‘Nula. Your frigging wife. She called and she’s asking about the kid. About Harlan. About what sort of background he had, before he was with the agency.’

Charlie stared at the phone. ‘What’d you say?’ he asked.

‘I said I’d get back to her, but I didn’t. I said I’d have to check the files.’

Charlie gazed across at Terry, sitting there looking a question at him. What in the fuck, he wondered, was Nula asking about that for? And where did she get ‘Mrs Bushell’s’ number, which was Candice’s number, the same one she had answered as ‘the agency’ all throughout the process of Harlan’s adoption? He thought he’d had that all locked safely away, out of sight.

‘Change your number with BT, OK?’ he said.

‘Christ, Charlie, do I have to? All my clients . . .’

‘Do it,’ said Charlie, and slammed down the phone.

‘What’s up?’ asked Terry.

‘Nothing,’ said Charlie, thinking of Harlan as they’d first seen him, crouching pale-eyed and filthy in the cupboard under the stairs in that shit-hole of a squat.

He thought of Harlan’s ‘background’ with his junkie mother. Of course, Charlie had told the kid he must never talk about that. Never. No way did he want Nula ever finding out about it. And the kid never had. Actually, Harlan never talked much about anything. Charlie had been worried that he might speak out, at first. Now, he didn’t worry any more. It wasn’t in the kid’s nature to make conversation, and that was a relief.

58

The cabinet repair man had come and mended the desk. After he was gone, there was a strong smell of fresh varnish in the air, so next day Nula opened all the office windows and hoped for the best. Any luck, Charlie wouldn’t be home for a few days and that would give it time to clear. He wasn’t the most observant man, anyway. The day-to-day running of the household never seemed to concern him at all. And since the tragedy with Jake . . . well, he’d lost interest in a lot of things. Including sex, which she was glad about because she had never felt less like sex in her life. If the bastard had laid a single finger on her, she would have bitten the thing right off anyway. Any time he tried to so much as hug her, all she could see in front of her eyes was Jill. All she could think was rapist.