Logan sucked air in through his teeth. “It’s a day full of surprises, right enough,” he said, then he nodded towards the start of the path that led to the play area. “Right, here we go. This could be them. Game faces on.”

Tyler narrowed his eyes and set his jaw, and somehow managed to look even less intimidating than he had a moment ago.

“Ready when you are, boss,” he announced.

Logan rolled his eyes, checked for traffic, then set off towards the path. “Aye, well,” he said, as DC Neish broke into a swagger. “Maybe best if I do all the talking.”

* * *

“Cancer?”

The word hung there in the air—a foul, malevolent bastard of a thing.

DI Forde lowered himself into his chair and gripped the armrests like he was afraid he might fall out.

“Like… cancer cancer?” he asked. “Actual cancer?”

“Yeah,” Sinead confirmed.

“Of his goolies?”

“Yes. Well, one of them,” Sinead clarified. “I mean, they don’t fully confirm it until they remove it to do the biopsy, but—”

“So it might not be?” asked Hamza. He looked just as shaken as Ben did. More so, even. “He might not have it?”

Sinead scraped together the most comforting smile she could manage. “They’re pretty certain. The doctor—the specialist—he says he’d be very surprised at this stage if it turns out not to be.”

“And how serious are we talking?” Ben asked.

“We’re not too sure on that, either. First thing is to remove it, then go from there. Initial scans are promising, though.”

“Promising how?” asked Dave. “He’s still getting a bollock out, isn’t he?”

“Promising, in that it doesn’t look like it’s spread elsewhere,” Sinead said. There was a flaw in her voice. A tiny imperfection in the glaze of it. “So far, anyway.”

Hamza’s hand appeared on her arm. She sniffed back tears, gave it a pat, then stood up. She couldn’t suffer their kindness right now. Not if she wanted to hold herself together.

“God. We’ll have to tell Jack,” Ben said. “He’ll have to know.”

“He does,” Sinead said. “Tyler told him today. That’s why he’s coming back up the road.”

“Oh,” said Ben. He gave this some consideration. “I thought he must just be getting on Jack’s tits.”

Sinead smirked. “Probably a bit of that, too.”

“You should have told us earlier,” Hamza said. “We could’ve… I don’t know. Helped.”

“How?” Sinead asked, then she immediately felt bad for it. “I think he just wanted things to be… normal for as long as they could. Like, if you didn’t know, he could pretend it wasn’t happening, I suppose.”

Ben slapped a hand down on the edge of the desk. “That’s why he nearly did a runner before the wedding!”

Sinead’s head turned slowly in the DI’s direction. “Sir?”