Watching Stan talk, Christina was reminded oddly of herself. She wasn’t a big talker. Nico was the talker. But when they were back together after any time apart, she suddenly became Chatty Cathy, desperate to tell him everything she’d been saving up.
‘The one with the underhand serve?’ asked Joy vaguely.
‘That’s the one!’ said Stan. ‘He plays lawn bowls now. Probably suits him better.’
‘You can’t genuinely have thought he murdered me,’ said Joy to Christina.
‘I had those scratches on my face,’ said Stan. ‘It looked like you scratched me.’
‘That’s because I did scratch you!’ said Joy. She splayed her right hand to display her fingernails. ‘I felt terrible about that.’
‘So you didn’t get it from a hedge,’ said Christina to Stan. At least her instincts had been correct there.
He met Christina’s eyes. ‘I knew how that might have looked to you.’
He’d lied in a criminal investigation. She could charge him with perverting the course of justice. Depending on his wife’s actions, she could charge her with public mischief. She was going to bloody well charge someone with something today.
Joy sank suddenly onto the couch. ‘This is quite upsetting.’
‘It has been quite upsetting, yes,’ said Stan dryly. He sat next to her, so close their legs touched. The dog sat on the floor in between them, her tail sweeping back and forth.
Joy pulled a cushion out from behind her back and placed it on her lap. ‘I hope people don’t hear about this.’ The dog rolled over on her back and displayed her tummy, which Joy began to rub with her foot.
‘People have heard about it, sweetheart. There was a press conference,’ said Stan. ‘You’re a missing person. It was on the news. There were helicopters. People tramping through the reserve looking for you.’
‘Looking for me? Like I was hiding under a bush? Oh my Lord.’
‘So let me get this straight. You’re saying your dog ate the letter you left,’ said Christina. ‘And your neighbour’s cat ran off with the bloodied t-shirt.’
‘Lot of pets involved with this case, Detective Khoury,’ commented Ethan soberly.
‘So it seems, Constable Lim.’ Christina shot him a look. His eyes danced. She bowed her head and squeezed the bridge of her nose while she considered the absurdity of this case.
Perhaps on the way home she and Ethan would rescue a kitten caught in a tree while the townspeople cheered.
‘Why did you clean your car, Mr Delaney?’ asked Christina. ‘Two days after your wife went missing?’
Why did you insist on doing everything possible to make yourself look guilty?
‘Joy has been saying for months that the car smells of sour milk,’ said Stan.
‘I spilled a banana milkshake,’ said Joy.
‘So I thought I’d surprise her.’ He beamed at Joy. ‘It smells like a brand new car now.’
‘Oh, Stan.’ Joy’s hands went to her mouth in the classic gesture of a girl whose boyfriend has gone down on one knee. ‘You paid someone to clean the car? Did it cost a fortune?’
‘It was highway robbery,’ said Stan. ‘I also bought a mobile phone. Also highway robbery.’
‘You did not,’ said Joy. Her foot stopped rubbing. The dog looked up at her hopefully.
‘I’ll give you my number,’ said Stan.
They were looking straight into each other’s eyes.
‘So you can always contact me,’ said Stan. ‘Always. I’ll never turn it off. I’ll always answer.’
Joy took his hand in hers. ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Okay, then.’
The words were not startling, but it felt somehow as if they were witnessing a startlingly intimate conversation and Christina found herself politely looking away from the couple and at the floorboards. Nico said there were good floorboards waiting beneath the vile carpet in the house they’d just bought. Amazing to think something beautiful could lie beneath the ugliness and all you had to do was peel it away.
She felt her irritation dissolve beneath a slow-moving but inexorable tide of elation. Joy Delaney was no longer missing, presumed dead: she was alive and in excellent health. Christina no longer had to spend her nights at the office preparing the brief of evidence, wondering resentfully which witness statements the DPP would ask them to retake because it was their job to doubt every piece of evidence.
Like she should have done.
She and Nico could share a bottle of wine tonight and sleep late tomorrow. They would have sex tonight and in the morning and probably the afternoon.