‘I thought you were going home?’ she said, remembering he didn’t have one. ‘I mean, leaving the office.’ He gestured for her to sit down. ‘What’s going on, Vaughn?’

He checked that the incident room outside was empty and then opened a drawer to take out a pair of glasses and a bottle of Scotch. He unscrewed the cap and began to pour.

‘Not for me.’ Sasha held up a hand, but he splashed some into a glass anyway and pushed it towards her. ‘Just the one, then.’

Vaughn raised his drink in a toast – ‘To your sister’ – and slugged it down.

Relaxing back in his chair, he swilled the remaining Scotch around his glass. Sasha wasn’t a big fan – she didn’t really like the taste – but she showed willing by taking an infinitesimal sip and then setting down the glass, fully intending not to pick it up again.

‘So it’s over,’ he told her.

‘I thought it might be,’ she said gently.

‘She asked me to get her ex, that Barry, off a drink-driving charge – he’s probably going to lose his licence this time round – and asked if I could just wipe it from the computer. I told her that even if I could, it was perverting the course of justice, and I would get drummed out of the force, and very likely go to prison, but she asked me again, anyway. And then again, and again. She was very… persistent. She almost had me thinking whether I could get away with it.’ He drained the Scotch, the tendons in his neck stretching taut as he swallowed. ‘And then earlier she phoned to tell me she had made a mistake and… she and Barry were getting back together.’

Sasha blushed. ‘Vaughn, I—’

He held up a hand. ‘It’s not your fault.’

Sasha guessed that was the ‘favour’ Connie had intended to ask her on the night she had first met Vaughn. Knowing Connie, she was most likely attracted to him, but in the back of her mind she probably also saw an opportunity to get Barry off the hook. It was audacious – and callous – even by her sister’s low standards.

‘I feel a little silly now.’ Vaughn stared into his glass, smiling a little. ‘But it was fun while it lasted.’

Sasha blushed, incensed with her sister. ‘Oh, Vaughn,’ was all she could think to say. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘I really liked her, you know. She was exciting, unpredictable. It’s been a long time since I’ve felt so… alive. I don’t regret any of it, even if she is the wrong person for me. She’s a hell of a woman, your sister, a hell of a woman.’

She wanted to tell him, You’re well out of it, you had a lucky escape, but he looked too sad.