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handle it. All these weird and wild emotions, it’s cause you sense someone’s creeping inside your little bubble. And you’re worried what’s gonna happen when it goes ‘pop!’”
    I fiddled around with the Fosters can. Thought about drinking some more of it, but the flat metallic taste was not something I wanted to experience again anytime soon if I wanted to keep the contents of my guts inside me. “Well,” I said, unable to look at Martha. “Aren’t you just the emotional detective?”
    “And I charge half what a therapist charges. But seriously, hun. You have a choice. You live your life the way you’ve been living it for the past however many years. Or you take a risk.”
    I laughed.
    “Now it’s my turn to ask what you’re snickering about?”
    I shook my head. “Nothing. It’s just, er, Danielle said the exact same thing. About taking risks. And it just baffles me why people say that with all the bounties and investigations I’ve done. I mean, even today I saw a…”
    I stopped myself talking. Hoped to God Martha hadn’t noticed.
    When I saw her twitchy eyeing me, I knew she’d noticed.
    “What did you see today? Is that what’s really happening, Blake? Did you get a job offer? Something else?”
    “No, it’s just…” Fuck it. Might as well spill the beans. “I saw Lenny today.”
    “Lenny Kole? Oh God, no wonder you look pale. Why didn’t you tell me? I’d have bought you a condolences gift or something.”
    “He came to tell me he’s getting a promotion. A promotion he wants a hand with.”
    “Two words: ‘horrifying,’ and ‘naturally.’ You told him to stuff it, right?”
    I couldn’t help myself swallowing some of the Fosters now. It was so flat it was like piss-tasting water.
    “You told him to stuff it? Please, after last time, tell me you told him to stuff it?”
    “I did,” I said. “And that’s when he told me that someone who’d desperately been seeking my help was found with a belt around his neck earlier today.”
    I told Martha the details. Told her about poor Denise Scotts, about the videotapes and the letter, and about the guy who went by the name, “Hose.”
    And about the whisperings I’d heard about another tape being found.
    Another tape, which meant another victim.
    She just sat there shaking her head the entire time.
    “Are you a nodding dog or something? Or whatever the opposite to a nodding dog is?”
    “You stay away from that case, hun. I know you’re intrigued.”
    “I’m not intrigued.”
    “You’re doing your intrigued face. You are intrigued.”
    I fast became aware of my face and noted any signs of intrigue to iron out in future. “What I saw on these tapes, Martha. I—”
    “You might be the public’s new elected hero, but remember where your morals are.”
    I frowned. “In money and electronics?”
    “Exactly. Don’t go thinking you have some kind of duty to do all the police’s work for them. Or they’ll start using you. Just think what nearly happened last time, hun. Think about how much you had to lose back then. And then think now—you’ve got a ton more to lose. You’ve got Danielle to lose.”
    I thought back to the Chipps case. Thought back to how close I’d come to death on a number of occasions while pursuing that nutcase. How close Martha had come to dying, too.
    “Let the city sort itself out,” Martha said. She walked over to her kitchen worktop and topped her wine glass up, now well into her second bottle. “And stick to the tame stuff like stalking cheating husbands, or whatever it is you do these days.”
    I wanted to argue. Every part of my body wanted to argue.
    But I knew Martha was right.
    She handed me a fresh can of Fosters. Less flat, but still just as horrible.
    “I just feel guilty,” I said, sipping it back and feeling a lightness in my head. “I just… that guy. James Scotts. He came to me. Came to me for help and I… I told him to go away.”
    Martha rested a hand on my shoulder.