‘Anyway, let’s stop talking work,’ she suggested. ‘We should be unwinding, right?’

‘Sure. Good idea,’ Dale agreed. ‘So what did you get up to over the weekend?’

‘The weekend…?’ She hesitated. ‘I went to visit my father in the hospice.’

‘Your father’s in a hospice?’

Bailey realised that she hadn’t told Dale about the situation with her father.

‘Yeah. He’s really ill. Stage four pancreatic cancer.’

‘Oh my God! I had no idea.’ His eyes widened in concern. ‘I’m so sorry to hear that.’

She gave a disconsolate shrug.

‘Do you want to talk about it?’ he asked gently.

She started to shake her head and began to explain why he probably wouldn’t want to hear about it. But then somehow she found herself talking, and telling him more and more until the words were spilling out in a ceaseless torrent. And all the while, he listened silently, his calm blue eyes wide and receptive, paying firm attention to everything she said.

She halted suddenly, realising she’d been talking at him non-stop for almost ten minutes.

‘I’m sorry. This must be really boring for you.’

‘Not at all,’ he said.

‘I’m not used to talking about these kinds of things with other people. I guess it’s all just built up inside of me.’

‘It’s good to get stuff off your chest.’

‘You’re a good listener,’ she said.

‘It’s a crucial skill to have when you’re working with informants.’

They both laughed.

That was what she missed about intimacy. To be able to confide in someone close to you. But did the fact that she was now confiding in Dale mean that they were becoming intimate?

‘I like it when you tell me about yourself,’ he said. ‘It’s interesting.’

‘You don’t know the half of it,’ she said.

‘What do you mean?’

She snorted a laugh. ‘I haven’t even started telling you about my sister.’

He raised his eyebrows in curiosity. ‘I’m all ears…’

And so she found herself telling him all about Jennifer’s disappearance and her father’s futile quest to find her and his irrational obsession with Mister Snigiss. It felt good to talk. Cathartic. Once again, Dale listened intently, giving her his full attention. However, as she was drawing to a close, she noticed that a preoccupied frown had settled on his face.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘I think I really have bored you this time. I just told you all this crap from my childhood.’

‘No, that’s okay.’ The furrows on his forehead deepened. ‘It’s just that…’

She saw his lips flex and tighten like he was about to say something but had suddenly thought better of it. As a police officer, she was good at noticing these little behavioural cues.

‘What is it?’ she asked.

‘Ah, it’s probably nothing.’

‘You look perturbed.’

He shook it off and smiled. ‘Like I said, it’s probably nothing.’

Now she was intrigued. ‘You can’t say that and then not tell me.’

He smiled and sighed. ‘Okay… I’ll tell you, for what it’s worth. But don’t place too much stock in it… because it might not be anything, okay?’