Page 81 of The Unforgiven

I actually did. “Please. That’ll be lovely. I’ll get changed and be with you.” There was no way out of this. I’d expected her to be at her Pilates class and confident I could get to cook something slightly nutritious and then into bed before she got home.

I felt ambushed.

“Cool. It’ll be ready in ten.” She scurried back into the kitchen and I headed into my room, throwing off today’s clothes into the washing basket, which was something I needed to attack sooner rather than later. Or drop it off for a service wash – a better idea.

I threw on sweats and a cropped T-shirt, and pulled on an oversized zip up hoodie that I figured had once belonged to Jalen, the name of the boxing gym faded on the back. Lucy was sat down at the table, two bowls of risotto steaming on the place mats, two glasses of wine freshly poured, the glasses covered in condensation at the bottom.

It looked like too much of an effort.

“How’s the case going?” she said as I sat down. “Are you going to catch him soon? I’m running out of money for taxis.”

“We will.” Maybe tomorrow, maybe when we had the names of the boys there’d be a link with the comments on the women’s social media accounts and we wouldn’t have spent the last couple of weeks chasing down a dead end. I tried the risotto, almost burning my mouth. It was good, just the right amount of crunch and rich with the goat’s cheese. “How’s school?”

“A lunatic asylum as normal. I do worry about how that generation are going to run a country one day, but maybe it’sjust the kids at my place.” She sipped her wine, food as yet untouched.

“How’s Cavan?”

“Oh, Cavan? I think he’s okay. He was delivering some of the training tonight but I haven’t really seen much of him.” She looked over at the kitchen door, some imaginarily convenient noise.

She was lying.

“I think he might be coming over later. I thought a few decent orgasms might help my stress levels.”

She blanched.

It wasn’t true. I couldn’t think of much I wanted less than Cavan turning up here now, but I wanted to see her reaction.

She was waiting for him to end it with me; he’d told her he would, but until he did, she was the other woman, and that was not a role Lucy would want to play.

“Oh, well, keep it down.” She tried to laugh.

“How was the date you had last night? What was he called?” I carried on eating. Lucy’s guilt food was good, and it’d been ages since I’d eaten something that wasn’t out of a plastic wrapper.

“Kayden,” she nodded. “It was okay – not sure I’ll see him again though.”

“Why not?”

She shrugged. “No chemistry.”

“Shame. What else has been going on in the real world?” Awkwardness was creasing the atmosphere into something unbearable.

“The flat next door’s up for rent. Matty and Den are moving to the Northern Quarter so they’re closer to work. So we’ll have new neighbours. And Caroline and Heath have split up.” She started to tell me what had happened from Caroline’s perspective and then gave her own. I half listened, not reallyknowing Caroline and Heath that well, and what I did know I wasn’t that keen on.

I’d need to move out. I couldn’t carry on living there knowing that she’d gotten involved with the man I was seeing. We weren’t the best of friends, but that didn’t mean Cavan was fair game for her.

“This wine’s nice.” I topped our glasses up, filling a lull in the conversation. “Where’s it from?”

“Just the deli on the corner. Mia, are you really keen on Cavan? I just wondered because you don’t spend loads of time together, and I think he thinks you’re not that bothered because you don’t really text and all that.”

I wondered how long she’d been working out how to ask me that.

“It’s early days, but I like him.” Or I did until I’d seen those photos. “I’ll hopefully have some time off after this case has finished so maybe we can spend a bit more time together.” I checked my phone. “I don’t think I want him to come round tonight though. I am shattered.” I stood up, picking up our now empty bowls. “I’ll clean up. You cooked – it was really nice of you, thank you.”

“You’re welcome. Maybe we should try and do this more often?”

“We should.”

Neither of us meant it. And I think we both knew it would never happen anyway.