Davina gave a small cry and Lynn put her little finger in the baby's mouth, smiling down at her. "That must have been terrible for him. It must take so much courage to go looking for your birth mother. She's rejected you once?who knows why?and you're setting yourself up for a second slap in the face. But you must be clinging to the hope that she's going to welcome you with open arms."
"I know. And then to find out that somebody snatched that chance away from you twenty-five years before." Alex leaned forward. "Can I take her for a while?"
"Sure. She's not long had a feed, so she should sleep for a bit." Lynn gently eased her hands under her daughter, passing her to Alex as if she was the most valuable and fragile object in the world. He slid his hand beneath her frail neck and held her to his chest. Davina mumbled softly, then settled. "So, does Lawson think the son is coming after you?"
"Lawson doesn't think anybody's coming after me. He thinks I'm a paranoid nutter making a mountain out of a molehill. He got very embarrassed about having let it slip about Rosie's son, and kept reassuring me that he wouldn't harm a fly. He's called Graham, by the way. Lawson wouldn't give me his surname. Apparently he works in the IT industry. Quiet, stable, very normal," Alex said.
Lynn shook her head. "I can't believe Lawson's taking it all so lightly. Who does he think sent the wreaths?"
"He doesn't know and he doesn't care. All he's bothered about is that his precious cold case review is going down the drain."
"They couldn't run a m-age, far less a murder inquiry. Did he have any explanation as to how they lost a whole box of forensic evidence?"
"They didn't lose the whole box. They've still got the cardigan. Apparently it was found separately. Thrown over the wall into somebody's garden. They tested it after all the other stuff, which is probably why it ended up separated from the rest of the material."
Lynn frowned. "It turned up later? Wasn't there something about a second search they did later at your house? I vaguely remember Mondo complaining about them being all over the place weeks after the murder."
Alex struggled with memory. "After they'd done the initial search?They came back after the New Year. They scraped paint off the walls and ceilings. And they wanted to know whether we'd done any redecorating." He snorted. "As if. And Mondo said he'd overheard one of them talking about a cardigan. He assumed they were looking for something one of us had been wearing. But they weren't, of course. They were referring to Rosie's cardigan," he finished triumphantly.
"So there must have been paint on her cardigan," Lynn said thoughtfully. "That's why they were taking samples."
"Yeah, but they obviously didn't get a match from our house. Or else we'd have been in even deeper shit."
"I wonder if they've done a fresh analysis. Did Lawson say anything about it?"
"Not specifically. He said they didn't have any of the clothes that would be susceptible to modern forensic analysis."
"That's nonsense. They can do so much with paint these days. I get far more information from the labs now than I did even three or four years ago. They should be testing that. You need to get back to Lawson and insist that they look again at it."
"An analysis isn't any use without something to compare it with. Lawson's not going to jump just because I say so."
"I thought you said he wanted to solve this case?"
"Lynn, if there was anything to be gained, they'd have done it."
Lynn flushed with sudden anger. "Christ, Alex, listen to yourself. Are you just going to sit back and wait for something else to blow up in the middle of our lives? My brother's dead. Somebody walked into his house bold as brass and murdered him. The only person who might have been any use to you thinks you're paranoid. I don't want you to die, Alex. I don't want your daughter to grow up without a single memory of you."
"You think I want that?" Alex hugged his daughter to his chest.
"Stop being so bloody spineless, then. If you and Weird are right, the person who killed Ziggy and Mondo is going to come after you. The only way you're going to get off the hook is if Rosie's killer is finally exposed. If Lawson won't do it, maybe you should give