was resolute. They had to look into the background of the boy and his supposed uncle, and they had to do it soon.
I parked up, got out and buttoned my coat. The road was lined with chestnut trees drooping with conkers and apart from a tabarded street cleaner sweeping drifts of rotten leaves, the pavement was deserted. I could just see the corner of the station in the distance. A squat two-storey Victorian building that had long since had its sash windows replaced with thick white uPVC, the station’s entrance was marked by grey stone steps ballasted on either side by low walls that curved down and out to the pavement below. Hoping to catch the detective at the start of his day, I set off towards it at a trot.
I’d almost reached the beginning of the low wall when I noticed a small figure approaching in the opposite direction. Veering from side to side, he or she seemed to be looking for something. As I got nearer and the features of the person came into focus, I stopped dead. Wearing a beige mackintosh over what seemed to be pyjamas and mumbling to herself in urgent little whispers was someone I knew. Vicky.
Instinctively, I hid behind the nearest tree and peeped out from its trunk. Stripped of her usual mascara, lipstick and blusher, her tiny features had been swallowed up by the white expanse of her face and her hair hung in greasy panels down her back. She shuffled towards the stairs that led to the station entrance and it was then I saw she was clutching something red and blue to her chest. A child’s fleece dressing-gown. I’d seen it once before, a few days ago, hanging on the back of Barney’s bedroom door. Cuddling it into her face and saying words I couldn’t make out, she trudged up the stairs and went inside.
Intrigued, I waited a minute and then I, too, climbed the steps. Looking through the glass doors, I saw Vicky standing by the reception desk. Hopping from one foot to the other, she kept showing the officer on duty Barney’s dressing-gown. The officer seemed to have realised who she was and was gesturing for Vicky to take a seat in the waiting area. Giving the bench in question a cursory glance, she went and stood by the locked door that led into the station instead. There she continued to shift her weight from one foot to the other, the dressing-gown held close to her chest.
The door next to where Vicky stood buzzed open and Martin appeared. Not wanting to interrupt whatever was going on, I stepped to the cover of the wall and, once I was out of sight, inched my head as far back as I dared.
Vicky had placed herself directly in front of the detective and was busy pushing Barney’s dressing-gown towards him. Martin looked from Vicky to the garment, confused. But then he seemed to recognise it and his face softened. Gently, he directed the dressing-gown back to Vicky, only for Vicky to once more shove it back at him. Her eyes wide, her lips began moving fast, shaping a torrent of words.
At this, the duty officer and two other reception staff stopped what they were doing and began watching the exchange with undisguised curiosity. Martin must have also found whatever Vicky was saying quite odd, because now he turned to his colleagues with a smile followed by an eye-roll that suggested he was trying to make light of the situation.
But then, when he turned back to face Vicky I was surprised to see his eyes narrow. Shaking his head so slightly that I found myself questioning whether or not I’d imagined it, he seemed to be trying to signal something to her he thought she would understand. He seemed to be giving her a warning.
What was she saying? Something about their relationship? Something that might expose their affair to his colleagues?
But Vicky didn’t register his warning or, if she did, the consequences of ignoring it did not worry her, because she continued to babble and to press the dressing-gown hard into the detective’s body. Trying to maintain a semblance of control, Martin put a placatory arm around her shoulders and began urging her towards the exit. He’d only gone a few steps when the duty officer shouted a question in his wake. Batting away his colleague’s enquiry, the detective adjusted Vicky’s mac so that it covered her shoulders and continued on his