‘You’re not a bloody teenager. Christ, there’s not much to choose between you and Connie sometimes. You after a new mobile phone or something with all that pouting that’s going on? I’ve tried it every way with you. I’ve bought you lollipops when we were kids. I’ve battered the bullies in the playground. Christ, I’m still battering the bullies–it’s just a bigger playground. I’ve run away from you, I’ve married you. I’ve ignored it when you bring shit like Jack Deans back to your bed; I’ve hit the roof when you bring shit like Jack Deans back to your bed. What’s left for me to do? What is it going to take?’

‘Before what?’ I asked him.

‘What?’

‘What’s it going to take before what? Before you leave? Before you give up?’

‘Is that what you think’s going to happen, Brodie? Is that what you’re scared of?’

I snorted. ‘I’m scared of nothing.’

‘You should be,’ Joe said quietly. ‘You should be.’

‘Because you are going to leave, aren’t you?’

Joe whirled the barstool round to face him and wrapped his huge arms around me. I was shaking and I hoped he’d have the manners to ignore it. He lifted me down from the seat and wrapped me up some more, moving my mess of tangled curls from my left ear. ‘I’ll never leave you, Brodie,’ he whispered. ‘Never. I can’t. But by Christ, can you make it all a bit easier? Please?’

I don’t remember what happened after that.

Well, I do–but I’m trying so hard to be a lady now…

Chapter Fourteen

After some more ladylike bedroom action, I was on my way to a routine visit of the cells in St Leonards, a courtesy call on the flotsam and jetsam I call my clients who were picked up on a variety of charges. None of them was particularly serious, and they could have been handled by Lavender’s husband, Eddie Gibb, who also worked in the practice, but I needed time to think about the consequences of my lust-driven actions of the night before. Glasgow Joe had a meeting at the casino with Kailash, and our business commitments and lack of sleep meant that we both had an excuse to leave the flat quickly without talking about anything in any more detail–that was par for the course with us, and the fact that we had almost seemed to be getting somewhere in the early hours of the morning didn’t really mean anything; I was sure we’d be back to square one next time we met. And I was sure that I would get the blame for it.