fields. Anita obviously lived in a nice terrace house in South London; it was probably worth more than the entire village up here. But as the children sped around the nice, expensive kitchen, it couldn’t help crossing Lissa’s mind if it was worth it. How much it must cost to pay the mortgage; how hard it must be to raise children you couldn’t let out on their own.
“Honestly, I can—”
“No, you have these sessions paid for and I need to complete them before you go.” She looked crestfallen. “Sorry they’ve been a little rushed . . .”
“It doesn’t look easy, your job,” said Lissa mildly.
“I know,” said Anita, as little shoes pattered overhead. “I’m sorry . . .”
Lissa shook her head. “Actually,” she said cheerfully, “turning off my social media . . . it really helped.”
“Did it?” Anita brightened.
“Yup. And so did you telling me to go over it in my head.”
“Did you?”
“No, but I thought the idea was solid. So . . .”
Outside Anita’s door a taxi honked its horn and her face fell.
“Tell me quickly,” said Lissa.
“It’s quite strong,” said Anita.
“I don’t care. Call it efficient and I’ll give you a good feedback form.”
“That would be good,” said Anita, looking stressed.
There was a pause.
“Okay,” she said, then took a deep breath. “If you don’t go over this right now, out loud, whether to me or somebody else, this is your last chance. You’ll be in the witness-box. And the perpetrator is going to be staring straight at you. Possibly his mates will be there. Staring at you. Threatening you. I’m not trying to scare you, Lissa. But what if you freeze? Clam up?”
“Oh, actually this is quite harsh,” said Lissa.
The honking grew louder. Anita paused.
“I won’t freeze,” said Lissa suddenly.
“You might.”
Lissa blinked back tears. All at once, the gray day outside the window didn’t look soft and welcoming: it looked ominous and oppressive.
“And I have to warn you. You could cause a mistrial or let the offender go free, if you can’t explain clearly what you saw.”
Lissa could barely speak; the lump in her throat was huge.
Upstairs, Anita’s children were yelling their heads off. Anita leaned forward.
“Lissa, I have black sons. One day you might too. The streets of the city have to be safe for them. You know that. You know that, right?”
And her voice was intense and serious and not at all distracted. All Lissa could do was back away from her gaze, nodding slowly. The taxi honked for the last time, and Anita straightened up.
“And now I have to go,” she said, and Lissa simply nodded.
THERE WAS ANOTHER honking sound, and Lissa belatedly realized it was her own cab. Her heart was racing. She knew Anita was right. She knew. But suddenly it seemed harder than ever.
Chapter 60
I won’t know what you look like, Lissa had typed as she set off for London, after she’d been driven through a bright and golden dawn.
They hadn’t been communicating beyond the professional in the last week, mostly because both of them, without mentioning it, were extremely nervous. Lissa nearly wrote “it’s a blind date” but managed to delete it just in time because it wasn’t a date, it was a meeting with someone she had been doing a job share with—professional, if anything. They had already discussed dates they’d had with other people. So. The fact that she hadn’t mentioned it to Kim-Ange had . . . nothing to do with anything.
Cormac also hadn’t mentioned their meeting to Kim-Ange. She would just make a big deal out of it. Plus, she and Piotr were madly in love and snogging up a storm at breakfast time every day and frankly making everyone a tiny bit sick, and nothing would make her happier than to think of the two of them . . . going for lunch, no more, no less, he told himself, nonetheless ironing his best shirt, a yellow check.
He glanced at her message and typed, I’ll recognize YOU. You’ll be the one loudly complaining about diabetic prescribing.
It just makes everything else MORE DIFFICULT, started Lissa, a bugbear that always made him smile.
ROISIN HAD TOLD Lissa to look sensible in court, so she pulled her hair back into a tight bun that made her look more professional than the curls everywhere and put on a sleek houndstooth check skirt suit that she never really got a chance to wear. Paired with a blouse and some smart earrings her mother had sent her (as well as the suit), she