Cruel Acts

I checked. ‘He didn’t.’

‘I know,’ he said patiently. ‘That was my point.’

‘Wait for the next bit.’

‘Go on.’

‘“But even if they had confined themselves to looking at the evidence, there’s no reason to believe the jury would have been able to make a fair decision. Two murder appeals have been successful already this year because of the revelation that the Home Office pathologist Dr Glen Hanshaw failed to uphold the highest standards of his profession in the months before his death, through ill health and arrogance. Hanshaw is dead and gone. His legacy is a black mark on the legal system that nothing can erase.”’

‘Fuck’s sake.’

‘Don’t crash the car.’ I put a hand on the dashboard to brace myself as Derwent swerved impatiently around a cyclist.

‘That makes it sound as if poor old Hanshaw was deliberately trying to trick people. He was doing his best.’

‘Which wasn’t good enough.’

Derwent shifted in his seat, irritated. ‘He could have done with more oversight but he wasn’t that sort of person. There was no one around to tell him he wasn’t coping. At least, no one he trusted. No one he’d listen to.’

‘If that ever happens to you, I promise I’ll tell you to quit.’

‘If I’m dying and I still want to go to work every day, you have my permission to shoot me.’ He glanced sideways at me. ‘This is why you need to start looking for a new bloke.’

‘Sorry, what?’

‘You’ll end up like Glen Hanshaw if you don’t. You have nothing in your life but work.’

‘Excuse me—’

Derwent held up a hand. ‘Save the outrage. Tell me, when was the last time you went out? Not on a date. Just out.’

I opened my mouth to tell him it was none of his business and shut it again.

‘Ages, is it? Months? Last year some time?’

‘I don’t remember.’

He whistled. ‘Worse than I thought.’

‘I’ve been busy. I’ve been working a lot.’

‘Pulling double shifts. You must be raking in the overtime.’

There it was: a door offering me a way out. I could explain myself by telling Derwent I was just saving up for a deposit so I could buy my own flat and stop paying him rent.

The trouble was, it was a lie.

Worse than that, it was a lie he would spot in a heartbeat.

‘I might be a bit lonely.’

Another glance, this time unexpectedly gentle. I had to look away at the passing streetscape before I could go on. ‘It’s so much easier when you’re in a relationship. You wake up on a day off and you go and do something. No planning. No fuss.’ I swallowed. ‘Everyone I know seems to be getting married, or they’re just married, or they’ve just had a baby. None of my friends are ever at a loose end. They have their own lives – it’s not their fault that I don’t.’

‘What about Liv?’

‘She’s having IVF.’

‘Seriously?’

‘Don’t say anything. She and her girlfriend want to have a baby. They’ve picked a donor but it hasn’t happened yet.’

‘I was about to volunteer,’ Derwent said, and I laughed before I could stop myself. There was a chance – a small one – that he was actually serious.

‘Listen, Kerrigan, you’ve been under a cloud since that two-timing shitweasel dumped you and went off to play happy families with his new bird. You’ve got to get your head straight.’

‘That two-timing shitweasel’, otherwise known as the love of my life, Rob Langton. Derwent wasn’t his biggest fan. ‘Thanks for the advice.’

‘You’re not getting any younger, you know. If you want to have kids, you need to meet someone in the next year.’

‘I’m not that old.’ Outrage made my voice squeaky.

‘Your clock is ticking, whether you can hear it or not. Think about it. You meet someone. Then you’ve got to spend a year or so getting to know them. Then you’ll want to get married because your parents would shit a brick if you had a child out of wedlock. That’ll take another year to organise. And then you’ll be cleaned out financially. You won’t want to take maternity leave until you’ve built up a bit of cash. Call it another year. Then you can’t assume you’ll get pregnant straight away. All the time your fertility is declining. Sad, really.’

‘You seem to have given this a lot of thought.’ My voice was so cold it could have flash-frozen a side of beef. Derwent wasn’t noticeably affected.

‘It’s just common sense, isn’t it, but you don’t seem to have any.’

‘I know you’ve embraced domesticity—’

‘This has nothing to do with me.’

‘You’re so right. So why are we talking about it?’ I waggled my phone at him. ‘Do you want to hear the end of this or not?’

‘Give it to me. I can take it.’

‘“After his successful appeal yesterday, Leo Stone deserves an apology from all of us. The Metropolitan Police, too, must bear responsibility for this miscarriage of justice. The CPS is insisting there must be a retrial, wasting more time and money. An innocent man must suffer because they can’t bear to admit they made a mistake. Sara Grey’s family have campaigned for Leo Stone’s release from prison. They, like me, believe Leo Stone is innocent of these murders. He is a victim of this crime, like the two women he was alleged to have killed. If the Home Secretary has any sense she will discourage the CPS from pursuing him any further so the Met can reopen the case and, this time, bring the real killer to justice.”’

‘Who wrote this?’

‘A journalist named Christopher Fallon.’ I showed Derwent the byline photograph, knowing it would irritate him further.

‘State of him. Pencil-necked twerp, telling me I can’t do my job. Listen, Christopher, if I want your opinion I’ll come round to your house and beat it out of you.’

‘He’d be shaking in his shoes if he could hear you.’

Derwent glowered at me instead. ‘You don’t think that sort of piece affects public opinion?’

‘A tiny number of people will read it.’