“Sorry, love, I wasn’t sure if you’d just gone for a ciggy.”
“You’ll say anything, you will. You’ll sit all day and talk to any man that’ll look at ya. Fuckin’ whore,” Richie hisses, and Lindsay blushes.
“There’s no need for that. I was just coming,” she says.
Richie Scott grabs Lindsay by the arm and pulls. She appears well made and strong, but she is no match for Scott and flies off her stool, which clatters on to the floor.
“Hey!” calls the barman, but Richie has already dragged his new girlfriend through the pub’s front door, letting it swing shut behind him. Sam watches as the barman shakes his head and picks up a glass to polish. “Arsehole,” he says to no one in particular.
Don’t worry mate, she thinks, clipping on Toni’s lead.I’ll make sure he gets exactly what he deserves.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Sam watches through the window as the woman from the estate agent wrestles to erect a “For Sale” sign in her jungle of a front garden. The online ad for the home on Acklam Terrace, which Sam has lived in since she was a child, describes it as “dated but homely” and on a “sought-after street” in a “desirable borough” of London.
The house sale will leave Sam a wealthy woman. Free to start again somewhere new. She’s tempted by an advert for a Detective Sergeant position at Northumbria Police. It’s a step down from DI, but she’s happy to go easy on herself for a year or two, given everything she’s been through. From her initial searches, she’s discovered that she can afford to rent a three-bedroom apartment on Newcastle’s Quayside for less than the interest fetched by the money from the sale of her tatty house in London.Toni would love a little garden, Sam thinks to herself as she sends an inquiry form to North East Properties.
“Can you say, ‘Wey aye, mate’?” Sam asks Toni, who raises an eyebrow and scratches behind an ear.
The sign finally erected, the woman waves to Sam and she returns to watching the news.MATHERS CLAIMS INNOCENCE, the headline scrolls across the screen, as the presenter describes how Jack Mathers has pled “Not guilty.” His brother Nigel has refused to visit him or pay for legal representation. Jack is on remand pending trial, which won’t begin for several months.
Although she’s accepted calls from Harry, Tina, Chloe Spears and DI Neil Duggan, Sam is still canceling any calls from Adam Taylor. She’s been busy, she tells herself, trying to bring two killers to justice. More honestly, though, she’s ashamed. She knows she put Taylor in a terrible position after her panic attack in Newcastle and she doesn’t blame him for calling Harry—as far as Taylor was aware, he called the man who was like a father to her. It’s not Taylor’s fault that Harry has suspended her. She’s embarrassed, too. Embarrassed that she keeps thinking about the way his fingers lingered on her cheek. She shakes her head, pushing away the idea that any man would be interested in a forty-something-year-old with PTSD and a wonky-legged mongrel.
She kills time until Saturday, packing boxes and emailing back and forth with Erica from HR to discuss a transfer to a different police force. When the weekend comes, she drives out to Bath again.
She parks her car in the same spot as before but wears a different disguise: a brown bob with an oversized knitted sweater, leggings and brown contact lenses behind chunky reading glasses. Toni wanted to come, but she’s left him at home this time. Sam orders fish and chips at the bar and is seated long before Richie and Lindsay arrive. Sam keeps her head in her magazine as Scott searches for a seat. When her meal arrives, Sam casually looks around and sees the couple a few tables to her left. She knows instantly that things have escalated since her last visit. Lindsay has a black eye. A burst lip. The poor woman has tried to cover them with makeup, but it’s obvious even from across the room.
Sam struggles to enjoy her fish and chips. The potato clings to her throat and the mushy peas cool on her plate. The waiter carries food over to Scott’s table and Sam notices that Lindsay eats one-handed, leaving her left hand lying on her lap. The couple eats in silence.
When she sees Lindsay standing up, she quickly rises herself and walks briskly to the ladies’. From inside a cubicle, Sam hears Lindsay enter and lock the adjacent door. Then there’s the sound of a struggle. Then a little sob. Sam steps out and knocks on Lindsay’s door.
“Won’t be a sec,” she calls.
“I was just wondering if you’re OK?” Sam asks.
Slowly, the cubicle door opens. “I’m all right,” Lindsay sniffs, “but, can you, er, can you undo my jeans for me?”
Sam stares. “Pardon?”
“Undo my jeans. Just the top button? I’m right-handed and my wrist is, er, injured.”
“Oh. OK,” Sam says, stepping closer and using all of her fingers to force the button through the stiff denim buttonhole. “What happened to your hand?”
“Accident,” Lindsay mumbles.
“I’m not surprised you couldn’t undo that. Those jeans are practically painted on to you,” Sam says, smiling up at Lindsay, but the other woman’s eyes are brimming with tears.
“Sit down, love,” Sam says. “We need to talk.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Harry looks older than ever when they meet for dinner the following week, but he’s full of the joys of spring. As he examines the menu, Sam takes him in—this man, who had been her only family, her only rock for so many years. He’s smart, in a suit, his almost entirely gray hair slicked back. Sam runs her hands through her own hair, which is soft, styled and freshly highlighted.
After their brief encounter in the Women’s room, she’d arranged to meet Lindsay at a hairdresser’s today, so they could chat without Richie becoming suspicious. They’d sat together in a quiet corner of the salon, tinfoil in their hair, and Lindsay had sobbed as Sam told her the truth about Richie Scott. Lindsay had confessed that he’d become more “hands on” not long into their relationship. Just the night before, Lindsay confided, he poured his drink over her head and then pretended it was a joke. As they were talking, Lindsay was constantly texting, fearful of not replying quickly enough to Richie. Even though he was tracking her location, he still asked for a photograph of his girlfriend in the hairdresser’sholding up his chosen number of fingers, and then a photograph of the hairdresser so he could be sure it wasn’t another man.
“… Earth to Sam,” Harry says. “Pete’s arrived.”
Dr. Pete Thomson takes a seat at the table and greets her warmly, and she’s relieved he doesn’t seem uncomfortable about socializing with a former patient. Sam sips her water as Pete and Harry catch up. As the men chat, she takes in Harry’s familiar face, the bushy eyebrows that have more gray than black in them now. For all his flaws, Harry is probably the person she knows best in this world, since her dad died. In many ways, she owes Harry more than anyone, her father included. Without him, she’d never have joined the police. She’d never wanted to follow in her father’s footsteps—she’d seen what the job can do to someone—but Harry had been determined that the police force was the right path for Sam. The night she’d wept on Harry’s shoulder, as her father’s body lay cooling in the basement at Acklam Terrace, he’d told her that she was made of the right stuff. So, Sam had joined the police, determined to catch the bad guys. She’d just never expected Harry to be one of them.
