Greer had said that Pete had called off their weekly girl encounters some time ago. Yet she was going somewhere and doing something once each week. After Teo’s death, his own guilt in the matter of their affair had led him to assume Pete had merely been waiting for the perfect moment to put a plan into action that would rid her life of the worry that her husband might leave her for another woman. But there were other reasons—and certainly more likely ones—that Pete was engaging in a secret activity.
It wasn’t probable that she was hiding an addiction from him: heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine, one of the pain medications that were as addictive as they were deadly. The mental picture of his wife lolling about on a mattress in a den of addicts or making clandestine drug purchases under a railway arch was as inconceivable as it was laughable. Besides, even if she was using something, Robertson would have picked up on it, wouldn’t he? Unless, of course, she’d been using something for so long that how she was when she was using looked perfectly normal to the male nurse. That certainly ruled out heroin and the various pain medications that could render users virtually immobile. And meth would have long begun to exact its price as well.
An affair didn’t seem likely, considering Pietra’s fears. But then, that would be an affair with a man, wouldn’t it? An affair with a woman seemed much more possible. But it would have to be a woman completely unknown to him, because as far as he knew, the only woman his wife saw was Greer, who was either very good at demonstrating confusion or not at all involved in whatever Pietra was up to.
Gambling? he asked himself. Could she have taken up gambling in one of the many forms it took in London? He couldn’t picture her in a William Hill or one of London’s casinos, so his thoughts took him to bingo. But . . . bingo? Of course, there were people who played it religiously, but again he had a difficult time visualising Pete lining up twenty bingo cards, hot upon winning. She could be purchasing lottery tickets, of course, but why would that take her out at night?
No, he had to go back to the idea of Pete meeting someone. It was someone she hadn’t wished to speak about to him, so aside from an affair, that left what?
At the edge of what he wanted to think about was that Teo had died. Pete had discovered the woman with whom her husband had fallen in love, and she’d traced her to where she lived. There, she’d spoken to her. While he wanted to believe that was the end of the story, the money received for his mother’s jewellery made another claim. What was to prevent Pete from hiring someone to do what had been done to Teo?
But that, too, seemed absurd. He was going to have to speak with her and both of them were going to have to be truthful.
He’d arrived at The Mothers Square earlier than usual. DS Hopwood had been engaged in speaking with five DCs of colour—two of them women—about her design for working with and upon the attitudes of Nigerian and Somali immigrant men instead of confining their efforts to women. As Mark left, he’d seen all of them gathered in the conference room, and the detective sergeant was using a PowerPoint projection.
When he put his key in the lock of the door, he could hear music coming from within. He recognised it as part of the recording of a children’s book about polar bears that Lilybet was fond of listening to. Each chapter was broken by cheerful music and song.
Inside, he went to the sitting room. There, Pete and Robertson had Lilybet up on her feet “dancing.” This consisted of both of the adults holding her upright and swaying to the beat of the music as they sang along with it. Lilybet was smiling. She emitted the gurgle that was her laugh. It was blisteringly hot in the room, however, and Mark watched the three of them: the adults sweaty, rings of perspiration on their shirts; Lilybet scantily clad in diaper and overlarge T-shirt.
Robertson saw him first and gave a nod in his direction. Pete then looked his way and said, “Here’s Daddy! Here’s Daddy!” to urge Lilybet to look at her father. But the story had begun again, and Robertson lowered Lilybet to her chair while Pete came to his side, saying, “You’re so early. I’d no idea. I’ve not even popped out for the makings for dinner.”
“I’ll fetch us takeaway,” he told her. “But before that, I need a word, Pete.”
He set off to their bedroom. He didn’t look back to make sure she was following. He reckoned she would follow due to the tenor of his voice, and he was not wrong. When she was in their bedroom with him, he shut the door.
He said to her, “Mum’s decided to keep your secret. At least, that’s how I interpret what she’s said to me.”