‘Michael, how many times do I have to tell you? Anne is not your imposition on me. It wasn’t just you who went to Liam. It wasn’t just you Liam was protecting. Christ, if it wasn’t for me then neither of you would have been in that cabin. I owe Anne as much as you do. And besides, she’s family now. She can stay with us as long as she likes, on one condition.’

‘That we help her get better.’ Michael had heard the condition before.

‘That we help her get better, yeah. We’re doing her no good by enabling her. But as long as we’re helping, as long as she’s getting better, then she’s got a home here.’

Michael reached out and gripped Sarah’s hand once again. Tightly this time.

‘You really are perfect, Sarah Truman.’

‘Nobody’s perfect, Michael Devlin,’ Sarah replied with a broad grin. ‘But yeah, I run it close.’

‘Just that humility that’s missing, eh?’ Michael laughed.

‘Just that, yeah!’

‘What’s so funny?’

Michael and Sarah were still laughing as they looked up to see Anne walking down the steps, a fresh bottle of wine in her hand.

Michael rose from his chair and moved towards her.

‘Change of plan.’ He was careful to keep his tone playful as he reached out and took the wine bottle from her hand. ‘Enough booze for tonight. I’m taking my girls out to eat.’

‘I’m not hungry, Mikey,’ Anne protested. ‘Let’s stay here and enjoy the garden.’

‘Don’t care,’ Michael replied. ‘After the day I’ve had I’m bloody famished, and I hate eating alone. Now go get yourself ready. We’re leaving in ten.’

FIFTEEN

Adam Blunt did not try to suppress his smile as the news report ended.

It was the fourth time he had watched the same bulletin.

The first had come as a shock. But the repeats had been for entertainment. And he was not tiring of it yet.

I could watch this all day long, he chuckled to himself.

Blunt had hated Phillip Longman for almost twenty-five years, although their first encounter had been years before that. Early in Longman’s judicial career. Back then Longman had been the legal world’s rising star. Blunt had heard that long before meeting the man. What he had not heard was that Longman was also an uptight, preachy hypocrite. At least that was how Blunt remembered it. True or not, there was no doubt that the two men disliked one another intensely.

Every time Blunt appeared in Longman’s court he seemed to be criticised. And that criticism hurt. Not personally – Blunt couldn’t give two shits for what Phillip Longman thought – but professionally? Such repeated attacks by a well-respected judge could only be damaging. Still, Blunt had survived them. Bloody and bruised, but still standing. Until their final case, where Longman went further than ever before and ended Blunt’s first career.

Blunt could never forget that. And he would never forgive.

In the years that followed, their paths had crossed only occasionally. Blunt was never more than an ambulance chaser as a solicitor, and so was rarely involved in cases serious enough to come before a judge as important as Longman. That had become only more true as Longman had risen through the judicial ranks. And yet, every now and again, Blunt had still found himself in Longman’s court.