Stevie laughed.

‘No, not that, you dag; I mean once he can climb two flights of stairs with no pain or breathlessness he can get back into it again.’

‘I’ll pass on your words of advice. I’m sure he’ll find them very comforting.’

Their burgers arrived and Stevie was running out of time. ‘Okay, Skye, spill it, what have you been up to?’

Skye’s eyes took on a worrying gleam. ‘Well, for a start, I think a lot more is going on with this Pavel case than Luke Fowler is capable of handling.’

Stevie frowned. ‘You and Fowler know each other, right?’ Whatever Skye thought of Fowler, Stevie got the feeling it was mutual.

‘No time to explain the sordid details of my life right now, but let’s just say we have a history and he hates my guts.’

‘Okay,’ Stevie said, ‘Change of topic. You said before you thought the baby was adopted.’

Skye swallowed one bite of burger and took another, speaking with her mouth full. ‘Yeah, it’s the obvious explanation seeing as both parents are Caucasian.’ She pulled a crumpled newspaper photo from her bag to remind Stevie what the Pavels looked like. The images were grainy, but Jon Pavel’s high forehead and blunt features spoke of an eastern European heritage. While not quite so obviously European, Delia’s small, mousy face could never have been mistaken for Asian.

‘Yes, Romanian, they’ve been in the country for about six years,’ Skye said. ‘I’ve no idea if the police are going any further with this, or if they’ve just given up and chucked the matter into the too-hard basket. A mate of mine in the DCP tried to dig up the adoption papers but hasn’t been able to find a thing.’

‘He’s probably telling you a furphy—what you asked him to do is a serious, sackable offence. Still,’ Stevie added thoughtfully, ‘I suppose the baby might have been adopted from overseas.’

‘That’s what I’m getting at. He was adopted overseas and the papers burned in the house fire last year. But is there any way you can follow through with Fowler on this? Just so we know all the bases are covered. I feel this might be important.’

‘No way, I’m keeping away from this.’ Stevie eyed her friend suspiciously. ‘Wait a minute, how did you know about the fire last year? The newspapers haven’t mentioned it.’

‘Just a bit of, er, networking.’ Skye’s gaze dropped to a sprinkling of crumbs on the table and she pushed them around with the stub of a black-painted fingernail.

‘Go on,’ Stevie prompted.

Skye took a breath. ‘Yesterday Mrs Hardegan’s phone was out of order. I needed to visit the neighbours on the other side to see if theirs was working—and it was by the way.’

‘And Mrs Hardegan’s was never broken anyway, you just needed an excuse for a chat.’

‘Muriel and David Blakeman are nice, friendly people, but they don’t like the Pavels at all. David said Jon Pavel was a slimy, inconsiderate wanker—my words—who he wouldn’t trust as far as he could throw. The Blakemans told me about the house fire, an electrical fault apparently. Jon Pavel was obnoxious even when they put him and his family up for that first night when they had nowhere else to go. The baby was only a couple of months old then.’

Stevie remembered the deli woman telling her how unpopular the Pavels were with the neighbours, although she wasn’t about to let Skye know she’d been doing some undercover snooping herself.

‘But I still got a lot more from Mrs Hardegan than I did the Blakemans.’

‘Hang on, tell me more about the old lady: she can’t be a reliable witness, surely?’

‘Oh, you’d be surprised, there’s not much escapes her, don’t be fooled by her crazy speech.’

‘So she understands what’s going on?’

‘You bet she does.’

‘Then why does she talk like that?’

‘The stroke was in the language centre of the left side of her brain, meaning it effects the right side of her body.’

Stevie’s mind stretched back to school biology lessons, something about the nerves crossing as they left the brain. ‘That’s why she’s weak down her right side?’

‘That’s right,’ Skye said. ‘She’s lucky, the stroke could’ve been a lot worse. Her speech difficulties aren’t as bad as they could be, difficulty with naming things mainly, confusing pronouns, et cetera. Her auditory comprehension and understanding are preserved, although her reading and writing are very much impaired. Every case is slightly different though—even with lesions in exactly the same place, no two people have quite the same symptoms.’

‘What about thought processes?’

‘Pretty good; but there can be personality changes. I didn’t know her before the stroke so I can’t say if her personality has been affected or not. She sure as hell doesn’t suffer fools, but I suspect that’s nothing new.’

‘Whatever, it must be very frustrating for her, she’s bound to get narky sometimes—I sure would.’ Stevie paused, took a sip of juice. ‘So, what did she tell you about the Pavels?

‘Seems she knew Delia Pavel quite well, was one of the few people in the street who got on with the both of them. Before the stroke she used to help out by watering the indoor plants when they went away—that’s why she still had the key to their front door. From what I could gather from Mrs H, they were unhappy because they couldn’t have children. Then an overseas agency organised a child for them and they were over the moon. But after they’d had Joshua for a couple of months, Delia seemed to fall into some kind of depression. Mrs H couldn’t explain it, but I reckon it must have been the reason behind the badly kept house, although she assured me the baby continued to be loved and well looked after. It wasn’t long after that Mrs H had her stroke and her memory of that time is a bit hazy. I tried to tell Fowler all this but he wouldn’t listen, even when I said I understood the old lady more than most. He’s just dismissed her as a loopy old woman and he already thinks I’m an interfering cow. He said he couldn’t see that the overseas adoption had any relevance at all. He even threatened me with a restraining order—can you imagine that?’

Stevie speculated on the reasons why a restraining order hadn’t been served already, or Skye charged with interfering with police business. Had this been her case, she certainly would have opted for one of the two. She wondered again about the history Fowler and Skye shared.

‘I can’t afford to let that happen,’ Skye went on. ‘I’m the only one who has any inkling what the poor old dear is saying. On top of all this drama with the Pavels, she’s really upset with her son who wants to sell the house from under her and put her in a Z-grade nursing home—her block’s worth a bomb, apparently. Pressure like this could easily cause another stroke. The long and the short of it is: in order for me to stay in contact with Mrs H, I’m going to have to hand the investigative reins over to you. ’

Stevie almost choked on her burger. ‘Oh no you don’t!’

‘But you’ve got so many resources at your fingertips. We found the baby together, for God’s sake! You can’t tell me that this affected you less than me. How can you not be interested?’ Skye hesitated. ‘And there’s two other things you need to know about, very important things that might make you more willing to help.’ She paused for breath, took a large swallow of her bile-coloured drink then rummaged in her handbag for a moment, producing a paper lunch bag. ‘I found it on the other side of the taped driveway quite close to the house, but in an area the police hadn’t searched. It might be important; then again it might be nothing, but if I were you I’d get it DNA tested.’

Stevie gaped at the bag Skye dangled like bait between her black-tipped fingernails.

‘Christ, you shouldn’t have this Skye—you shouldn’t even have touched it! If it is something important, the only DNA that would be on it now is yours, and the remains of a cheese and ham sandwich by the looks of it.’