When Fleet had moved out, he’d left almost everything behind except his suits and his razor. Not that he’d ever had much. His old records, a few shelves of books, a couple of drawerfuls of clothes. But he hadn’t wanted any of it. It was Holly who’d boxed it all up for him, once the divorce had been finalised. Not because she was trying to remove all trace of him, she’d insisted. Rather, because it was too painful to keep stumbling on reminders of what they’d once had. Ironically perhaps, it was only because of the issue of children that they’d agreed to split up in the first place. Holly wanted kids and Fleet didn’t. Couldn’t. Not after Jeannie. When she’d killed herself, Fleet had been the closest thing she’d had to a father, and he’d never been able to forgive himself for failing in that role; for not even having a clue what his little sister had been going through. As for Holly, Fleet loved her too much to deny her the thing she craved most from life, just as she cared too much for him to ask him to pretend to be something he could never be.

‘It’s all still in boxes,’ Fleet said. ‘I put them in storage. To be honest, I think I’m paying more each month just to keep them dry than I am for this place.’

Holly didn’t smile. She tended not to when it came to matters of Fleet’s well-being.

‘What did you mean when you said you weren’t planning on sleeping?’ she asked him, still frowning.

‘Nothing, Sprig.’ He used his old nickname for her almost without realising. ‘It was just a joke. It’s been a long day, that’s all.’

Holly’s frown tightened. ‘You’ve got that look about you, Rob. That haunted look. What are you working on? If you were to tell me what it was, would I disapprove?’

‘You might,’ Fleet replied. He smiled. ‘If I were to tell you.’

He even missed this. Holly’s protective side. The unusual thing was that she hadn’t already guessed what Fleet was caught up in. Ben’s murder was all over the news. It was Fleet’s patch. And his train ticket to London was beside his wallet and keys on the breakfast bar, where he’d automatically emptied his pockets when they’d come in. Holly knew full well how much he hated the place, meaning it wouldn’t have taken a lot for her to make the connection to Callum Richardson had she known the basic details of the case. That she seemed not to suggested that, for once in her life, she was out of touch with what was going on in the world. Although that was perhaps less surprising, given what had evidently been going on in her own life.