‘Say it to his face if you’ve got a problem! You’d never dare, would you? You try to turn me against them hoping I’ll start trouble with them so that, if and when I do, you can stand back and look all innocent—you’re the coward, not me! And I don’t pander to them, I consider their feelings—it’s not the same thing.’ Olivia wiped her eyes with one hand and sighed. With the flat of her other hand, she slammed shut the lid of the laptop that was sitting beside her on the sofa. ‘I guess that’s my working day over,’ she said, each syllable dripping with sacrifice.

‘Work? You mean writing airhead shit for the bits of the papers that everyone chucks in the bin? Still in your pyjamas at nearly six o’clock—you call that work?’

Olivia didn’t stand up, but she swung her legs round and straightened her back. ‘I’m a journalist,’ she said in a jagged voice. ‘I write about books. Books are not airhead shit. My work is worth as much as yours.’

Like hell it is.

‘Once or twice, it’s true, I’ve written articles about fashion or shopping, and you’ve stored that up to use against me in your campaign to prove that everything I do is a load of frivolous crap.’ Olivia wiped her eyes.

‘Diversionary tactics,’ Charlie said flatly. ‘Don’t think I don’t know them when I see them. I see them a lot.’ She’d always thought Liv was proud to be frivolous, believed frivolity to be a good worth striving for.

‘You know what? I don’t even mind you thinking that my life’s work is a huge waste of time. Maybe if I did what you did, I’d feel the same about anyone who didn’t have to deal with dead bodies and psychopaths every day. I’m sure I would.’

‘I’m not in CID any more, not that anyone seems to notice.’ Charlie sighed. ‘These days all I see is questionnaires and evaluation forms.’

‘What I object to is that you don’t even bother to pretend!’ Liv was determined to have her say. ‘You constantly put forward this view of the world in which you’re essential and I’m completely worthless and useless, and you expect me to . . . to subscribe to it!’

‘Oh, please. When do I put forward—?’

‘All the time! With your every word and action, with every face you pull. Did you know I’m writing a book?’

‘Yeah, yeah. Neither am I.’

‘I am!’

‘You used to say that all the time when we were teenagers. You never wrote more than a paragraph.’