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was sensible enough but he’d be scared, with everything that was going on, with the newspapers and thetelevision news full of stories of boys his age going missing from their homes.
    A scuffling noise on the other side of the wall. For a second, adrenaline pumped, then Lacey recognized the head and shoulders of the man who appeared over the top. He pushed himself up and swung his legs over the top of the wall before dropping down on her side.
    ‘Hi,’ he said.
    ‘What are you doing?’
    Detective Inspector Mark Joesbury, of the special crimes directorate that handled covert operations, rotated one shoulder, as though he’d tweaked a muscle. He’d cut his hair short again, close to his scalp, making him look tougher, less attractive. ‘You don’t answer my calls, you ignore my emails, you don’t even open your door,’ he said. ‘What am I supposed to do?’
    ‘Get the hint.’
    A sharp blink and the tiniest jerk back of his head. The lines of his face hardened. ‘I thought you should know that the Cambridge gang have all been officially charged and a date set for their first hearing. Next month. The twenty-eighth.’
    Cambridge. Just hearing the name of the city made her feel sick. ‘Good,’ she said. ‘But you could have sent a constable to tell me that.’
    He turned to look at the conservatory door. ‘Can we go inside?’ he asked.
    ‘I was about to go to bed,’ she said. ‘So it wouldn’t really be appropriate, would it?’
    Joesbury gave an exaggerated sigh. ‘Perish the thought. They’re all expected to plead not guilty.’
    ‘I wouldn’t expect anything else.’
    The twenty-eighth of March. She’d known it was only a matter of time. The British legal system was slow but relentless. They probably wouldn’t need her at the first hearing. The evidence-gathering would take months. She had time. Time to deal with the panic, rising like molten lead inside her every time she thought about the events of January.
    ‘There’ll be a trial,’ said Joesbury. ‘You’ll have to appear.’
    ‘I know.’
    ‘Can you cope?’
    No, she really didn’t think she could. ‘Of course,’ she said.
    He sighed, took a step closer. ‘Dana tells me you’ve been signed off sick for another month. She says that other than official communication that you can’t avoid, no one’s heard anything from you since you got back to London. You won’t see anybody. You won’t even talk on the phone and you’re showing no interest in going back to work.’
    Where was he going with this?
    ‘Lacey, this isn’t you.’
    ‘No disrespect, DI Joesbury, but you know nothing about me.’
    Another heavy sigh, as though her natural desire for space and privacy was somehow childish and indulgent.
    ‘I know how much the job means to you,’ he said. ‘What did you tell me last year? Your career is all you have? If you’re going to throw that away as well, what’s left?’
    He knew far too much about her. That had always been the trouble with Mark Joesbury. What he didn’t know instinctively, he ferreted out somehow.
    ‘I heard a whisper the Sapphire Units are recruiting again,’ he said.
    The Sapphire Units were a relatively recent initiative in the Metropolitan Police, set up to handle crimes involving sexual violence. She’d joined the police service to work on crime against women and joining the units had always been her long-term goal. Of course, that was before Cambridge.
    ‘I can’t,’ she said.
    He’d been edging closer, almost without her noticing. If he reached out now, he’d touch her. She couldn’t let that happen. She took a step back.
    ‘I meant it,’ he said.
    It was probably just the light but his eyes didn’t look turquoise any more. They were the colour of storm clouds and the scar on his right temple looked fresh and vivid.
    ‘Every word I said on that tower – I meant it,’ he went on. ‘Jesus,Lacey, can we only be honest with each other when one of us is about to die?’
    Lacey wasn’t