Freya stays sitting. The sun is warm, and a gentle breeze blows across the grass. It’s hard to imagine the storm from a week ago, given the beautiful weather now. She looks at Robin. He’s wearing jeans and a navy-blue polo shirt pulled up slightly around his waist, exposing a thin strip of skin. His eyes are still closed, and she thinks about that odd night in the Premier Inn. What was that? What is this?

Normal DCs don’t sit in parks with their sergeants. They don’t go on trips to Devon; they don’t have heart-to-heart conversations about love, and life, and God. But then, normal DCs and DSs don’t have the secrets that they have between them.

She pulls a daisy out of the grass, makes a hole in its stem with her nail, then threads another through it. She repeats it, until there are five or six in a line. The action is soothing, a meaningless pursuit from her childhood.

But the calm can’t last for long. Robin’s phone rings; he awkwardly pulls it out of his pocket, then answers it.

‘Steph?’ he says, pushing himself up to a sitting position with a grunt. ‘What have you found?’

Steph? Freya thinks. When did he start talking to Steph again? Freya watches as Robin listens, then he gets to his feet.

‘I’m on my way,’ he says, finishing the call.

‘I have to go to Reading,’ he tells Freya and she realises that she doesn’t want to go back to the station. To listen to three horrible teenagers bluff and deny and no comment their way through their interviews.

‘I’m coming, too,’ she replies.

55

Any love for the universe that Robin might have fostered from his experience with Liv is lost as he battles the traffic up the A33 towards Reading.

The dual carriageway is crowded, all the traffic lights against them. Robin arrives in the Royal Berkshire car park with his patience tested to the limit.

Freya follows wordlessly behind him as he walks quickly towards Finn’s private room. Even from a distance, he can see a crowd of people in the corridor, recognising familiar figures as he gets closer.

DI Craig and DC Grey stand on one side, silent and grim-faced. On the other, Sandra is talking to Josie, her hand resting reassuringly on her arm. They all turn as they see Robin and Freya approaching.

Robin introduces Freya to the pair from Thames Valley Police, and Craig gestures to an empty room to the side. Josie watches the four coppers leave, her face questioning.

‘What’s going on? Where’s Steph?’ Robin asks once the door is closed.

‘I was going to ask you the same thing, Butler,’ Craig snaps. ‘It’s bad enough that you felt the coroner needed a second opinion and went behind my back to get it without keeping me waiting for the results.’