She gave him a conciliatory grin. ‘Bad as that, huh?’
He replied with a grunt and wandered off to the living room. When she followed with a well-filled tumbler and the bottle of Glenfiddich, he was watching the TV without the sound. The documentary had finished and been replaced by a football match. Two European teams she’d never heard of. She switched off the set and put on the CD player. Erik Satie; not her sort of music, too ethereal, but Marc was a fan. He gulped the whisky down without uttering a word. The coffee was still too hot, so she went to sit cross-legged on the rug, right at his feet. She caught the whiff of alcohol on his breath as he poured himself another generous measure.
She pushed the glass to one side with a firm shake of the head. ‘If you drink much more of that tonight, you’ll be no good to me later on.’
He still didn’t say anything as she eased off his socks and began to stroke his soles. Foot massage was something he liked, something that often formed a prelude to making up after an argument or a period when they’d been too busy to spare enough time for each other. Suddenly she realised how much she wanted this to end in their making love, to magic away the troubles of the world.
‘Want to tell me all about it?’ There was no hard skin anywhere on his feet, no callouses, no corns; he just didn’t have physical blemishes, this man. Already she was getting into a rhythm, moving her hands up and down, up and down.
‘I don’t think that would be a good idea,’ he said hoarsely.
She could feel the tension in his body. He hadn’t closed his eyes yet in surrender to her caress, let alone made a move to unfasten her blouse or jeans.
‘Come on, talk to me,’ she whispered.
‘It won’t help.’
‘Hey, relax.’ She ran her nails lightly over the surface of his feet ‘You’re not the only one who’s had a difficult day.’
It was true enough. They were no nearer to finding their anonymous caller. Bob Swindell had reported that Dale Moffat in particular had been hostile and unco-operative when questioned, but Linz didn’t recognise the voice of either of the sisters. The likeliest candidate remained Jean Allardyce and she’d gone AWOL. Tomorrow they’d have to try again. How much did Marc care about that, or about anything other than his own preoccupations? Increasingly of late, a sceptical voice kept quizzing her: just how tough can it be, running a bookshop, for God’s sake? Opening and shutting pretty much as you please, answerable to no one but yourself?
‘Is that so?’ He lifted his legs, pulling out of her grasp. ‘Sorry, it keeps slipping my mind how much more arduous your job is than mine.’
‘I never said that.’
‘You were thinking it, though.’ With a defiant glare, he picked up the tumbler and took a mouthful of whisky. ‘Don’t deny it, Hannah. I know you too well.’
Her cheeks started burning and that made her angry, with herself and with him. She hauled herself up and said, ‘For God’s sake, what’s got into you tonight?’
His eyes were glistening. For a few seconds she was afraid she’d gone too far and that he would dissolve into tears. ‘All right. If you really want to know, it’s to do with this inquiry your people are running. Leigh called me earlier. She and Dale have each been given the third degree by a pair of your DCs.’
She was baffled. ‘Is that all?’
‘It’s enough.’
‘Leigh’s getting it out of proportion. The team was only conducting routine follow-up interviews.’
He tossed back the remainder of the whisky. ‘Is this simply because Daniel Kind has turned up on the scene? Because his father never accepted Barrie’s guilt, you want to keep the son happy by going through the motions, is that it?’
‘This has nothing to do with Daniel Kind.’
‘You’ve not spoken to him?’
When she hesitated before replying, she saw a gleam of satisfaction in his eyes. ‘He and I have talked, yes. What about it?’
‘There’s no need for your sidekicks to go around upsetting people all these years later.’
He poured himself another finger of Glenfiddich. In some bizarre way, he seemed to regard himself as having scrambled on to the moral high ground. With no bloody justification at all. The sheer unfairness of it made her skin prickle.
‘What’s the problem?’ Her voice was rising; she couldn’t help herself. ‘I don’t get it. For God’s sake, Dale and Leigh aren’t kids who need to be seen in the presence of an appropriate adult. They’re mature women, they can cope with a few questions.’
‘Leigh told me they pretty much reduced Dale to tears. Don’t they realise she’s a lone parent? That she’s…vulnerable?’
‘Vulnerable? Don’t make me laugh, she’s about as vulnerable as Cruella de Ville.’ Hannah softened her tone as she added, ‘Don’t worry, I haven’t forgotten that you and she used to see each other. Fair enough if you still want to look out for her. But there’s nothing to fret over. Bob and Linz were only doing their job. No one’s accusing her of murdering Gabrielle Anders.’
‘Easy for you to say,’ he snapped. ‘Routine investigations are all in a day’s work for you, but the sisters aren’t used to being interrogated. Made to feel as though they are being secretive, holding stuff back, obstructing the police in the course of their inquiries.’
‘Dale and Leigh were both working at The Moon under Water at the time. It was possible that either of them might have been our anonymous caller.’
‘Ludicrous.’
‘Or they may have seen something, without even realising its significance. We have to cover all the bases.’
He took another drink of whisky. ‘This is so typical. You people do anything you want.’
‘You people?’ She reached out and seized his wrist. ‘Hey, this is me. Your partner, remember? I’m not you people.’
He drained his glass and poured again. ‘It’s true, though, isn’t it? Police work is all about trampling over lives, regardless of the consequences.’
Without a word, she took the tumbler out of his hand and put it down on the rug. ‘Marc, I can’t believe you’re saying this. It’s so over the top. Look, we’re both tired, you’ve obviously had plenty to drink already. It’s not even dark yet, but never mind. Why don’t we have an early night for once?’
‘You always have to have the last word, don’t you?’ he said bitterly. ‘I will go up, but maybe I’ll spend the night in the spare room. You can get on with your work as late as you like without any disturbance.’
His words were like needles entering her flesh. ‘Why are you doing this?’
He gave a curt nod in the direction of her briefcase and laptop. ‘You’ll have brought work home, presumably? As always. You’re forever saying you need to catch up with the paperwork. Well, here’s your chance.’
‘I don’t need to…’
He sprang to his feet, although the decisive effect was compromised by a slight stumble which caused him to knock over the glass of whisky. As Hannah let her voice trail away, she watched an amber stain spreading out over the rug. Reaching out for the music system remote, she brought an abrupt end to Trois Gymnopedies.
He stopped at the door, seemed to waver for a moment. ‘Goodnight, then.’
She didn’t answer. Tonight there wasn’t anything more for them to say to each other.
She’d never asked Marc directly about his love life in the years before they got together. It wasn’t that she was incurious; far from it. But there were some questions — a lot of questions, actually — that it was better not to ask. You never knew how easy it would be to live with the answers.
Unlike her previous boyfriends, he seldom talked about himself. Except at their most intimate moments, when he gave himself to her without reservation, there remained something unknowable about him, something other-worldly and remote. In those heart-stopping weeks after she’d first slept with him, she’d vowed that she would suppress her natural inquisitiveness and concentrate on the here and now. All that mattered was that she never lost him.