“Along the tops at Botany Bay,” Harry says.
“Toni loves that beach,” Sam says. “We might join you one time. Before we head to the arse-end of nowhere.”
“Yes. Well. I’m not much for dogs, but… I thought you were getting rid of it, anyway?”
“Steak, sir?”
The waiter brings the food and Sam’s pasta is exquisite, but she could eat it twice. The gourmet portion sizes aren’t enough now that she’s jogging again. The three of them make small talk through dinner and all order dessert—with a round of brandy for the men, at Harry’s insistence. Sam’s surprised to discover that Pete is married and is in the process of adopting a six-year-old boy.
Pete asks about the Charlotte Mathers murder trial—apparently, his husband is a true-crime buff and is following it all keenly. She admits to Pete that she’s no longer centrally involved in the case preparation for trial, but she believes that the evidence is limited. A conviction is possible, she tells him, but without a confession the prosecutor might struggle. It depends on the jury on the day.
“I always liked the uncle for it,” Harry says through a mouthful of steak.
Sam takes a deep breath, but says nothing.
Pete asks about Andrei Albescu. Of course, Pete calls him Denver, his real name as lost to him as his freedom. In truth, she’s done her best to push thoughts of Andrei in a twelve-by-five-foot cell out of her mind. The media have made that difficult, though. There have been linguists and profilers on every TV show since it happened, analyzingHow to Get Away with Murder. Claire, the linguist who helped Sam, has been offered fifty thousand pounds to feature in the latest docuseries.If only they all knew, she thinks. She gives Pete a measured response about Andrei, hoping to turn the conversation away from that topic—one that’s highly likely to keep her awake tonight, just as it has every night for weeks.
Sam’s eyes grow heavy as the meal draws to a close. The packing and the planning are really sapping her mental energy. She’s relieved when the waiter finally puts the padded black book containing the bill next to Harry and produces a card machine from his belt. Harry takes out a gold credit card.
“Let’s just split it evenly, eh? Far simpler,” Harry says, and taps the machine after the waiter has keyed in the amount.
Pete catches Sam’s eye, but neither of them says anything. They each produce their own debit cards and pay their portion of the bill. The waiter brings their coats and tells Harry that his driver is waiting.
“Casino, old boy?” Harry turns to Pete.
“I’m guessing you’ll also say no, Sam?” Harry says after Pete declines, forcing his arms into his coat. “Your old man and me, we had some nights, I can tell you.”
Sam smiles as best she can as she shakes her head. Harry kisses Sam on both cheeks before turning for the door, and she and Pete watch him leave. She thinks he looks aged, a little unsteady on his feet. No longer the tall, lean man with pitch-black hair that used to spend hours in their living room, talking about antique shotguns with her father and pretending not to notice her mother’s bruised arms.
“It’s great to see you both getting on so well again,” Pete says, once Harry’s left the restaurant. “It’s a shame you lost that relationship when you needed it most. I don’t think Harry ever understood how much damage he did when he promoted that officer who—”
“Harry’s always been like a father to me,” Sam says, cutting Pete off and tapping on her phone screen. “He’s not perfect, but I love him dearly. Where are you headed, Doc?”
“Same direction as you, I think. Share an Uber?”
“Great idea.”
“I’ll get it,” Pete says. “At least I enjoyed the overpriced wine. Fancy splitting the bill—what a bugger he is sometimes, eh?”
Sam just smiles.
“One last drink before I order the taxi?” Pete asks.
“No thanks, Doc. Hangovers last a lot longer now I’ve turned forty.” Sam slides her arms into her jacket sleeves. “Plus, Toni’s waiting at home and we have a lot to get done before we move.”
“Of course,” Dr. Thomson says. “No rest for the wicked.”
“Exactly,” Sam says.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Toni watches as Sam tapes down the final box and writes “LOUNGE” on it in marker pen. Renting a place without seeing it in real life is risky, but Neil Duggan has assured her that the flat she’s chosen is in a good area, “in the posh part of toon,” and it’s near Northumbria Police HQ, the Quayside, and the green and pleasant Exhibition Park, perfect for dog-walking. Sam still finds the cost of rent Up North too good to be true and struggles to believe that she can rent a three-bedroom apartment with a small garden, located “in the posh part,” for less money per month than a studio in London.
As she finishes up, she skims through the messages from Lindsay on her phone. The messages are essays, but she goes back to the beginning and takes the time to read each word carefully before replying. Sam knows the dangers of skim-reading and missing important words or phrases that hint at a meaning entirely different from the surface level. Sam’s reminded of the journalist she met in Windsor’s office reception and what he’d told her about skim-reading Denver’s how-to guide, and of how he’d failed tograsp the facts. She had taken her time, never skimming a single word of the book, not that she’d ever felt the urge to. Rather than subjecting the reader to chunks of description and filler text, the book had simply credited them with the intelligence to assume that time had passed and things had happened, and that they’d be saved from mundanity and offered only the bits they needed. The best bits.
Sam slides her phone into her back pocket and decides to take one last look around the terraced house that’s been her home since her late teens, and check that everything’s ready. She runs upstairs and trips at the top step, sending herself flying across the landing. As she lands, she laughs, amazed at how hopeful she’s feeling now, compared to this time last year. She jumps up and works her way through the upstairs rooms. Everything is in place. The empty rooms look so much bigger now, with all their contents in labeled boxes against the wall. There are marks on the carpets where furniture has stood for two decades, leaving a completely different shade in the now-exposed pile that once hid beneath. She does the same downstairs, Toni trotting wonkily behind her. He’d cocked his leg against one of the boxes when Sam had begun packing, so she’s trying to keep an eye on him.
Finished in the main house, she pulls back the lino in the corner of the kitchen to reveal the cellar door. Lots of old London houses have a basement, her dad had explained the first time he brought her down there: a cavernous space designed to protect the main house from ground water and often used for shelter during the Blitz. Cellars then became man caves—places where husbands worked for hours on model train sets or, in her father’s case, polished his antique pistol collection. Now, according to the estate agent, they function as wine cellars or games rooms.
