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I STEP OUT
of the front door, hang there for a moment. The sky is blue today, that crisp blue that you get after a storm. The street is still damp, tarmac soaked by last night’s rain, but the temperatures are already beginning to climb and it will not be long before the heat comes. A cool breeze blows across the sea, whipping at my hair, and I feel my lungs expanding with it. You can see the sea from here. I didn’t notice that yesterday. But then, yesterday, I didn’t notice anything much. Just Aden, Aden, Aden, his fingers, his lips, the way our hands wrapped around one another as if they had been designed to do just that, two halves of a matching pair. I stand, watch a sailing boat out in the bay, the white of it bowed and billowing. It is a perfect day.

‘So, tonight?’ Aden is standing in the doorway, is wearing a towel and a smile. ‘We could go out, get some dinner, go to the cinema?’

I smile, lean in. ‘We could stay in?’

He kisses me, tastes of toothpaste. I really don’t want to leave.

‘I have to go.’ I pull back before I get carried away. ‘And you have to go to work. But tonight. Definitely tonight.’

‘Definitely tonight.’

Another kiss, and I can’t believe we haven’t done this before, that he’s been right here, waiting, for so long, and we’ve never done this; and I think that I am a moron, and that I am lucky my time didn’t run out, that I didn’t leave it until it was too late. Then I turn, hurry down the steps.

I will get to my mother’s house early. She isn’t expecting me for lunch for a couple of hours, but she will be happy that I have turned up, that I have made the effort.

I am in the car, have started the engine, have pulled out – one last wave at Aden still standing, wrapped in his towel. Grinning. I suppress a grin of my own. Fight the urge to turn around and say: screw families and work, let’s hop back into bed. There is a grey Mondeo parked three doors down, something about it familiar, tugging at me, and I am turning to look when my mobile begins to ring. I glance down, thinking to ignore it. Then I see the caller ID.

Lecherous bartender.

I’m fairly sure the guy had a name, even though I couldn’t tell you for the life of me what it was. My heart beats a little faster, and I angle the car hastily into a parking space.

‘Hello?’

‘Hiya, is that Charlie?’

‘Yes.’ What the hell is his name?

‘It’s Luke from Delizioso.’

Luke. Of course. ‘Hi, Luke. How are you?’

‘I’m good. Look, my manager, she’s just come in. If you were still wanting to see that CCTV, she’s here now. Says it’ll be fine if you want to watch it.’

I drum my fingers on the steering wheel. Shit! I’m about to say no, honestly I am; I’m about to say that it will have to wait, because I’m going to see my mother, and today I have big plans to actually make some kind of an effort with her. Unfortunately, no one informed my mouth of these plans.

‘I’m on my way.’

I hang up. Shit! What the hell is wrong with me? I sit there for a moment, debating. But I can’t shake the image of Emily’s mother, her face old with grief, not knowing why her daughter died. And somehow that image merges, and now I’m thinking of Carla Lowe, her relentless resilience, faith betrayed. Thinking that I can’t help the latter, there is nothing I can do to save her son. But I may be able to do something to help the former.

I drive faster than I should, along Oystermouth Road, up into the town. It’s quiet at this time of day – just me, the street cleaners, a couple of drunks from the night before. I pull up right outside Delizioso, ignore the No Parking sign, dash inside.

Luke is waiting for me.

His hair is slicked back today, his collar pulled wide at the chest to reveal a tuft of black hair. ‘Hi, you came. Stacey, Charlie’s here.’

The manager is younger than I was expecting her to be, is far younger than me, early twenties maybe. Her hair is bleached white, shaved at the sides, the top of it curling over itself like a wave. She is sheathed in black – a black crêpe blouse, black skinny trousers – a tattoo on her neck, climbing up to her jaw, a snake, its fangs protruding. She nods at me, her look appraising.

‘Charlie wanted to see the CCTV footage. It’s about that girl, the one who died. Remember I told you?’

‘All right, Luke.’ Her tone is hard, makes me think of rolled-up newspaper across a dog’s nose. ‘You want to come through?’ This last to me. She turns, doesn’t wait to see if I’ll follow. ‘It was the 25th August, yeah?’

‘That’s right.’

She pushes open a door marked Private, lets it swing shut behind her. I catch it just in time. The office is chaos, a narrow cupboard of a room, the desk barely able to support itself under the weight of the paper piles that stagger unevenly across its surface. She turns towards a small screen in the corner, typing something onto a keyboard. Looks like the one I had with my Amstrad. She sighs, low and breathy, and I smell something. Wonder if it’s pot.

‘There it is. You’ll have to scan through it yourself. I’ve got stuff to do.’ She looks me up and down. ‘You’re not going to tell anyone about this, yeah?’

I shake my head quickly. ‘No, absolutely not.’ Think that I wouldn’t bloody dare.

She studies me, then nods, turning sharply on spiked heels.

There is no chair, so I stand, leaning over the desk until I am almost nose-to-nose with the monitor. I watch people flood past, visible only by the tops of their heads, and I can feel something sinking inside me, wonder how the hell I’m going to find her in this. The time-stamp says 10.02. I watch as unkempt figures wander by, watch as one man stops, vomits into the gutter. Thank God I didn’t have breakfast. I am starting to think this was a waste of time. Then I see her.

In truth I wouldn’t have known her, not if I hadn’t been looking for her. Emily’s hair is down, different to what I have seen before, but what throws me is the expression, slack-jawed from alcohol. Her head is tilted back, so that she’s looking dead onto the camera, but her gaze is vacant, far-away. I look, can see a glint of gold around her neck. The missing necklace. The barman was right. She can barely walk, one leg seems to be dragging behind her, and she is leaning – being carried almost – by the man beside her. I look at him. He is looking dead ahead. So I can’t see his face, can just see dark hair, can see that he is taller than her, slender, but because of the angle I can’t see by how much. Can feel my insides sinking.

Then he looks up, looks straight at the camera.

I know him.

ADEN PULLED THE
front door closed behind him, stepped out onto his front step and breathed in the sea air. It was lighter now, that heavy heat worn away, replaced by an easy warmth, a careless breeze. He checked the lock, turned. Felt like whistling, but that was such a cliché. He hummed instead, a quiet, easy tune. Was thinking about Charlie. Had a feeling that he would be thinking about little else for the foreseeable future. He could still smell her on him, beneath his own cologne, could still feel the curves of her, the way her body slotted into his. He took the steps quickly. Was thinking about tonight, was ticking off how long he had until he saw her again. Was thinking how everything had changed in these few small hours, life righting itself for the first time since the alleyway and the gunshots. He was happy.

But happy people are often not observant people, and perhaps that was why he didn’t see it coming.

Aden was at his car, his keys in hand. Would later dimly remember the sound of footsteps, a quick, urgent step. Would remember his body beginning to turn, because, even in love, he was a police officer, with a police officer’s sense of danger.

Then the world shifted and he was falling.

Aden hit the ground, hard, the impact jarring through his elbow, pain racing up his arm, into his neck. Trying to orient himself, but all he could see was dark-flecked tarmac, a gob of chewing gum that had stuck itself to the kerb beside his head. His heart thumping, a ringing in his ears. He pushed himself up, his right arm screaming with pain. Turned, the world spinning around him.

Then the knife. It cut through the air, like it would cleave the sky in two, the sunlight catching on it until it appeared to be made of silver. Aden’s arm moved, seemingly unconnected to his mind, knocking into something solid, a body mass. The knife staggered as if it was drunk, veering away from him. There was a smell: booze, sweat, old cigarettes. Then something solid – an arm, it appeared – rebounded on itself, the knife coming at him. Aden stepped back, leaning as far as his spine would allow.

His gaze lost its grip on the knife and settled instead on the one holding it.

Steve Lowe’s face was balled up into a childish fury, his eyes squinting so that it seemed impossible he could see from them. He seemed to have grown in the time since Aden had seen him last, swollen up, so that now he was a roaring wave of anger. He shifted, an unsteady dance from foot to foot, and then lunged again, holding the knife level with Aden’s heart, driving forward, letting loose a roar. It seemed inevitable that the knife would find its target, but then Aden’s training took over, his left hand snaking out, gripping Steve Lowe’s wrist, a feeling of pressure, like trying to hold back the sea. Aden shifted, taking a step back, then bringing his foot forward. It was a wild swing, one that connected by pure luck, the sole of his boot flat against Steve’s knee.

There was a crack.

Then Steve was falling, tumbling downwards and hitting the tarmac with a smack, the knife falling away from him, spinning in its own private orbit. He curled in upon himself, cradling his knee, letting loose a wrenching, twisting kind of sob.

‘You killed my son. You killed my son.’

And Aden stood there for a moment. Staring.

There were footsteps from somewhere nearby, someone shouting, but Aden ignored it. Reached down, pulled Steve’s hands behind his back, twisting his wrist so that his hand ran parallel to his spine. Then Aden knelt, digging his knee into Steve’s wrists; could feel his own heart thundering, shook his head, trying to get his vision to come back to normal, the world to unblur. With one hand, he pulled his mobile free. Dialled.

‘Nine-Nine-Nine. What is your emergency?’

‘This is Officer Four Nine Two. I am on Churtsley Avenue. I have been attacked by a man with a knife. I have him restrained, requesting urgent back-up.’

Steve lay beneath him, had given up the fight. Thick, fat tears coursing down his red cheeks. Aden dimly heard someone acknowledge him, heard some mention of back-up on its way, waited for the relief to flood. But nothing, just the shifting, sliding feeling of another shoe about to drop. He hung up the phone, shifted his weight, leaned in towards Steve.

‘How did you know who I was? How did you get my address?’

Steve shook his head. Aden could smell the alcohol on him now, thick and pungent; incredible that he could walk, let alone anything else, with those fumes. He dug his knee in harder.

‘Was it you? At the hospital? Was it?’

Steve let loose a low moan, shifted beneath him.

‘How did you know where I was?’

‘Some bloke. Some bloke rang me. Told me he knew where I could find the fucker that killed my boy.’

‘Who? Who rang you?’

There was a new sound now, sirens – one set, two – cutting through the air. The tearing of brakes, car doors, and heavy footsteps, running.

‘I don’t fucking know. I don’t fucking know. Some bloke. Some . . . he didn’t say. Just, he was really Welshy.’

Hands are on Aden’s now, a flash of metal as cuffs are clamped around Steve’s wrists, then more hands, pulling Aden back, patting him down, a voice: you okay? You injured?

But Aden didn’t answer, because all he could think of was a voice on the phone, a fist thundering through the air, a thick Welsh accent.

Tony.

IMOGEN STOOD IN
the hallway of Mara’s empty house. Sunlight flooded in through the glass front door, everything still, quiet, dust motes dancing in the air. She hadn’t gone home, had spent the night curled on the sofa in her office, hadn’t slept. She had locked the door, though. She hadn’t spoken to her sister, even though Mara had called her more times than she could remember. In the end Imogen had shut the phone off. Had lain on the sofa, staring into the silence.

She was alone. More alone than she had ever felt before. Because for as long as she could remember, she had always been one half of a pair. There had been her and there had been Mara. Mirror-images of one another. The person that you knew inside and out.

Imogen stood in her sister’s hallway, wondered if she had ever really known her at all.

It was impossible – a jigsaw piece that simply wouldn’t fit, that had been transposed from a different puzzle into this. Because this was her sister. This was her twin. Imogen stood in the hallway, stared at the relentlessly cream walls, the heavy wool carpet. What exactly was her sister capable of? They said that she had hurt Amy, but she couldn’t have. She just couldn’t have. And who was it that Mara was sleeping with? She had gambled her marriage away, on what? On whom?

Dave had stood, limp and listless in the doorway of her office. Had let his gaze drop, the pressure of her fury more than he could bear. ‘I haven’t, Im. I swear. I haven’t slept with her.’

‘But you wanted to?’

A long, loaded silence, then a tear rolling down his cheek. ‘I was calling her. I thought, you know how she is, I thought that maybe there was a chance – you know, that she felt something for me.’ He shook his head. ‘I was wrong. I’m so sorry.’

Imogen had studied him, was dimly aware that she should perhaps feel pity for the man she had planned to marry, but there was none there, just the sensation of a book nearing its final pages. ‘The gun?’