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faith. I don’t believe that any love could forgive such an infidelity. So I’ll keep quiet, and tell only you.
Later, I’ll set off to visit Cate Austin at her office but for now I want to busy myself with other thoughts. Lee was always able to distract me, and I return to one of my favourite topics: “Do you still enjoy the military, then? All those rules, all that order?”
“Yes.” There’s a wicked twinkle in those brown eyes, “Being bossed around was something you taught me to enjoy.”
“I never would have guessed it, though,” I muse, not for the first time, “You going away, I mean. I always thought you’d just get a job around here. I never thought of you joining the RAF. I never even knew you wanted to fly.”
“I don’t fly. I fix things.”
“You always did want to fix things.”
Lee wants to fix me, so very much. So much it hurt sometimes. But I resist. You can’t fix someone who doesn’t want help.
Lee isn’t like me, never was. Leaving school at sixteen was a thing I never even considered, but for Lee it was a given. The teachers never rated Lee as a success, but they were wrong. Taking a job as a lifeguard at the local swimming baths may not have been the most auspicious start, but joining the RAF two years later has led to the perfect career. A Survival Equipment Fitter may not sound very glamorous, mainly fixing punctures in life rafts and folding away parachutes correctly, but Lee saves lives. Fixing a life preserver stops a pilot drowning. Getting that parachute to open correctly is vital.
Lee always was methodical, always was a rescuer. If only I wanted to be saved.

Seven
     
Notes following interview with Alice Mariani. NB: I have requested the Crown Prosecution summary of evidence, which is yet to arrive. Alice was with David Jenkins when he took a fatal overdose. She pleaded guilty to Assisting Suicide, a crime that can attract up to fourteen years in prison. In interview, she shows no remorse for this act, principally because she believes it is a morally defensible decision as ‘everyone has the right to choose to live or die.’
     
No indication that DJ was ill or in pain. No debts. So why did he want to die? Alice asserts that assisting with DJ’s suicide was a victimless crime and that they were in love. She was adopted when she was four-years-old. Has this any significance??
     
Cate stopped typing. Alice said she was adopted by a couple who wanted her. Had they provided Alice with the love and stability she needed? Dorothy on reception rang through.
     
“Cate, your client’s arrived.”
“Thanks, Dot.”
“She’s a bit edgy, and she’s attracting some unwelcome attention.”
“I’ll be right down.”
    *
The probation office is a ghastly place. Stale air and fag ends, even the plastic chairs are filthy. She had no right asking me to come here. Worse, a man in a baseball hat with rotten teeth keeps trying to talk to me.
     
Cate Austin appears at the internal entrance, and opens a gateway. I’m tempted to run away into the street, but instead I follow her through without touching the door frame. Who knows what germs linger here? When we reach her office I take the seat and try to compose myself after this assault on my senses. “Please may I have a glass of water?”
She hesitates and I gather from this that she isn’t supposed to leave me in her office. I’m affronted that she has to think about it, as if I’m a criminal. Like that lowlife in the waiting room. Eventually, she goes and I’m alone in her room. There’s a photo of a young girl on the desk, next to the computer. A pretty girl on a swing, legs in the air. How conventional. The computer screen is still on and I lean forward to read.
She returns quickly, and I have to move back into the chair, avoiding her assessing eye, and pretend to notice the photo on the desk for the first time.
“Is that your daughter?”
“Yes.”
She takes her seat, touches the picture and moves it slightly away from my