Secret Sins: A Callie Anson (17 page)

But now: money! A great deal of money. More money than had passed through her hands in the last three years running.

The knot in her stomach ignited into flame, burning fierce and hot, as the possibilities flashed through her mind. Dreams she had suppressed, hopes she had long ago relinquished,
suddenly
revived. It wasn’t too late, she told herself triumphantly. No, it wasn’t too late.

It took over a minute for the sound of his mobile phone’s ring tone to penetrate through the deep layers of Neville’s slumber. ‘Oh, God,’ he moaned, groping for it before he was more than marginally awake. His hand found the phone on the bedside table, his finger found the button, yet his eyes were still screwed shut. ‘Yes?’ he growled into it.

‘Guv? Where are you?’ Sid Cowley sounded impatient, even agitated.

‘I’m…’ Neville forced his eyes open with some difficulty.

Where the hell
was
he?

A bedroom. Small. Chest of drawers, bedside table, his clothes on the floor. He was in the double bed—alone. He’d never seen this room before—at least not that he could remember. Where was it? How the hell had he got here?

Neville ran a fuzzy tongue over dry lips. ‘Never mind where I am. What do you want?’

‘You’re supposed to be at work, Guv.’

‘Work!’ He twisted round and manoeuvred his wrist in front of his face. Yes, he was wearing his watch. And it was past ten o’clock! ‘Bloody hell,’ he muttered.

It started to come back to him, vaguely. The Irish pub—a damn good pub, and Willow had been right about the music. And what went better with live Irish music than Guinness? Copious quantities of it. He’d always prided himself on his ability to hold his Guinness—and his facility to out-drink just about anyone. But Willow had proved herself a worthy drinking partner, and had kept up with him pint-for-pint.

Until…what? His memory failed him, petering out at some point just before last orders, when he’d stumped up for a few more pints to tide them over until the music wound down.

‘I’ve been waiting for you,’ Sid’s insistent voice went on. Like a buzzing gnat coming down the phone. ‘The Coroner’s been trying to track you down. And there have been a few…
developments
… in the case.’

‘Developments?’ Neville was fully awake now. ‘Good, or bad?’

‘Something good, something…not so good, probably,’ Sid said, irritatingly—and no doubt deliberately—obscure. ‘Anyway, Guv, you’d better get here as soon as you can. Wherever you are,’ he added with snide emphasis.

‘Yeah, yeah. I’ll be there soon.’ That was the best Neville could promise, still clueless as to his current location.

As he reached for his clothes, his head spinning with the effort, he was enlightened on that subject by the arrival of Willow, coming through the door with a large mug in each hand. She was wearing an oversized T-shirt with a Planet Earth logo across the chest, her legs fetchingly bare. ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘Are you awake, then? I brought you some coffee.’

‘I hope it’s strong,’ Neville stated, reaching for it.

Willow settled herself on the bed next to him and took a sip from her own mug. ‘As strong as I could make it.’

It was indeed strong; Neville discovered with the first gulp that it was also very hot, but he didn’t care. The important thing was that the caffeine was doing its work, shooting straight into the bloodstream. Feeling a bit less groggy already, Neville swung his legs over the side of the bed and retrieved his trousers.

‘What’s the rush?’ asked Willow.

‘Work. I have to go to work.’ He turned to fix her with an accusing glare. ‘Why didn’t you wake me? It’s after ten!’

Willow smiled. ‘You were sleeping so peacefully. And so soundly. Like a rock, in fact. I don’t think I could have waked you if I tried. And,’ she added, ‘I have the morning off. I don’t have to be to work till after lunch.’ She crossed her legs
yoga-style
, settling back against the headboard.

The crossed legs, and what that position revealed, distracted Neville from getting dressed and raised certain inevitable
questions
which he felt needed to be answered before he took his leave of her. He sat back down on the bed. ‘What…what happened last night?’ he asked awkwardly, his face averted from her.

‘I didn’t think you’d remember.’ Willow’s voice was
matter-of
-fact. ‘You had a lot to drink. We both did. My flat is close to the pub, so we came back here.’

‘And?’ He didn’t want to be crude—or ungallant—but he did need to know.

‘You’re wondering whether we slept together.’ Willow laughed, sounding amused. ‘Well, yes, we did sleep in the same bed. It’s the only one I have, and I wasn’t going to sleep on the sofa just because you were in it. So technically we did sleep together.’

‘But…’

Willow shook her head. ‘Listen, Neville. There was only one thing you could talk about last night. After you’d had a few pints, that is.’

He couldn’t imagine what she meant. Had he come on to her, then?

‘That girlfriend of yours,’ she went on. ‘Triona, is she called? Pretty name. Unusual.’

‘Triona!’ The name exploded from his lips, resounded in his head.

‘You talked about her all night. How she’s really put you through it, making you jump through hoops for her. How you were sick of it, but you just couldn’t get her out of your head. How she’s everything you ever wanted in a woman—sexy,
beautiful
, clever, funny.’

‘I said
that
?’

‘Not exactly the best line to take if you wanted to get me into bed,’ she said comfortably, laughing. ‘Most women don’t like to hear stuff like that about other women. Puts them off a bit.’

Neville was stunned, speechless. He had
never
talked about Triona. Not to anyone. Not ever. She was his private torture, not something to be discussed even with a friend like Mark, let alone with a woman he scarcely knew.

But it wasn’t something Willow could have made up.
Therefore
he must have done it.

‘I suppose I’m flattered, in a way,’ Willow said. ‘It must mean that you find me approachable. A mate, if nothing else.’

It must mean he’d been out of his bloody mind.

She ran a hand through her hair, ruffling it up into wispy red spikes. ‘Do you want my advice? As a mate?’

Not really, he wanted to say. He didn’t want
anyone’s
advice, when it came to Triona.

Willow evidently took his silence for assent. ‘Go after her,’ she said bluntly. ‘Get her back. You’re crazy in love with her, Neville. You’re miserable without her. Why are you being such a wimp about it?’

That stung him to respond at last. ‘A wimp?’ he repeated, outraged.

‘Okay, then. Not a wimp. A macho twat. If you can’t have things your own way, you’ll just take your marbles and go home.’ The tone of her voice, and her smile, saved the words from being offensively insulting. ‘Listen, Neville. I’m saying this for your own good,’ she added. ‘Trust me. You’ll never be happy without her.’

‘Braxton Hicks contractions,’ Yolanda pronounced, once she’d got Rachel into bed and checked her over. ‘That’s all it is. Brought on by stress and over-exerting yourself.’

Rachel caught her breath sharply, her brow furrowed with pain. In a moment she relaxed and was able to speak. ‘I’ve had Braxton Hicks before. This feels different.’

‘You’re getting nearer your time. And you shouldn’t have been doing the kitchen floor,’ Yolanda said, trying to sound stern.

‘Sorry.’

‘You won’t try that again, will you?’

‘No.’ Rachel twisted her head and made eye contact. ‘Thanks, Yolanda,’ she said. ‘Really. Thanks for everything. I don’t know what I’d have done without you.’

‘Just doing my job,’ Yolanda said, almost brusquely. But she couldn’t help feeling gratified.

Frances took a break mid-morning, went to her rarely-visited desk, and rang Triona at the office. She was put through by a secretary.

‘Hi,’ she said when Triona came on the line. ‘I just wanted to see how you were doing.’

‘Still puking my guts out,’ Triona said bluntly. ‘Every few minutes, it seems like. Even in this place full of extraordinarily dim solicitors, someone is going to twig pretty soon.’

Frances paused. ‘And…Neville? Have you contacted him?’

‘No. I told you. I’m not going to. If I’m lucky, I’ll never see the bastard again. And he’ll never find out.’

‘Well,’ said Frances lamely, aware that nothing she could say would change the mind of her very determined friend, ‘if you need someone to talk to, you know where to find me.’

‘Thanks,’ Triona said. ‘And thanks for ringing. I do
appreciate
it.’

Sid Cowley was sitting at Neville’s desk, drinking coffee and
reading
the
Globe
. ‘Good of you to turn up, Guv,’ he said sarcastically as the desk’s owner came in. ‘Evans will be pleased.’

‘Evans? Oh, God. What does he have to do with it?’ In Neville’s experience, anything that involved Detective Superintendent Evans couldn’t possibly be good news.

‘It’s only that he’s seen the
Globe
this morning. His secretary showed him.’

Cowley held the paper out and Neville snatched it from him. There was probably some coverage of his press conference; what else could it be?

KILLED FOR HIS iPOD, screamed the headline, over a grainy photo of Trevor Norton. Well, that was pretty accurate, if their suspicions were right. Why should Evans get his knickers in a twist over that?

‘Read it,’ said Cowley. ‘Lilith Noone strikes again.’

‘In yet another example of yob culture gone mad, young father-to-be Trevor Norton was brutally murdered on Friday by someone who wanted his iPod,’ Neville read aloud. ‘Norton, whose wife Rachel is expecting their first child at any minute, was jogging along the Grand Union Canal near his Paddington home when he was waylaid and slain. His body was pulled out of the canal the next day.

‘Although iPod murders are not unknown in the US, this is the first slaying in this country which seems definitely linked to the popular digital music player, much sought-after by young people.

‘Detective Inspector Neville Stewart, the Chief Investigating Officer, held a press conference yesterday in which he declined to make the connection between this murder and today’s rampant and violent youth culture—a culture which, as this slaying
demonstrates
, makes it increasingly difficult for law-abiding citizens of this country to go about their business unmolested.