Sam has unsolveds with his name on them, every detective has, and I was pretty sure he could survive another one, as long as he was sure the guy hadn't been after me. "You didn't have anything last Saturday, either," I said, "and you were dead against it then."

His hand started moving again, absently. "That first day," he said, after a while. "When you came down to the scene. You were messing with Mackey, do you remember? He was slagging you about your clothes and you were slagging back, almost like the way you used to with . . . when you were on Murder."

He meant with Rob. Rob was probably the closest friend I've ever had, but then we had this huge complicated vicious fight and that was the end of that. I twisted round and propped myself on Sam's chest so I could see him, but he was looking up at the ceiling. "I hadn't seen you like that in a while," he said. "That much bounce to you."

"I've probably been pretty crap company, these last few months," I said.

He smiled, just a little. "I'm not complaining."

I tried to remember ever hearing Sam complain about anything. "No," I said. "I know."

"Then Saturday," he said. "I know we were fighting and all"--he gave me a quick squeeze, dropped a kiss on my forehead--"but still. I realized afterwards: that was because we were both really into it, this case. Because you cared. It felt . . ." He shook his head, looking for the words. "DV's not the same," he said, "is it?"

I had mostly kept my mouth shut about DV. It hadn't occurred to me, till then, that all that silence could have been plenty revealing, in its own way. "It needs doing," I said. "Nothing's the same as Murder, but DV's fine."

Sam nodded, and for a second his arms tightened around me. "And that meeting," he said. "Right up until then, I'd been wondering should I pull rank and tell Mackey to bugger off for himself. This started off as a murder case, I'm down as lead detective, if I said no . . . But the way you were talking, all interested, thinking it out . . . I just thought, why would I wreck that?"

I had not seen this coming. Sam has one of those faces that fool you even when you know better: a countryman's face, all ruddy cheeks and clear gray eyes and crow's-feet starting, so simple and open that there couldn't possibly be anything hidden behind it. "Thanks, Sam," I said. "Thank you."

I felt his chest lift and fall as he sighed. "It might turn out to be a good thing, this case. You never know."

"But you still wish this girl had picked just about anywhere else to get herself killed," I said.