Mullen’s eyes flicked open again, but otherwise he continued to look like an idiot on morphine. Her joke was lost on him.

* * *

When Mullen woke he was lying on the top of his bed and the room was full of shadow. The curtains had been half drawn. A glance at his watch told him it was just past six o’clock. He stared at the ceiling, thinking of nothing until he became aware of a snoring sound in the room. He propped himself up on one elbow and saw Becca Baines asleep in the large upright chair. On his first day in the house he had dragged it into the room from its original positon on the landing because he liked it so much. It reminded him of an ancient wooden throne. He swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood up. He padded across towards the door. He needed the loo. Becca shuddered violently and woke up.

“Sleep well?” they each asked the other in unison, as if they had been practising for a play. She laughed. He nodded, conscious that his head was no longer throbbing.

After their respective dozes, they both realised they were hungry, so they agreed to walk down the road as far as the Fox and eat there. Like him, she opted for a rare steak and insisted they both drink only water. “Don’t want you collapsing on me again.”

Mullen thought collapsing on her wouldn’t be at all unpleasant, but he didn’t dare say so.

Then, like a long-married couple, they ambled side by side back to the house in the weakening light, companionable and not needing to touch. She got into her car. “You can stay if you like,” he said, this time daring to say what he was thinking.

She shook her head and started the engine. “I have an early shift tomorrow.” She reversed the car in a tight circle and put her head out of the window. “Another time.” She ran her hand through her mane of red hair. “Maybe!”

Mullen stepped across in front of the car, blocking her path.

“What?” There was impatience in her voice. A woman of quick emotions.

“Tell me why you came.”

Her face was suddenly serious. “To tell you to stop screwing up people’s fun.”

“Is that how you saw it?”

“Of course. It was definitely fun while it lasted.”

In the last few hours Mullen had discovered for himself why Paul had so liked her, but why on earth had she liked him? He felt a sudden stab of jealousy. He leant forward, hand on the car roof, his face close to hers. “What about Janice?” He really wanted to know what made Becca Baines tick. “Did you not think about her?”

Becca revved the engine ridiculously loud. Mullen moved back.

She pushed her head further out of the window. “I also wanted to warn you that I wouldn’t trust that Janice further than you can throw her.”

He opened his mouth to ask why, but the Punto lurched forward like a dog let off its lead in a large open field. Wheels span. Gravel flew. A cat that had been snooping around the shrubbery scarpered. And then Becca Baines was gone.

Mullen stood watching long after she had disappeared from view. What did she mean? Was that jealousy talking? Or had Paul Atkinson told her stuff about Janice which changed things? He looked up into the sky and felt the first few spots of rain on his face.

* * *

By the time the woman had crossed Magdalen Bridge and reached the roundabout, she was soaked to the skin. There had been a few droplets of rain in the air when she had left the cocktail bar in the High Street, but this was a downpour. There was a pub across the road, but she had no desire to take refuge in there. Instead she walked across the side road which leads to St Hilda’s College and then continued straight on, stomping along the Iffley Road, head down, hands stuffed deep into her coat pockets. She didn’t care that she was soaked. Clothes will dry given a bit of time and a bit of hanging space. She wished all her problems were as easy to resolve as that.

Maybe two hundred metres further on she stopped and raised her head. She looked across the road and took in a block of modern-looking, architecturally unexciting flats. Beyond them there stood a short terrace of tall town houses, all arched windows and grey-brown brickwork; they were striking, but would ‘benefit from some improvement’ as an estate agency would have said. It was this set of four properties which held the woman’s attention. She looked left. A car was parked some fifty metres away, side lights on, waiting for someone presumably, but it showed no sign of movement. Turning right, she saw three cars approaching. She studied them as they swished past. Even in the rain, their windows were open. Young women dressed in wild pink outfits thrust their heads through the windows and shouted coarsely at her. For a moment she wished she was one of them, off out on a hen night, to flirt outrageously with any men they encountered and to drink and dance until the last club was closed. But that wouldn’t, of course, have solved anything.

She hunched herself even tighter against the rain and began to cross the road, reciting to herself for the umpteenth time what she was going to say when he opened the door. There were things she needed to tell him. There was stuff she needed to get off her chest. But she never did.

Chapter 5

Wednesday morning dawned bright and full of promise, the overnight rain only a memory. Not that Mullen knew anything about the dawn or heard the birds chorusing in the many trees which surrounded his Boars Hill home. He slept through it all, his dreams buried so deep they never rose anywhere near his consciousness. When he woke, the sun which shafted between the partially drawn curtains told him it was long past breakfast time. Nevertheless he pulled the duvet over his head and tried to ignore the morning light. Eventually it was his bladder which forced him out of bed. After that, he had no option but to face the day. He prolonged it by opting for a long bath — it seemed easier than trying to shower with his head bandage. After that, he took a bowl of muesli and a mug of tea into the garden at the back of the house.

Sitting there, hiding from the world, he found it impossible to ignore the fact that the grass seemed to be growing even as he looked at it. Keeping the lawns in order was one of the several tasks he had promised to do in lieu of rent. So Mullen, who liked to keep his promises, went to the shed and got out the mower. There was something immensely therapeutic in taming the garden. After the lawns, Mullen found a strimmer and attacked the weeds which were threatening to encroach onto the gravel drive from under the rhododendrons and camellias. Then he turned his attention to the kitchen garden; someone had planted potatoes, runner beans, lettuces and beetroot. Mullen would never eat them all himself, but as he wielded a hoe around them, tiptoeing between the plants like a ballerina, he felt almost content. If only life could always be this simple.

Eventually he went inside and made himself a sandwich — cheese, ham and mustard. He had just taken a bite, sitting at the long kitchen table, when there was a heavy banging at the front door. He got up reluctantly. Whoever it was, he knew they were about to spoil his day.

“Hello, again.” It was DI Dorkin, probably the last person in the world he wanted to see. And Dorkin was not in a good mood. “You like messing people around, Mullen?”

Mullen said nothing. It seemed more diplomatic in the circumstances.

The first finger of Dorkin’s right hand prodded him on the sternum. “You said you lived in the Iffley Road!”

Mullen wasn’t going to cave in to bullying. “I moved.”

“You trying to play silly buggers with me, Mullen?”

Mullen reverted to silence. He thought it might be safer. Behind Dorkin stood a man Mullen hadn’t seen before, presumably a detective constable or sergeant. But whatever his rank, structurally he was extremely impressive, six feet four if he was an inch and with the physique (and face) of an old fashioned bare-knuckle boxer.