The Guilty Couple(15)

‘What?’

‘There you are!’ Esther’s voice rings out from somewhere behind us. ‘George, would you hurry up? I don’t care what you’ve spotted. We’re supposed to be keeping an eye on Grace.’

‘What do you mean, Dad’s going to leave you?’ I ask my daughter but she’s slipped past me and is heading for the exit.

‘Grace.’ I hurry after her. ‘Where’s Dad going?’

‘Leave me alone,’ she snaps as she pushes her way out through the plastic flaps and a blast of cool air hits my face.

‘I will if you tell me where your dad’s going. Because if—’

‘Prison!’ she bellows in my face. ‘He was arguing with his stupid personal trainer and Dad said that if he goes down, so does she. And then she left and I found her bra on the stairs. So she’s not his trainer at all, is she?’ She pauses a beat, her eyes shining with angry tears. ‘Stop staring at me like that. I don’t want you in my life. I don’t want anyone. I just want to be by myself.’





Chapter 10


DANI


Dani is at her desk, reviewing the disclosure schedules for one of her colleague’s forthcoming trials. She’s trying to block out the sound of her workmates chatting, tapping at their keyboards and speaking on the phone, but it’s not just the office noise that’s making her struggle to concentrate. She’s thinking about Casey. When she went to Brenda’s house last night she’d been shocked at just how much her sister had deteriorated in a couple of weeks. Casey was stumbling around the kitchen, red-eyed, pale-faced and thin. She was trying to make a cup of tea and her hand shook as she took a mug from the counter. Dani was so scared of Casey getting burned, she had to pour the water from the kettle for her.

Her sister had been so happy when she left the private clinic nearly five years earlier. She was still very slight but the hollows had disappeared from beneath her cheekbones and her eyes were bright, not dimmed. She was healthier, physically, but the biggest change was in her personality. She no longer looked at Dani or their mother with empty, blank eyes, dismissing their suggestions to go somewhere or do something together with the smallest shake of her head. For the three years, from eighteen to twenty-one, that drug addiction had held Casey in its grip Dani had felt like she’d lost her sister. All the hobbies they’d shared – horse-riding, karate and swimming – no longer interested Casey and the things they used to laugh about no longer raised a smile. When Dani had gripped her sister’s hands and begged her to get help Casey looked straight through her and said, ‘I don’t know why you care. We were never very close.’ Dani fled to the bathroom and screamed into a towel. It was the addiction speaking, not her sister.

And now she’s losing her again.

‘She’s always sleeping,’ Brenda told Dani. ‘She barely eats and if she does go out it’s to buy drugs. She’s killing herself and I don’t know what to do.’

Dani could kill Joshua, Casey’s ex-boyfriend. If he hadn’t cheated on her none of this would have happened. They wouldn’t have split up, Casey wouldn’t have moved back in with their mum and she wouldn’t have started using again to try and numb the pain.

Dani sighs heavily and puts down the pile of papers in her hands. She’s read the same document three times and hasn’t taken a word of it in.

‘You all right, Dan?’ asks Jess, the detective constable sitting at the computer opposite her.

‘Yeah.’ She pushes her chair away from her desk. ‘Shit night’s sleep, that’s all. Do you want a coffee?’

‘As if you need to ask.’

Dani weighs up her options as she makes her way to the little corner of the office that serves as a kitchen. None of her mates could lend her three grand, never mind thirty, and she can’t ask the guys in the department to do a whip-round, not for a sister on drugs. She could go to a loan shark but then she’d spend the rest of her life paying off ten times the amount. She thinks, fleetingly, about all the seized cash that’s bagged up in the evidence store, then immediately dismisses the thought. Even if she could do it – and it would be near impossible – the possibility of being caught by a colleague makes her feel sick.

She unscrews a jar of cheap instant coffee and spoons it into two mugs. It’s looking increasingly like Dominic Sutherland is her only option. It was a pretty firm no but she could try him again. They were both hungover last time and things escalated. If she doesn’t lose her shit again maybe she can talk him round. She puts two spoonfuls of sugar into Jess’s mug then opens the fridge for the milk.

‘Danielle?’ She stiffens at the sound of a familiar voice. Detective Sergeant Reece Argent has sidled up behind her, stinking of aftershave with a smarmy look on his unshaven face. He asked her out a couple of months ago and she said no. He seemed to take it well but she keeps catching him staring at her in briefings or across the office. Wherever she is, he is too, like a literal bad smell. She ignores the fact he called her by her full name. He does it to get a reaction and she’s not going to give him one.

‘What do you want, Reece?’

‘Fielding wants to see you.’

Her heart rate quickens. She can’t be the only copper who assumes they’re in for a bollocking when their boss calls them in for a chat. Unless … her stomach clenches. Unless Dom’s come good on his threat. She straightens up, the milk carton still in her hand.