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only now that she was starting to look completely right again, although to Henry she had always been gorgeous anyway.
    Henry knew he was on shaky ground with his announcement. Things had been tough for them and they’d been looking forward to the ‘Twixtmas’ week, just to hang around, do things together, chill.
    Alison nodded and gave a long drawn-out ‘Okaaay.’ Then she said, ‘Are we in love?’
    Henry said, ‘Yes, course, indubitably.’
    â€˜I mean, truly, madly, deeply?’
    â€˜Yes.’
    â€˜In that case, we’ll work through it. It’s not what happens to you, it’s how you deal with it that’s the key.’ She locked eyes with him. ‘How are you feeling?’
    â€˜Gutted and drained. I could’ve done without either, but both together . . .’ He swished a hand at the two files, then gestured helplessly in the general direction of the cardiac unit.
    â€˜What about tonight?’ Alison asked. Henry started to say something, but bit his bottom lip. ‘Do you want to stay here in Blackpool to be near your mum?’
    â€˜Yeah,’ he admitted.
    â€˜I’ll stay with you then . . . I’ll go and sort your house out and I’ll be there when you land, whatever the time.’
    Henry shook his head in amazement, but then squinted at her. ‘Are you sure?’
    â€˜Why wouldn’t I be?’
    â€˜Erm . . .’ Oh God, he thought inwardly. Not good at this sort of thing. ‘Err . . .’
    â€˜You mean because of Kate?’
    â€˜Kinda.’
    â€˜I know it was her house, but it’s part of you as well. She’s gone and you’ve moved on. I know what it means to you and it’s fine. It’s not like I haven’t stayed there before, is it? I even have a key,’ she said grinning. ‘You gave me one.’
    â€˜I know. I just thought you were uncomfortable there.’
    â€˜Henry,’ she began firmly.
    â€˜Fine, fine.’ He held up his hands, palms outward, surrendering.
    â€˜I’ll be there when you get back, whenever that is,’ she stated.
    Henry blew out his cheeks and looked at the murder files with annoyance, thinking,
Best laid plans and all that crap
.
    But he was mostly annoyed with himself for having said yes to FB. If he’d said no, at least all he would have had to contend with was his mother. It would have been hard, but he could have handled that – to-ing and fro-ing to Kendleton and back without having to think about work as well. But two murders on top was pushing it.
    And it wasn’t as though he could shelve the murders until New Year, as he’d cheekily suggested to FB.
    And that sneaky bastard FB knew that.
    Henry opened the second file.
    Murder number two: David Peters.
    A fairly dull middle-aged man who had led, by all accounts, a fairly uneventful life. What made him interesting was that he had been having an affair with one of his employees, and had vanished – on Christmas Eve again, after an assignation with this woman at a motel in the middle of Blackpool – exactly one year after Christine Blackshaw had disappeared off the streets of Blackburn.
    He had been reported missing by his fairly indifferent wife on Christmas Day, not having returned after a drink with his mate, but the police did not treat the matter with much urgency. He was a grown man, it was
that
time of year, and she didn’t seem to care very much. She had reported him missing simply because she felt she had to and the turkey was in the oven. At the time of the initial report there was no mention of Peters having an extra-marital relationship.
    Only when he hadn’t turned up four days later did anyone become concerned.
    The missing from home (MFH) file landed in the lap of a keen young PC who would rather have binned it, but decided to do some digging. This is how he, without too much difficulty, discovered Peters’ affair