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Griffin knows they’re not allowed up here, but he assumes that a DCI and a DS will get away with it. Cara props the fire door open, and they lean against a wall, sheltering away from the wind. He hands her a cigarette and she takes it, cupping her hand around the delicate flame of his lighter.
“Since when did you start smoking again?” he asks, doing the same.
“Since a maniac killer started conducting mass murder under my nose.”
“Serial murder, not mass murder.” Griffin smiles. “Or you’ll have Shenton correcting you.”
She makes a noise halfway between a laugh and a snort.
“You be nice to Shenton,” she scolds. “He’s trying his best.”
“You always did have a soft spot for nerds.” Griffin watches her as she takes another drag. “What’s going on, Cara?”
She breathes in deeply and lets it out in a series of juddering sighs.
“Roo’s cheating on me,” she says in almost a whisper.
Griffin’s hands form into fists. “I’ll kill him,” he growls.
“Not before I do.”
But then Cara’s face crumples, and she starts to cry, and Griffin pulls her close in a hug. He scowls, resting his face on the top of her head. He’s always liked Roo, but this? This he can’t forgive.
“How do you know?” he asks after a moment. “Who with?”
Cara pulls away from him and looks at her cigarette, burning down to the filter.
“Deaks and I went to the restaurant on the way home, and I saw them together. Him and Lauren.”
“Your nanny? Oh Jesus, what a fucking cliché!”
“I know.” Cara almost laughs through her tears. “I feel so stupid. What have they been doing, behind my back? At the house, when I’ve worked late? Some shitty detective I am.” She looks up at Griffin. “Noah guessed, you know.”
Griffin raises his eyebrows. Perhaps he doesn’t give Deakin enough credit as a detective. And as a friend. He feels shit. He should have been there for her. He should have noticed.
“How did it get to be like this, Nate?” she asks him. Cara leans back against the concrete wall and takes another drag of her cigarette. Her hair has escaped and is frizzy around her face. In that minute, she reminds Griffin of a Cara at seventeen, smoking around the back of school, waiting for their mom to pick them up.
Cara’s still talking: “You get married and you think, that’s it now. Settled. And then look what happens.” She stops herself. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to compare Roo with what happened to Mia.”
Griffin shakes his head. “I know what you mean. You just can’t anticipate this shit.” He finishes his cigarette and crushes it underfoot. “What are you going to do now?”
“With Roo?” Cara shrugs. She does the same with her butt. “Not a clue.”
“You’ll figure it out.” Cara looks up at him and he chuckles. “Do you remember when we were about twelve or thirteen? We were on holiday, playing table tennis?”
“Remember? I still have the scar.” Cara leans forward into the light, and Griffin can just make out a small pale line on her cheekbone.
“That’s not it!”
“That is!” Cara laughs. “After all this time. You could have taken my eye out.”
Griffin stops, stunned. He remembers the incident: normal sibling rivalry, Cara winning game after game on the uneven table-tennis table until Griffin lost his temper, throwing his bat. It took a chunk out of her face, blood everywhere, their parents furious and forcing him to apologize. Unrepentant, he stormed out, only returning hours later once it was dark.
And still he refused to say sorry. Cara stayed silent and magnanimous until the final day of the holiday, when a stomach complaint forced him into the toilet, missing the big trip to the water park.
Cara returned, skin tanned, wet and exhausted, laughing with her new friends. He was lying on his bed in the dark, miserable and jealous, when she’d come into the room.
“How are you feeling?” she’d asked.
