“I thought you were off.”

“I am. More or less.”

“What’s ‘more or less’ supposed to mean?”

Her hands were starting to tense up on the towel. I said, keeping my voice easy, “It means that sometimes people need to ask me something. There’s no such thing as ‘off ’ in Murder. That was my partner. He’ll probably ring a few more times tonight.”

“Why?”

I got my coffee mug and headed for the kitchen to top up. “You saw him. He’s a rookie. Before he makes any big decisions, he needs to check with me.”

“Big decisions about what?”

“Anything.”

Dina started using one thumbnail to pick at a scab on the back of her other hand, in short hard scrapes. “Someone was listening to the radio this afternoon,” she said. “In work.”

Oh, shit. “And?”

“And. It said there was a dead body, and police were treating the death as suspicious. It said Broken Harbor. They had some guy talking, some cop. It sounded like you.”

And then the freezer had started making forest-fire noises. I said carefully, taking a seat in my armchair again, “OK.”

The scraping picked up force. “Don’t do that. Don’t bloody do that.”

“Do what?”

“Put on that face, that stupid poker-up-your-arse cop face. Talk like I’m some idiot witness you can play little games with because I’m too intimidated to call you on it. You don’t intimidate me. Do you get that?”

There was no point in arguing. I said calmly, “Got it. I’m not going to try to intimidate you.”

“Then stop fucking about and tell me.”

“You know I can’t discuss work. It’s not personal.”

“Jesus, how the hell is this not personal? I’m your sister. How much more personal does it get?”

She was jammed tight into her corner of the sofa, feet braced like she was getting ready to come flying at me, which was unlikely but not impossible. I said, “True enough. I meant I’m not hiding anything from you personally. I have to be discreet with everyone.”

Dina chewed at the back of her forearm and watched me like I was her enemy, narrowed eyes alight with cold animal cunning. “OK,” she said. “So let’s just watch the news.”

I had been hoping that wouldn’t occur to her. “I thought you liked the peace and quiet.”

“If it’s public enough that the whole damn country can see it, surely to jumping Jesus it can’t be too confidential for me to watch. Right? Considering that it’s not personal.”

“For God’s sake, Dina. I’ve been in work all day. The last thing I want to do is come home and look at work on TV.”

“Then tell me what the fucking fuck is going on. Or I’m going to turn on the news and you’ll have to hold me down to stop me. Do you want to do that?”

“All right,” I said, hands going up. “OK. I’ll give you the story, if you’ll calm down for me. That means you need to stop biting your arm.”