She found herself minutely aware of the size and the shape of him, the way the muscles in his arms shifted as he hooked a slice of toast from the stack. Of the mobile dexterity of his hands. Hands that had stroked her into trustful slumber.
And she was also aware that, for all the veneer of civilised sophistication, here was a man who’d started out at the physical end of the construction business. He still had that tough capability about him and she sensed he would be capable of great ruthlessness to get what he wanted.
Did that extend to killing his wife, she wondered? Or having her killed? The wife he no longer shared a bed with or seemed to mourn?
They ate in silence. Kelly found herself too jittery for it to be a comfortable one, tensing whenever he reached across for the marmalade or to refill his coffee cup. There was a pressure building in the air that made it buzz between them.
She could see the faint bruise braceleting his wrist from the lock she’d put onto him last night. One thing about prison, if you pissed off the guards they gave you an excellent practical demonstration of pain compliance at work.
It was a shame she hadn’t been able to use more of what she’d learned when she was at the warehouse.
“Tell me what you meant last night,” Lytton said suddenly, breaking into her reveries, “when you said you came here because you had nowhere else to go.”
Kelly shrugged. “Just that.”
“No friends? No boyfriend?”
An image of David sprang into her mind, the twist of disgust on his face during that final visit when she was on remand, telling her he couldn’t keep up the pretence. That he couldn’t stand by her—couldn’t stand her—any longer.
She pushed it away, took a sip of her coffee and said calmly. “I always tended to make friends through my work. When the job went bad, the friends went the same way.”
He didn’t press her on that. She remembered that he’d looked up the reports of the time. The tabloids had a field day with David’s abandonment. If even her lover—another copper—didn’t believe she was innocent, they cried, who would?
“No family you could turn to?”
Kelly put her cup down before responding. Was he making small talk or trying to find out if she would be missed? Should she lie?
“I was always the odd one out, the cuckoo,” she said, opting for the truth without quite knowing the reason. “The bright one, the one with her head stuck in a book. The one who had fancy ideas about wanting to go to university.”
“The one who thought she deserved something better than being stuck in a dead-end job for the rest of her life, you mean?” Lytton asked. And when she glanced at him surprised at the insight, he gave a crooked smile. “Been there. Done that.”
“Yes, I suppose you have. And you’re right. I went away to study and was so wrapped up in the course I didn’t see what was happening back home, that they were turning against me in my absence.”
“People despise what they don’t understand.”
She nodded. “I left it too long. I came home qualified and expected them to be proud of me. Instead, all I got were sneers.”
“So they couldn’t wait for you to fall on your arse, you mean?”
If only it were that simple. “When I was arrested my mum had her first stroke,” she said quietly. “They said it was the shock . . .”
Her voice trailed off and there was a beat of loaded silence between them.
“Ah, you’ve made the news,” Lytton said. He picked up the remote for the TV and thumbed up the volume.
Kelly twisted on her stool just in time to see DI O’Neill’s sombre face appear on the screen. A rolling banner hotline number scrolled past underneath him.
“. . . vicious and unprovoked attack on a young man of good character who was well-liked in the community,” O’Neill was saying. “It’s vital we speak with young Tyrone’s colleague, Kelly Jacks. According to our information she was apparently . . . with him at the time of his attack.”
The pause was artful, Kelly thought bitterly. Nobody hearing it could fail to get the hinted meaning even without the interviewer’s next question.
“Is Kelly Jacks a suspect?”
O’Neill stared at the earnest female interviewer for a couple of seconds. “We would advise anybody with knowledge of Ms Jacks’s whereabouts to contact us immediately,” he said. “But not to approach her themselves.”
“Jacks has already served a prison sentence on a previous manslaughter charge. Does she present a danger to the public?” The interviewer made another stab, hardly troubling to suppress the excitement in her voice. She was young, a little brash, only just promoted to the crime beat and no doubt keen to catch the eye of the big networks.
“Let’s just say we have concerns for Ms Jacks’s state of mind at this time,” O’Neill said dryly.
He nodded to someone past the camera and the report came to a rapid close. The interviewer did a solemn round-up with the crime-scene tape fluttering behind her. Kelly’s picture appeared in the corner of the screen.
It was the one from her records, taken at the time of her original arrest. Her hair was longer then, the style curving around her face making her look younger, more feminine. Or maybe it was just that five years inside had robbed her of whatever innocence she might have once possessed. Kelly could see the bewildered desperation in her own reflected image, the sheer panic and disbelief.
She swallowed, looked away. Lytton was watching her over the rim of his cup. There was something brooding in that observation that suddenly unnerved her.
“Well, that answers that question I suppose,” she said, aiming for wry and not quite bringing it off.
Lytton lowered his cup and raised an eyebrow. “Which is?”
“If O’Neill was going to keep enough of an open mind to look elsewhere,” she said, absently brushing the toast crumbs left on her plate into a pile at the centre. “It seems he’s going for the easy option. Surprise, surprise.”
She thought of the bag of her own blood in the fridge a few feet away. She was glad she’d taken the second sample and at the same time disappointed to be proved right to have done so.
“Not necessarily,” Lytton said. “Even if he was pursuing other avenues you’d still be his first port of call. He either has to break you or clear you. Until then he can’t move on.”
“You’re defending him now?”
He took another sip of his coffee and shook his head as he swallowed. “Hey don’t get me wrong. I didn’t like him much either. I’m just trying to see both sides.” He paused, fixed her with a straight level gaze. “You have to face it though, Kelly. The longer you stay on the run, the more guilty it makes you look.”