The Last Party (DC Morgan #1)(120)

‘I’ll get the pork scratchings in.’ Huw taps the cheque. ‘Make it a real celebration.’

‘Proper class, you are.’ Ffion grins. ‘How’s your mam doing?’ Ffion’s mother-in-law had taken their separation badly, asking Ffion what was wrong with her for not wanting a baby like a normal woman.

Huw grimaces. ‘Same old. Yours?’

‘Driving me nuts. She treats me like I’m still a teenager.’

‘You know . . .’ Huw stares into his pint ‘. . . you could always come home.’

Home. The three-bedroomed house Huw built with his own hands, with its open-plan kitchen-diner and neat garden. The little box room, painted nursery-yellow by Huw, one Sunday, as though seeing the space would change Ffion’s mind about wanting to fill it.

‘I don’t mind being at Mam’s.’ Ffion tries to gloss over the offer. ‘I’m mostly at work, so—’

‘I decorated the bedrooms,’ Huw says suddenly, and Ffion realises he’s read her thoughts. ‘Ours is blue, now, and the . . .’ He stumbles. ‘The box room’s grey. I’ve got the computer in there, so it’s just an office, not . . .’ He looks at her. ‘Come home, Ffi.’

Ffion’s breath catches. Home.





SIXTY-THREE




JUNE | LEO


‘Bedtime,’ Leo calls.

‘Come see!’

Leo dries his hands on a tea towel and walks to his son’s bedroom. On the floor, by the bed that Elen Morgan gave them, is a rug Leo bought online, with a race track printed on the weave. Harris has made a series of buildings out of Lego, placing each one carefully around the track.

‘Hey, good construction skills, mate!’

‘This one is our house.’ Harris holds up one made from yellow bricks, with a red roof.

‘Fingers crossed, yeah?’ The offer was accepted a month ago, and there’s no chain, so with any luck they’ll be in by the end of the summer.

Leo sits on the carpet next to Harris, picking a car from his son’s vast collection and idly pushing it along the track. The new house is nothing special – a two-up, two-down in a quiet street – but it has a garage and a garden, and neighbours with kids who play out while it’s light. It’s the sort of house Leo wishes he’d grown up in; the sort of house he wants Harris to grow up in.

‘It’s miles away,’ Allie had said, when he’d told her the address.

‘Half an hour. With school slap bang in the middle.’

They have reached a truce, of sorts. It turned out Dominic had never been keen on the idea of Australia; Allie was the one pushing for the glistening water of the Sunshine Coast. Faced with a potentially expensive legal battle, Dominic became an unexpected ally, and he and Allie had decided to stay put. Harris now spends every Wednesday and every other weekend with Leo, his bedroom stuffed with so many clothes and toys that Leo wonders how they’ll get it all in the moving van.

Harris’s room isn’t the only part of the flat to have had a makeover. Leo’s no Yasmin Lloyd, but it’s amazing what a lick of paint and a few prints can do. Ffion would hardly recognise the place.

Leo leans against Harris’s bed and fishes his phone out of his back pocket to text her. How’s the sheep rustling?

The reply comes almost instantly. Fuck off, Brady.

Leo grins. That’s Detective SERGEANT Brady to you . . .

You got a promotion? You NEVER MENTIONED IT. This is followed by three eye-rolling emojis, a capital W and a picture of an anchor. Leo frowns at the screen, then bursts out laughing when the penny drops.

‘Let me see!’ Harris jumps on him, expecting another of the funny animal videos Leo often finds online for him.

‘Not this time, mate. Come on, into bed.’ He tucks Harris in, and finds the book they’re reading, ignoring the flashing screen which tells him Ffion has sent another text.

Clemmie and Glynis entered guilty pleas at their first hearings.

‘No trial, then,’ Leo said, for something to say. He and Ffion were standing outside court, Ffion having a cigarette before driving home. She gave a lopsided grin, the roll-up still in her mouth.

‘I won’t need to look at your ugly mug for weeks on end, then.’

‘Right back atcha.’

There’d been radio silence, after that, and Leo ached with the absence of her. Ffion hadn’t called, and Leo was glad he hadn’t humiliated himself by asking her out for a drink. He thought about messaging to say he’d be at the sentencing, but whichever way he put it, it sounded as though he was fishing to see if she’d be there. Which, of course, he would have been.

‘Fancy seeing you here.’ Ffion had snuck up on him, standing on the concourse waiting for the ushers to open court, catching Leo’s broad smile before he had a chance to make himself look more chilled about it. ‘You look great.’

‘Thanks. You, too.’

Once Harris is asleep, the Lego town moved carefully to one side to avoid either of them treading on it in the night, Leo sits with his feet up in front of the TV, scrolling mindlessly through his newsfeed. He catches sight of a name unusual enough for him to remember. Elijah Fox is the youngest person ever to secure a post-doctoral research fellowship at Liverpool University. Professor Benjamin Milne said, ‘I have rarely encountered someone with Dr Fox’s level of knowledge and natural ability.’