Kate let Connor help her up. He found her glasses, fortunately unbroken, and handed them to her to put back on. She didn’t want to lose the touch of his body so soon, though, so she stood close to Connor, pressed to his side, grateful for the arm that came around her and didn’t move again.
‘I’m fine,’ she told Bella, although she wasn’t sure how true that was. Her legs felt oddly shaky. Her hands were trembling. It had been quite a mission to settle her glasses into the right spot on the top of her nose.
‘So who is this guy?’ the security man asked again.
‘I’m herfather,’ Kevin snarled.
‘No.’ Kate sucked in a jagged breath. ‘You’ve never been a father to me. I knew that even before you murdered my mother.’
‘Whoa…’ The younger security guard looked shocked. ‘This guy’s a murderer? Good thing we’ve got the cops on the way.’
‘You’ll find he’s probably on parole,’ Kate told them. ‘He was on parole once before, years ago, and got locked up again because he beat someone senseless in the first pub he went into.’
‘Doubt he’ll ever be getting out again, then,’ the older guard said. He jerked Kevin in front of him to start him walking. ‘We’ll take him outside.’ He looked back as he reached the door. ‘The police will be wanting a statement from you guys. Don’t go away yet, will you?’
He took another look at Kate. ‘Will you be okay? Want us to send someone else down to stay with you?’
Kate pressed closer to Connor. ‘I’ll be okay.’
‘She will be,’ Connor growled. ‘I intend to make sure of it.’
* * *
The pathology department was being sealed off with wide, bright red ‘Crime Scene’ tape stretched from one side of the doorframe to the other.
Bella watched with some dismay. She’d already been here far longer than she liked. She should never have come in the first place. She certainly shouldn’t have suggested that Kevin Graham come here to make contact with his long-lost daughter. The sooner she could escape the better but, as far as she knew, that door to the main corridor was the only exit.
‘Aren’t we allowed to go home?’ she asked.
‘We don’t want anything moved until the scene’s been photographed,’ a police officer explained. ‘And some fingerprint evidence has been collected. That tape’s to keep people out, not to keep you in, though it would be better if we all stayed in this office until they’ve finished. It shouldn’t take long.’
‘All’ was two police officers, Bella, Connor and Kate. There were only two chairs in Kate’s office. Kate was sitting in one and Bella in the other. Connor had a hip hitched onto the desk, and the leg touching the floor was also touching Kate’s chair. Touching Kate, even? Bella tilted her head to try and see but, instead, she caught Kate’s glance.
A new wave of misery made her cheeks flush and her eyes sting. This was all her fault and if it hadn’t been for Connor happening to come along at the right moment, it could have been a tragedy.
‘So your father was found guilty of manslaughter?’ A police officer had been taking notes busily for a while now.
‘The jury had no hesitation in convicting him,’ Kate told them. ‘Not that I attended the trial, but my brother did. A neighbour from across the road heard the argument and could actually see him pushing Mum across the room. She fell down the stairs, hit her head and died two days later without regaining consciousness.’
Kate’s voice was remarkably steady, but Bella saw the way Connor reached down to squeeze her shoulder. ‘David also gave evidence about the abuse we’d suffered as children.’
Bella hung her head. If only she’d known. She could understand now that kind of secret pact Kate and Bella’s father had shared. And no wonder they hadn’t wanted to talk about it. It was horrible to think that you were related to a monster like that. An addiction to the alcohol that fuelled the rages was no excuse at all.
‘He got sentenced to fifteen years,’ Kate was saying now. ‘He managed to get parole after twelve by convincing the board that he was sober and he’d stay that way. He lasted two days, I believe, before he got into a fight at a pub and nearly killed someone else.’
‘He’ll never get out this time,’ the police officer assured her. ‘No judge is going to take a risk like that.’
‘Good.’ Kate looked up at Connor as though she could sense him watching her.
The eye contact held for a significant beat of time. Long enough to make Bella hold her breath for a moment. Was she missing something here? Were they…?
Kate’s gaze swung to meet her own and Bella blushed.
‘I’m so sorry.’ She’d lost count of how many times she’d said it, but she’d keep saying it for as long as she needed to. And she would never, ever, meddle with anyone else’s business again.
‘I’m still confused about how he found out where Kate worked,’ a police officer said.
‘It was me,’ Bella sighed. She told them all about the phone call she’d had from her grandfather that she’d kept secret from Kate and about her texted instructions for the meeting she’d set up.
