I should clarify: to prevent ourselves from being the boring couple who only talk about work, Gareth and I had decided to give each other a sixty-second max limit for work talk. I always used to moan that Gareth grumbled way too much about his job, while Gareth said that I never complained enough, so we met in the middle: sixty seconds, no interruptions or off-topic questions from the other party.
‘So how about you? Solve any murders?’ I asked with my usual impishness.
‘A few,’ he replied rather nonchalantly.
I had asked him that question without fail almost every day for the past few years. When he was on the beat, he would always laugh it off and just tell me he was doing some mundane task – from investigating who had trodden on some old dear’s flowers to settling minor disagreements between two middle-aged, beer-bellied thugs down the pub. But now, he was actually doing the thing I’d always joked about. It made me feel sort of uneasy that homicide had become the standard working day for him.
‘Anything you can talk to me about?’
‘Not really. They’re all pretty much open and shut cases. The CPS has done most of the heavy lifting for them, anyway. We’re just there to cross thets and dot theis, really.’
‘Urgh, with Isla, I bet,’ I said through a scowl. ‘Lawyers.’
Gareth gave a wry smile as if he wasn’t going to rise to the bait. I wasn’t a fan of Isla, and I made it a point to remind him of that every chance I could.
‘It’s a different criminal lawyer this time, Andrew Shorestone, who’s been an absolute pain in my neck recently, drowning me in paperwork.’
‘And how are you getting on with the team now?’
‘Good, good, they’re all good. I think the first month of staying late as a sergeant is kind of the rite of passage though, some weird kind of hazing, I guess.’
‘They’re still being nice to you?’ I said, jabbing my knife vaguely towards where a few of Gareth’s colleagues were sitting.
‘Yeah, they’re a good bunch of blokes,’ Gareth mumbled. The way he deflected made me suspicious; I wasn’t sure I believed him.
‘And how’s Vivian?’ I asked, knowing it was going to prompt some kind of negative response from him.
He grimaced and took another gulp of the risotto before continuing.
‘Won’t have much left for continuing the family line the way she’s busting my balls at the minute,’ he muttered under his breath. ‘She’s got no…’ He bit his lip, which he often did when he couldn’t think of the right word. ‘So, get this, right?’ he said, switching his tone to a hushed whisper and shuffling forward in his chair to speak to me more clandestinely. ‘She came in to supervise the questioning of one of my suspects today, and I don’t think I even got a word in. Ever since I started, she just always takes over the entire investigation, doesn’t let me do any of the job I’m paid to do.’
‘But it isyourinvestigation, right?’
‘According to her, every investigation is her investigation. I know it’s only been a month, but she’s such a…’
I knew the word circling around my husband’s brain was ‘bitch’. However, he’d had too much of a strict Roman Catholic upbringing to actually say the word, so instead, he went for something less offensive:
‘… bully.’
‘Does everyone else think of her the same way you do?’ I asked, trying to hide my smirk.
‘No, I think they’ve all got used to her. They say she’s become more bitter since the divorce proceedings started last week. Apparently, the kids are fine as they’re all over eighteen and doing their own thing. Rumour is it’s the blimming cat that they’re fighting for custody of.’
‘You’ve got to be joking.’
‘I’m not joking. It’s ridiculous,’ Gareth said, finishing the last of the risotto with a gulp and throwing his fork into the dish like an Olympian launching a javelin. ‘If we divorce, you’re getting Mep, no questions asked. I don’t want that angry void cat any more.’
‘Screw that, I don’t want Mep. You can keep Mep,’ I responded.
‘He was your idea.’
‘He likes you more.’
‘He hates methe least,’ Gareth corrected.
He was admittedly kind of right there.
Mep, for as long as we’d had him, existed in a permanent state of both senility and hostility. We had rescued him from a shelter as a kind of wedding gift to ourselves. We couldn’t afford a honeymoon after spending our limited savings on the wedding, and we’d foolishly assumed we’d only have Mep for a few years before he would tragically pop his clogs, but five and a bit years into our marriage, Mep just kept on trucking. Sometimes, I wondered if it was his sheer hatred for us that gave him life. He seemed to relish being such a constant source of annoyance that maybe he couldn’t bear the thought of us living easier lives without him. He relied on us for food, shelter and the occasional pet, and that was about it.
