‘You think it’ll be today?’

‘There’s not really any reason for Naylor to hang about now.’

‘He’ll want to be sure, though?’

Larssen drained the last of his coffee.

‘Oh, I think he’s well past that stage.’

Chapter 66

66

As I rode the moped home, I tried to think of what to say to my wife. How to phrase the fact that I was about to be charged with murder.

Listen, Mel, I have to tell you something.

I’m not capable of committing this crime. You know me better than anyone. You know it’s crazy, what they’re accusing me of.

But we have to agree on what we’re going to say to William.

It’s going to be OK.

We’ll get through this.

We just need to –

There were two police cars outside my house. People walking up my driveway.

DCI Naylor was one of them.

I braked sharply and pulled over to the side of the road, a couple of car lengths short of my house. Naylor had come mob-handed today: as well as Redford he had brought two tall uniformed officers in high-vis jackets, bulky with gear, flanking the detectives on either side. Maybe to discourage me from doing something stupid.

The front door opened and Mel stood there, looking from Naylor to the uniformed officers and back again, as if she couldn’t understand what they were doing there. As if it was all some huge mistake. William appeared at her side, half hiding behind her leg, peering up at the police on the doorstep.

Naylor was talking to Mel. She shook her head, giving short replies. Her eyes came to rest on me, sitting on her moped across the street. She knew I was using it, knew I was using her helmet too. Naylor would not recognise me with the helmet on, but she would. She stopped, did a little double take, and then shifted her position so that William couldn’t see me. I half expected her to point her finger, call out, give me away – but instead she went back to talking with Naylor as if she had not seen me at all.

I felt a surge of gratitude for my wife.

Thank you, Mel.

She still felt something for me, the spark was still there.

A bead of cold sweat rolled slowly down my side. It was one of those moments where you either surrender or you push all of your remaining chips into the middle of the table and see what the last card brings.

I revved the moped back into life and sped away.