Pete laughs — a proper laugh this time — and I feel something uncoil in my chest.
“Careful,” he says. “He might take you up on that.”
“Perfect,” I reply. “I’ve always wanted to live in a house with a man who stares at me like I’ve broken into his garden.”
We’re both laughing now, and for the first time since last night, it feels easy again.
When we part ways outside, I feel lighter somehow. Like we’ve shifted a weight I didn’t realise I’d been carrying. Not all of it — there are still questions hanging between us like damp washing — but enough that I can breathe again.
Pete gives me a warm smile before heading off in the opposite direction. I watch him go for a moment longer than is probably socially acceptable, then start walking myself, hands shoved deep in my pockets.
I pull out my phone as I reach the corner.
One missed call.
Evelyn.
I hover my thumb over the screen.
She’s calling me now. Shit.
I can’t stop thinking about the blood,her last message said.
I shove the phone away and keep walking. The evening air has that perfect August balance — just warm enough not to need a jacket. The street is quiet, just the occasional car passing, headlights slicing across the pavement.
And then I see him.
Daniel.
He’s standing on the opposite pavement, maybe twenty metres ahead. Head down, hands in his pockets, like he’s just waiting for the lights to change.
He looks up and for a second our eyes connect.
I freeze. A shiver cascades down my neck.
Then a bus moves in front of us, coming to a stop.
But when the bus has gone, so has he.
The pavement is empty.
Chapter 17
CRAIG
Craig stands at the kitchen window and watches the rain try to make a point of itself on the patio. It’s that Bristol drizzle that isn’t committed enough to be dramatic but still insists on ruining plans. The kind of weather he’s spent half his career standing in while cordons go up and statements get taken. Twenty years in Avon and Somerset Police and drizzle is still the thing he hates most—not the blood, not the lies, not the nights that turned into mornings. The drizzle.
Phil wanders down the stairs, whistling something jaunty and unnecessarily jovial for a Wednesday evening.
“Big night?” Craig calls, not moving from the window. He can see Phil’s reflection, jacket on, hair done with the extra ten-percent care.
Phil steps into the doorway, tilting his head. “Just a drink,” in the tone of someone who knows exactly how loaded that sounds. “Possibly two. We live in uncertain times.”
“With?”
“Just that guy off Scruff — the one with the cute dog and the aggressively good lighting.” Phil says, smiling with the kind of softness that used to make Craig melt. “Friendly. Safe. No sharp edges.”
The word lands. Safe. It’s become their euphemism. Safe as in: not a risk to the scaffolding holding them up. Safe as in: this won’t hurt you. Safe as in: you won’t notice.
