere far away from here.

The microwave was beeping impatiently. Harland opened the door, removed the plastic tray carefully and sat down at the table to eat.

Later, when the washing-up was done, he clicked through the channels for a while, but there was nothing on TV. Switching the set off, he stood up and moved across to the bookcase. Head tilted, his eyes scanned the spines, looking for inspiration. So many books, each with its own associations and memories. Here was one he’d read by the pool in Italy a couple of years ago, and there was another that had been his companion when he’d been laid up in bed with the flu. They were both good, but he wanted something else, something he hadn’t read, something where he didn’t know the ending. Tracing a finger along the uneven books, he mouthed the titles silently to himself, until his hand paused.

It was a novel that he’d started reading once but never finished. It had been at his bedside when he came home to the empty house that first night, one more thing overtaken by his loss. He pulled it from its place on the shelf and looked at it. There was still a till receipt acting as bookmark, only a few chapters in.