Joel didn’t care about expensive meals, and didn’t own the kind of clothes you needed to eat them. He wanted to go to the little Italian restaurant in Lisson Grove that served ravioli and was near Aaron’s flat. “I’ll leave it to you. Whenever, no hurry. Nothing fancy.” He’d have to wear the hook and use a knife at a fancy place, and people always looked, or at least he always felt as if they were looking.

Aaron considered for a moment. “Do you like Indian food?”

“I’ve had kedgeree?” Joel said dubiously. “And my old landlady did a thing she said was beef curry, but frankly—”

“You haven’t had Indian food. There’s an excellent place in Gerrard Street. It’s almost entirely frequented by Indians, and a fair few of them eat with their right hands only, so all the food is prepared with that in mind. I thought perhaps—”

“Yes,” Joel said. “Let’s go there.”

“I’ll arrange a time shortly.” Aaron sighed. “I really should go now. That was a wonderful evening. And I don’t think I said nearly enough as to how outstandingly impressive your results were. You were astonishingly accurate and you deserved a great deal more applause than I gave you. I would very much like to call on your abilities again.”

“Any time,” Joel said. “Usual rates. You know where to find me.”

Aaron’s arm tightened. Joel felt a whisper of movement, as though his lips had brushed Joel’s hair. “I won’t forget.”

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER TEN

“IT’S NOT GOOD ENOUGH, Fowler.”

Aaron stared at the wall of DDI Colthorne’s office, trying not to react. It wasn’t easy. The DDI was very much speaking ‘more in sorrow than in anger’, but Aaron couldn’t help feeling the kindly tone as a taunt.

He’d have been thrumming with tension anyway. This was the Divisional Detective Inspector hauling him over the coals, and rightly so, while DI Davis watched the whole thing with an unpleasant smile. It would have been bad even if he hadn’t been so horribly conscious of Joel’s words.

I think he would do extraordinarily bad things with open eyes. I think he might have blood on his hands.

Colthorne shook his head, a responsible man sadly disappointed. “You have achieved very little in the past weeks. You’ve ignored other jobs and wasted your time and the public’s on a case that I cannot see is more than an accidental death. What are you playing at?”