‘What? I wasn’t saying you were … weak or anything. I felt that too.’

‘Right. Great. Okay, then.’

Costain found himself looking intently at her face, wishing desperately that he knew what was going on underneath all that anger. But he wasn’t going to find out now because he’d set off all her defences. He raised his hands in surrender. ‘I’m really sorry.’

She just shook her head again. As if she was shaking him off her.

*   *   *

In the car heading back to the nick, Lisa Ross looked out of her side window and tried to keep her expression steady. Costain was an expert at hiding his intentions, at getting people talking. Had he tried today to get her to open up about herself? Right at the moment when she had something she wanted to hide, particularly from him? He’d seemed really awkward about that text message – really awkward, as if it had been an embarrassing mistake, the sort of mistake someone trying to put up a front shouldn’t make.

Or maybe the sort of mistake someone trying to put up a front wouldn’t make.

She sneaked a look across at him driving. Was it just that he fancied her? She was constantly taken by surprise when that happened. She never realized until it was too late. It was always difficult and complicated. She remembered him having stayed with her in the hospital. He’d shown a whole caring side to him that … or, even back then, was that what he’d wanted her to think?

Maybe she was being too hard on him. What had he done, today, really? Just tried to find in her some utterly understandable feelings of being shaken up. Maybe he really had felt the same way. He’d looked as if he had at the time. He’d hit one of her buttons: she could never live with any suggestion that she was being less than professional.

Maybe he’d hit that button deliberately to set her off, to see what it revealed. Had he any inkling what she was up to? Would she ever know, one way or the other? If he did, it was impossible that he wouldn’t act on it, impossible that he wouldn’t start trying to play her. He would have to know for himself what she was finding out. The object she was after was unique, too valuable for him just to ask her about it and risk warning her of any intentions he might have.

Was it just that he fancied her? She wondered if he’d ever do anything else about it, now that she’d behaved the way she had.

Those eyes of his were very useful for an undercover, she decided.

He looked very trustworthy. Even when she knew he wasn’t.

Chapter Five

FIVE