LUKE’S SMALL CASE was packed and zipped up next to him as he sat waiting for Elise in the café on Duke Street, just south of Oxford Street. The place was popular with a clientele from the Gulf, and two young Arab women were poring excitedly over a message on their phones, cupping their freshly hennaed hands over their mouths as they shared a joke. The door swung open and Elise breezed in, earrings twinkling, and gave him a radiant smile. She was wearing a low-cut, dark-green dress, a thin gold chain around her slender neck. She was slightly flushed, perhaps because she was late, but to Luke she was as gorgeous in that moment as she had been the very first time he’d met her.

‘I’m starving,’ she announced as she settled into the chair opposite him and fixed her hair with a hair tie. ‘It must be all these long hours I’ve been doing. Hey!’ She squeezed his arm. ‘How’s you? I feel like I’ve hardly seen you.’ Before he could answer a waiter appeared at their table, pen and notepad poised.

‘I know exactly what I’ll have,’ Elise announced. ‘Avocado on rye toast with smoked salmon.’ Odd choice for the time of day, Luke thought, but he didn’t comment on it.

‘I’m good,’ he told the waiter. ‘Just a glass of tap water, please.’

Elise frowned and reached out to touch his cheek. ‘So, come on, babes, what’s bothering you these days? I’m glad you got me out of the gallery. I’d like to get things out in the open between us. You know we’ve always been honest with each other.’

Honest. The word stung him. Because he hadn’t been honest with her, had he? Not about what had happened on that mission in Iran. And it was as if the awful secret of what he had done there had kept burning into his conscience ever since. So now his mind was made up. It was time to tell.

‘So, Lise,’ he began. ‘You remember when I was away in Iran, back when I was working on that hostage case?’

‘How could I forget?’ she said, raising an admonishing eyebrow. ‘You missed my mother’s funeral.’ He could see her good mood evaporating and already he regretted broaching the subject. Yet there was no going back now. He had to do this.

‘I know, I know.’ He looked down at his hands. They were clasped tightly together. ‘And I still feel bad about that, you know I do. But there’s something else I need to tell you.’

Elise sat back in her chair and gave him a coy look. ‘Go on.’

‘I’m afraid something happened over there,’ he said. ‘Something I’m not proud of at all and—’