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ONE

FRAN

I loved that after all this time, Gareth still texted like a grandma getting used to the nuances of predictive text.

I also loved how he thought that pretty much any common phrase could be acronymised.

Translation: lyl stood for ‘love you lots’.

However, he had some other acronyms that took a lot more deciphering to figure out.

I snatched up the lovely Azulejo plates, popped them back in the worn cardboard box, and then indelicately yanked out a Pyrex dish from the cupboard to replace them.

The dish was – admittedly – the only thing we had in the cupboard at this point.

Just between my job and Gareth’s, we hadn’t really had a chance to have dinner together yet.

I had created some fake superstition that until Gareth and I finally had dinner together at the house, I couldn’t allow the fancy plates, which were a housewarming gift from his mum, to finally rest within their natural home of the right-hand cupboard above the sink.

And besides, the dish was microwavable, so it meant that the amount of washing up I had to do was drastically reduced.

I readied the dish and steadily began to pour the risotto in. The minute the first grain of rice touched the glass, Mep hopped on the counter and began his approach. I angled my body to try to block his path.

‘Mep, back off, you scab. This isn’t for you.’

He did his awful throaty purr in retaliation as he attempted to bounce onto my shoulder, but, unfortunately for him, his old, creaky cat joints wouldn’t let him.What was meant as a glorious leap akin to those of his lion ancestors could be more accurately described as a slightly sprained hop.

I mean, look, I got it, of course I got it; it was a new promotion, and Gareth wanted to make a good impression.

He had gone on and on and on about working in the CID as a sergeant for God knows how long, but there was still a part of me that wished some nights he would tell the cases to sod off and just come home for an early evening dinner so we could actually spend some time together.

Surely, some of them could wait to be solved until another day?

Itossedthe portable cutlery cases inthe cool-bag and placed it in the passenger seat of my car. I grabbed my phone and texted him back:

On my way dickhead, get ready for dinner in10.

If he had ordered takeaway already, I was going to kill that man.

I already knew the desk sergeant at the front,and as always, I waved to her as I came in.

‘What is it tonight, Fran?’ she askedas Ipowered through the immensely stiff glass door of the station.

‘Mushroom risotto today, Judith.’

‘Oooh, sounds lovely,’ she exclaimed, pursing her lipsand stretching herself over the desk to get a glance. I even noticed one of the men in line, who had his wrists encased in handcuffs, darted his eyes over to the bag. ‘I’ll buzz you in.’

The metallicdoor unlocked with a poorly greased squeak and then a high-pitched shrill as I hauled it open.

I manifested the bulbous biceps I would have by the time Gareth got his next promotion here with all this heavy door-pulling.

I wondered if I could even grab some growth hormone from the contraband section to really try and fuel my progress.

I strolled through the various offices of the police station and eventually found my husband.

Almost everyone else had gone home, but lo and behold, there he was, hunched over in his small cubicle, typing away on his crappy desktop.

I had always been so bitterly disappointed by how police detectives actually worked; even now, I kept expecting an old crusty cigar smell from the minute I entered, a fedora perching off the side of a wooden chair, and maybe even a half-broken typewriter as the detective pondered who had killed the mayor outside his mistress’s home on Fifth Avenue.

Instead, it all looked incredibly dull, like Gareth could have been an accountant for a stapler company just as much as a detective sergeant trying to solve some grisly homicide.

He hadn’t noticed me yet, so I slowly let my arms drape over him and moved my lips closer to nuzzle at his neck.

‘Mmm,’ he moaned, tilting his head back. ‘Vivian, I told you, not at work.’

‘Oh,piss off,’ I laughed with a cackle, clipping his ear lightly with the back of my hand.

I pulled out the office chair from the vacant desk beside me and began to dish out the risotto.

I could see the few other stragglers left in the CID begin to peep up from their ergonomic mole holes to investigate the smells.

Gareth slammed his case book shut, placed it onto his desk and gracefully dipped his nose into the wafts of risotto fumes drifting up from our traditional Sunday-evening dish.

‘Oh, my gosh, smells so good,’ he crooned as he began to shovel the food in. ‘So, who goes first? You first? Me first?’

‘I’ll go first.’

Gareth gestured for me to go ahead as he began to rapidly inhale his portion.

‘Well, you won’t believe this. Keith Johnson ran away from home again.’

‘Again?!’ Gareth groaned in between mouthfuls.

‘Yeah, got a call from an officer about it this morning. He’s back with his foster family now, but the police caught him a few miles away from the home last night with a bunch of pick ‘n’ mix stolen from the newsagent’s in his hoody pocket.’

‘Do you think they’ll press charges?’

‘Nah, I convinced them it wasn’t worth the trouble for a few flying saucers and raspberry bonbons, but I’m speaking with him and the family tomorrow afternoon. That should be a barrel of laughs.’

‘It’s sad that the lad can’t keep himself out of trouble, though. Any more updates on that new strategy thingy?’

‘Nope, nothing since last week. Veronica sent me about ten emails changing the dashes to commas, though, but she’s got another think coming if she thinks I’m going to do that on my Sunday afternoon. Right, I think that’s my time up.’

I should clarify: to prevent ourselves from being the boring couple who only talk about work, Gareth and I had decided to give each other a sixty-second max limit for work talk.

I always used to moan that Gareth grumbled way too much about his job, while Gareth said that I never complained enough, so we met in the middle: sixty seconds, no interruptions or off-topic questions from the other party.

‘So how about you? Solve any murders?’ I asked with my usual impishness.

‘A few,’ he replied rather nonchalantly.

I had asked him that question without fail almost every day for the past few years.

When he was on the beat, he would always laugh it off and just tell me he was doing some mundane task – from investigating who had trodden on some old dear’s flowers to settling minor disagreements between two middle-aged, beer-bellied thugs down the pub.

But now, he was actually doing the thing I’d always joked about.

It made me feel sort of uneasy that homicide had become the standard working day for him.

‘Anything you can talk to me about?’

‘Not really. They’re all pretty much open and shut cases. The CPS has done most of the heavy lifting for them, anyway. We’re just there to cross the t s and dot the i s, really.’

‘Urgh, with Isla, I bet,’ I said through a scowl. ‘Lawyers.’

Gareth gave a wry smile as if he wasn’t going to rise to the bait. I wasn’t a fan of Isla, and I made it a point to remind him of that every chance I could.

‘It’s a different criminal lawyer this time, Andrew Shorestone, who’s been an absolute pain in my neck recently, drowning me in paperwork.’

‘And how are you getting on with the team now?’

‘Good, good, they’re all good. I think the first month of staying late as a sergeant is kind of the rite of passage though, some weird kind of hazing, I guess.’

‘They’re still being nice to you?’ I said, jabbing my knife vaguely towards where a few of Gareth’s colleagues were sitting.

‘Yeah, they’re a good bunch of blokes,’ Gareth mumbled. The way he deflected made me suspicious; I wasn’t sure I believed him.

‘And how’s Vivian?’ I asked, knowing it was going to prompt some kind of negative response from him.

He grimaced and took another gulp of the risotto before continuing.

‘Won’t have much left for continuing the family line the way she’s busting my balls at the minute,’ he muttered under his breath.

‘She’s got no…’ He bit his lip, which he often did when he couldn’t think of the right word.

‘So, get this, right?’ he said, switching his tone to a hushed whisper and shuffling forward in his chair to speak to me more clandestinely.

‘She came in to supervise the questioning of one of my suspects today, and I don’t think I even got a word in.

Ever since I started, she just always takes over the entire investigation, doesn’t let me do any of the job I’m paid to do. ’

‘But it is your investigation, right?’

‘According to her, every investigation is her investigation. I know it’s only been a month, but she’s such a…’

I knew the word circling around my husband’s brain was ‘bitch’. However, he’d had too much of a strict Roman Catholic upbringing to actually say the word, so instead, he went for something less offensive:

‘… bully.’

‘Does everyone else think of her the same way you do?’ I asked, trying to hide my smirk.

‘No, I think they’ve all got used to her. They say she’s become more bitter since the divorce proceedings started last week. Apparently, the kids are fine as they’re all over eighteen and doing their own thing. Rumour is it’s the blimming cat that they’re fighting for custody of.’

‘You’ve got to be joking.’

‘I’m not joking. It’s ridiculous,’ Gareth said, finishing the last of the risotto with a gulp and throwing his fork into the dish like an Olympian launching a javelin. ‘If we divorce, you’re getting Mep, no questions asked. I don’t want that angry void cat any more.’

‘Screw that, I don’t want Mep. You can keep Mep,’ I responded.