Page 123 of No Safe Place

‘Okay,’ Young said, stiffly. ‘Shall we go over my thoughts in your office?’

They walked through the station in awkward silence, a few of the team raising a hand to wave at Young as they passed. Field had a knot of dread in her stomach. It reminded her of walking to the headmaster’s office, knowing you were in for a bollocking.

Once the door was shut, Field turned round to face her, and saw Young had her arms crossed, a pissed-off expression on her face.

‘What the fuck is wrong with you?’ she hissed.

Field appreciated that she wasn’t yelling.

‘Honestly? I don’t know.’ She made sure to look Young in the eyes. ‘But I’m sorry. For how I spoke to you at the Volly – I really am.’

‘You know it’s not me you should be apologising to.’ Young’s shoulders dropped and she sighed, flopping into the chair opposite Field’s desk. ‘I spoke to Toby – and before you fly off the handle,Icalled him. He told me about last night.’

Field’s face was hot. She’d delivered terrible news to hundreds, maybe thousands, of people, but the thought of facing her son was making her squirm.

‘He’s okay, you know,’ Young said.

‘That’s good. I’ll apologise to him tonight. We haven’t had an argument since he was—’

Young shook her head. ‘I don’t mean about the row.’

Field took a beat.

‘I mean he’sokay, Liz. You don’t need to torture yourself worrying about him, not anymore.’

Hearing it out loud – it was such an instant, visceral relief. To Field’s horror, she felt tears spring into her eyes.

‘I fucking hate it when you call me Liz,’ she said, pressing her index fingers into her tear ducts.

‘Would you preferElizabeth?’ Young asked, grinning.

Field snorted.

They were going to be okay. Young didn’t hold a grudge. She said life was too short, after spending hers dealing with dead and dying people.

Young rolled her eyes, and held up her notebook. ‘Right, can we get on with this, please?’

‘Oh shit, your date with the hot plasterer,’ Field said, still sniffing. ‘Weren’t you going to the cinema?’

‘Sunday roast.’ Young laughed. ‘And I can still make it, if we get a move on.’

She pulled up a photo of Andy’s wound on the camera, and zoomed in. ‘It’s not a defensive injury, in my opinion. It’s too deep, for starters. But also, with a defensive injury, he would be moving his arm, so it’d be more erratic. This is a clean line.’

‘So could it be self-inflicted?’ Field asked, leaning in to look at the small screen.

Young shook her head. ‘Typically, a self-inflicted wound starts near the wrist, and then the knife moves towards the body.’ She mimed her closed fist moving from her wrist towards her elbow.

Field’s eyebrows raised. ‘Typically?’

‘Well, in the cases where a self-inflicted wound goes towards the wrist, they don’t tend to be this deep. And you’d see hesitation marks here—’ She pointed to the crease of the elbow. ‘Also, if they start deep, they get shallower near the wrist.’ Young mimed again. Elbow to wrist, flicking up towards the end. ‘People doing this action tend to want to avoid the vein – consciously or sub-consciously.’

‘And you’re saying Andrew Levey’s wound was—’

‘Inflicted from elbow towards the wrist and gotdeeper.’

Field rubbed her forehead, which was sticky with sweat. ‘You think Andy was stabbed?’

‘It veered to the right at the end, so I’d say if it was someone else, they were standing opposite him and they were left-handed. I’d say it was a downward, sweeping motion, which is very different to the stab to the abdomen, which was the first injury to Sam and David.