âAre you all right?' asked Daniel, his short-sighted eyes concerned.
âI'm fine,' said Brodie shortly.
âReally?'
She thought a moment longer. âI
am
fine, but I can't say it didn't give me a shock.' Then she laughed, an altogether earthier laugh than people ever expected. âBut possibly less of a shock than Joe Loomis got when the Antichrist fixed him with the evil eye.'
It was her idea of a joke, calling him that. It began as a defence mechanism, but now she could invest it with genuine affection. Disasters affect different people in different ways: humour, even black humour, is a good way of coping. Jonathan didn't think his mother was insulting him. He beamed complacently at her tone of voice.
Nor did Daniel object, though he'd become quite proprietorial about Brodie's baby. He sat on the little sofa with Jonathan in his lap, both of them quite at ease, while Brodie roamed restlessly about her office, putting things back the way she liked them.
This wasn't how it had been meant to work. She'd put her business into Daniel's hands because she couldn't
continue to run it and look after a new baby. They had both known they'd have to make compromises. Brodie was used to working alone, and the fairest thing that could be said of Daniel's interest in Looking For Something? was that he didn't have one until it was required of him. He was a maths teacher. Looking For Something? was a finding agency: clients hired Brodie to locate things they couldn't locate themselves. A kind of detective agency without the divorce work. Except that he had a problem-solving brain, Daniel Hood was cut out to be a detective the way King Herod was cut out to be a nanny.
But needs must when the devil drives. Although Brodie didn't know this â Brodie must never know this â Daniel had been offered a job at Dimmock High just an hour before she broke the news of her pregnancy, at which point all bets were off. She hadn't asked for his help, but she needed it; and schools would always need maths teachers but if Brodie shut her doors for six months she mightn't have a business to come back to. He offered to keep it ticking over for her; and she, knowing the likely alternative was to lose something in which she'd invested a lot of time, energy and money, accepted.
Since then, though, she'd made every excuse she could think of to come to the little office in Shack Lane and sniff disapprovingly at everything Daniel had done that wasn't exactly how she'd have done it. She didn't mean to be ungrateful. She rationalised it as teaching him the business. But had circumstances â and the laws of nature â been otherwise, it would have made much more sense for her to go on running Looking For Something? and for
Daniel to have the baby. For a single man, he looked oddly at ease with Jonathan on his knee. Much more so than the child's father did. Deacon held him like a rugby ball.
âWhat did Jack say?' asked Daniel. Unconsciously he flinched.
âJack?' repeated Brodie, wide-eyed. âI haven't told Jack. He'd go apeshit.'
The expression had frozen on Daniel's round, rather plain face. âBrodie, he needs to know.'
Except when she was furious with one of them â which was, admittedly, a good part of the time â it amused Brodie how different the two men in her life were: her partner a refugee from Mount Rushmore, her best friend â¦well. Daniel was harder to categorise. Everything about him was small and delicate and self-effacing, with two exceptions: his hair, which was the yellow of bright sunshine and meant you could pick him out in any crowd that wasn't too tall to find him in, and his spirit, which was adamantine. He never went looking for trouble. But when trouble found him he seemed constitutionally unable to step aside. He had this thing about honesty. He thought it mattered more than the odd broken nose.
âThat a man spoke to me in a public car park?' she said, feigning negligence. âIt's hardly a matter for CID.'
â
Anything
Joe Loomis does is a matter for CID,' said Daniel firmly. âAnd anything he does that affects you and Jonathan is a matter for Jack. You said it yourself â it was meant as a threat. He
wanted
you to tell Jack. He was warning him off.'
She turned to face him, perching on the edge of the
desk. âThat's why I don't want to pass it on. Right now, Loomis thinks he's marked Jack's card so he's happy; and Jack doesn't know about it so
he
's happy. If I tell Jack, he'll hit the wall â and he might not stop at the wall. If Joe's worried, that means Jack's after him â and
that
means he'll be behind bars soon enough, and then it won't matter what he wants. But if this gets personal, you and I both know Jack can't be trusted to keep his cool. Look what he did when Charlie Voss got beaten up. Now ask yourself what he'd do if he thought Jonathan was in danger.'
âHe's a professional police officer,' demurred Daniel. âHe'd â¦'
âYeah,' said Brodie ironically. âRight.'
But Daniel was insistent. âHe needs to know. And he needs to hear it from you, when he has a chance to calm down before doing something he'll regret, rather than from Loomis somewhere public.'
Reluctantly, Brodie conceded that. If Deacon was going to lose his temper â and Deacon
was
going to lose his temper â it had to be far enough away from Loomis that he didn't flatten the man, bin his career and squander his best chance of putting the little thug away all in ten hotheaded seconds. âAll right,' she agreed, âI'll tell him. I'll phone him now.'
But Daniel shook his yellow head. âNot in his office. In yours. I'll take Jonathan back to my place. Pick him up on your way home.'
Â
Brodie was never sure if she was good at relationships or very bad at them. She'd had what she'd thought was the
perfect marriage â but it ended when John Farrell was swept off his feet by a plump librarian. After that she'd tried friendship â and what she had with Daniel was as close as a friendship could be without turning into something else. Though it began with her doing him a great wrong, it developed into something of sweeping importance to both of them and restored her faith in humanity in general and men in particular.
But she was aware, even as she drew strength from it, that it was more what she wanted and needed than what Daniel did. Unable to persuade her that the next step was right for both of them, he'd quietly taken it alone. Brodie knew that if the need arose he would die for her. And if what she felt for him wasn't love too she didn't know what it was, but it wasn't the same love he felt for her. She felt sad about that, and guilty, and wished it were otherwise, but she wouldn't lie to him and he wouldn't want her to. He thought that truth was the silver bullet.
And then there was Deacon. What she got from Deacon was pretty much what she wanted as well. By some miracle, she thought their on/off, do-it-when-we've-time partnership met most of his needs too â certainly better than the full-on commitment of a marriage, family of four, mortgage, dog and timeshare in Ibiza would have done. She didn't feel guilty about Deacon, at least not often. But she wasn't sure if the relationship was a success or not.
It was getting to be a long time since she was a fulltime wife and mother racing to have the house nice for when her husband came home. She would never be that girl again, and had no wish to be; but a tiny private voice
at the back of her brain wondered if she was missing out. If it would be nice to do the suburban hostess-trolley thing again. And if it would, whether it would be even possible to do it with Deacon.
When Daniel left with the baby, pushing the fancy buggy the short distance along the Promenade to the netting shed he'd made his home, Brodie called Deacon's mobile. âCan you talk? Or are you in hot pursuit?'
âHot pursuit of last month's crime figures,' grunted Deacon, his phone sandwiched between shoulder and ear. âAnd a decent cup of coffee.' From the way he raised his voice Brodie realised this wasn't addressed to her.
All the same ⦠âCan't help with the crime statistics. But I've got the kettle on. And I've something to tell you.'
Not until she saw his face at her door a scant six minutes later did it occur to her that what he thought she had to tell him was news from the hospital. He'd known about Jonathan's appointment, had cemented two and two together with a good dollop of fear and got twenty-two. âWhat did Millership say? Are his eyes getting worse?'
Brodie had to do a quick switching of points to get back on the same track. âActually, yes. She doesn't think that anything we do will give him any useful sight. And that he'd be a lot safer without his eyes.'
Deacon flinched. It wasn't that he hadn't been expecting this moment. They'd talked about it regularly over the past months. At the beginning it had seemed only a horrid possibility; more recently it had started to look inevitable. Still when it came it landed like a fist in the belly. âWhat did you tell her?'
âI told her I wanted him to be safe.'
Deacon nodded slowly. It was the only possible answer: in all their talks, neither of them had come up with an alternative. Still he felt that, as Jonathan's father, she might have included him in the final decision. Partly for his benefit, but partly for hers. âWhen?'
âAs soon as it can be arranged.' She poured hot water into the coffee mugs, handed him one.
âWill he â¦?' He wasn't sure how to put this. âWill he miss them?'
Brodie shook her head, the black corkscrew curls brushing her shoulders. âAnne doesn't think so. She thinks he can tell the difference between light and darkness. She doesn't think he can see objects.'
He breathed the steam coming off the coffee. âThere really isn't any choice, is there?'
âNo,' Brodie said. âNot unless we're prepared to risk losing him.'
Deacon looked around the little office, suddenly puzzled. âSo where is he? And why are you here?'
âDaniel took him for a walk on the front. There's something else I need to tell you about.' She related her encounter in the hospital car park with the man who was careful not to threaten her.
Deacon didn't leap to his feet and start throwing crockery. He went massively still. His lips tightened, pale with fury. His voice was a vicious whisper. âDid he lay a finger on you? Or on Jonathan?'
âNo,' Brodie said quickly. âAnd he never looked like he might. He wasn't there to hurt us, or even to frighten us â he
was there to send a message. To you. I wasn't inclined to oblige him, but Daniel felt you needed to know and I could see he was right.'
âDaniel did.' Twelve months ago that would have come out a lot angrier. Now he was almost reconciled to the fact that she talked things through with Daniel the way she might with a sister before telling her partner what she'd decided. He still didn't like it, but he knew it wasn't going to change, and at last he seemed to realise it posed no threat to their relationship. But that didn't stop it being very peculiar, and at heart Jack Deacon was a deeply conventional man.
âHe didn't want Loomis ambushing you with it. He was afraid' â she kept her face straight â âyou might overreact.'
âWhatever would make him think that?' said Deacon through clenched teeth.
âBeats me,' said Brodie ingenuously. âYou wouldn't be so stupid as to compromise an important investigation by decking the suspect in a public place, would you? Not when that was so obviously what he wanted you to do.'
âNo-o-o,' agreed Deacon slowly. âWhat would I do instead?'
Brodie grinned. The danger point was past. If Loomis stopped him in the street as he left here and asked him the time, Deacon would â well no, not tell him, he was never that kind of policeman, but at least not shove his watch somewhere the beeps would be seriously muffled. âOh, something much cleverer than that. You'd get him into court. Because you'd know that after that he wouldn't
be in a position to hurt anyone.'
âYes.' Deacon mulled it over. âI expect that's what I'd do. I might have to keep Charlie Voss on a tight leash, though.'
âCharlie?' Brodie's eyebrows betrayed her surprise. DS Voss was in many ways an old-fashioned policeman. Polite. Considerate. If Joe Loomis asked him the time he might very well tell him.
âOh yes,' said Deacon with conviction. âStill waters run deep. That nice, quiet, thoughtful, intelligent exterior â that's just a guise. Underneath he's a mad dog.'
âOK,' said Brodie carefully. âWell, you hang on tight to that leash. It'll stop Charlie Voss rushing off and doing something stupid.' She half-turned and planted a casual kiss on his cheek. âIt'll also stop you.'
From the day of his birth, when he was the wrong sex for a mother desperate for a daughter, to the present day when he wasn't the lover sought by the woman he loved, Daniel Hood's life had always strayed down unexplored paths. Though some of them should have been gated, wired up and marked with a sign saying
Beware of the Alligator
, overall he hadn't many complaints. If the great passion of his life was destined to be unrequited, at least he knew what it was like to care that much. If getting drawn into Brodie Farrell's orbit meant that sometimes he got hurt, it also meant he never got bored. For a secondary school maths teacher, that's an achievement in itself.
And if he had no children of his own, he took a lot of pleasure in Brodie's. He counted her seven-year-old daughter Paddy among his best friends. And he pushed her peaceable, strange-eyed baby in his Grand Prix buggy along the Promenade with a sense of contentment surprising in a single man of twenty-nine.
Then fate stepped in again.
As they ambled along the front he was pointing out the sights to Jonathan, blithely ignoring the facts that (a) Jonathan couldn't see any sights, and (b) at six months
old he probably didn't care that Scandinavian pine is the correct wood to weatherboard a netting shed. But he liked listening to Daniel's voice â pleasant and light grey like his eyes â and Daniel was a born teacher, he liked talking, so the short walk from Shack Lane to the odd little house beside the ruined pier passed happily enough.
Right up to the point that their way was blocked by a man and a woman engaged in heated argument. At least, the woman was heated â red in the face and shouting. The man seemed mostly to be laughing at her. Once, when she leant angrily into his face, he pushed her away â not violently, but also without much regard.
It was none of Daniel's business. He didn't know either party. No one was getting hurt, and the road was quiet enough now the summer season had ended that it was no hazard to drop the buggy down the kerb for a few paces to pass them. He kept his eyes carefully averted and kept telling Jonathan about the problems of finding a builder who was interested in using traditional materials.
He almost made it. He was back on the pavement, with the argument behind him and his odd little home ahead, and all he had to do was keep walking. Then the woman yelled, âI don't care
who
knows I slept with a Pakistani! It's you I feel the need to keep quiet about!' And the man hit her.
It wasn't exactly a haymaker. The woman staggered back but didn't fall. If it had been two young men â or even two young women â arguing on the footpath and one of them had slapped the other across the face like that, probably even Daniel would have managed to stay out of
it. Probably. After all, he was pushing a buggy with a baby in it; and the woman was free to walk away and go to the police; and if she needed help there were other people around better equipped to offer it.
But Daniel Hood was raised by his grandfather and had old-fashioned views on a number of things. One was that men don't hit women. Not in public, not in private; not at all. And none of the other people on the Promenade was acknowledging what they'd seen. Daniel gave a resigned little sigh. He knew what was going to happen. It had happened before. But knowing altered nothing. A man on the tenth floor of a burning building knows what's going to happen when he hits the ground. But the point comes when he still has to jump.
He picked out a young couple with a child of their own and blocked their way with an apologetic smile. âI'm sorry, but would you look after Jonathan for me? I shan't be a minute.' He turned away before they had the chance to object.
Which put him behind the man's right shoulder. He was taller than Daniel but not much: over his shoulder Daniel could see the woman, her face startled, one hand to her flaming cheek. Daniel cleared his throat. âExcuse me.'
The man turned slowly, with the air of someone who wasn't accustomed to interruptions. His tone managed to inject offensiveness into a one-word query. âWhat?'
âI'm sure that was a mistake,' said Daniel politely. âYou saw a fly on the lady's cheek and, aware of concerns that global warming might bring tropical diseases such
as sleeping sickness and beri-beri to the south coast of England, thought it best to swat it before it could bite her. I'm sure if you apologised now no one would think any more about it.'
The man's brows gathered as he tried to process this new information. Not just what Daniel had said, but that Daniel had said it. In his eyes a war was going on between irritation, amusement and downright disbelief. â
What?
' he said again.
Daniel's pale eyes behind their thick glasses didn't blink. âApologise,' he said quietly. âAnd then leave.'
The man glanced up and down the Promenade. The little confrontation was attracting interest in a way that the woman's plight had not. The couple with the child, and now Jonathan, had edged within earshot; two middle-aged women walking their dogs had stopped, sturdy bodies rigid with curiosity; a group of boys on bikes had gathered round to jeer whoever seemed to be losing. In all probability the man could have flattened Daniel with a single blow; but with so many witnesses that was unlikely to be the end of the matter. In his eyes irritation was giving way to anger and a very personal dislike, and his voice to a low growl. âI don't think you have any idea who I am.'
âYou're right,' Daniel agreed readily. âI have no idea who you are. But I know
what
you are. Whatever you call it, if it looks like a rat and it smells like a rat and it behaves like a rat, it's a rat.'
The impulse to smash his fists into the solemn bespectacled face and damn the consequences was almost overwhelming. The muscles of the man's back, shoulders and arms twitched as the old primitive in his brain told
them to act and the smarter new bit urged caution. The colour rose in his sallow cheeks as his heart thumped and the oxygen packing his blood remained unneeded.
Another minute and the primitive would have won, and Daniel would have been sitting on a pavement with a bloody nose. Again. But the woman had had the moment she needed to gather her shock-scattered wits, and she came back fierce and defensive. Admittedly, she didn't know what the young man with the yellow hair and the expression of a slightly simple choirboy was capable of. But she did know what the man who'd struck her was capable of.
âLay a finger on him, Joe,' she said sharply, âand we'll finish this in the police station. I don't have a problem with that. I don't expect he' â she indicated Daniel with a jerk of her head â âhas a problem with that. You have a problem with that.'
The man sneered at her. But the muscles of his arms stopped twitching. The old primitive had lost the argument, for now. He turned back to his car, something long and silver parked along the Promenade, kicking one of the bikes out of his way to get at it. The couple with the buggy were in the way too. He wasn't quite angry enough to kick a baby into touch, but he did snarl at it.
And got the shock of his life when it looked back at him.
He stood there frozen with surprise until the woman pushed herself between him and the buggy and broke the spell. As if she didn't even trust him with someone else's baby.
The man shook his head as if to dislodge an unwelcome thought, and got into the back of his car. But the woman wasn't quite done with him. As the driver went to move off she leant into the rear window. âDo as I ask. Or I swear to God you'll be sorry.'
The car drove off while she was still leaning on the door.
By now Daniel had retrieved Jonathan. He waited patiently while the woman composed herself and turned back to him. âAre you all right?' he asked.
She flashed him a brave if somewhat shaky smile. She was older than he'd first thought â fifteen years older than him. The ebullient red-brown hair tamed by a gypsy scarf and the calf-length dress under her hip-length jacket had misled him.
But then
, he thought,
that's not how young women dress now. It's how they dressed when she was twenty.
âI'm fine,' she said. Her voice held a husky note that made Daniel blink. âYou?'
He smiled. âMe too. And Jonathan positively enjoyed it.' He introduced himself and the baby.
âFaith Stretton,' responded the woman. âListen: thanks for your help. I think it would have got nasty if you hadn't intervened.'
âIt
did
get nasty,' said Daniel. âWho is he?'
Faith Stretton looked surprised. âYou mean, you really don't know?' Daniel shook his head. âKeep it that way,' she advised him. âHis name's Joe Loomis, and he's bad news. And I wish someone had told
me
that twenty years ago.'
Daniel stared. âThat's Joe Loomis?'
Faith's head tipped, bird-like, to one side. âYou've heard of him, then.'
âYes. He ⦠Yes. In a way.'
There was another car parked on the front: not long and silver but an elderly capacious estate with a liberal dusting of road dirt. She went to get in. But her hand was shaking too much to make the key fit. Gently Daniel took it from her. âYou shouldn't be driving. My house is just here â come in for a coffee and wash your face, then I'll call you a taxi.'
âThat's very kind of you, Mr Hood,' she said gratefully. âIf it wouldn't be too much trouble.' But when she looked around her eyebrows gathered in a frown. âWhat house?' He pointed. âOh. I always thought that was derelict.' When she heard herself she flushed again with embarrassment.
Daniel chuckled, quite untroubled. âIt cost me a small fortune to get that look. The builder kept wanting to cheer it up for me. He wanted to paint it in blue and white stripes, like a beach hut.' Pushing the buggy ahead of him he steered Faith Stretton down the shingle shore to the iron steps which led up to his front door.