Ffion gives the ghost of a smile. ‘I’ll go and see the wife on my way home. Yasmin Lloyd’s down as next-of-kin, right?’
‘Yes, but . . .’ Leo hesitates. ‘Well, she’s at The Shore.’
‘So?’
‘So, that’s technically England. My patch,’ he adds, when Ffion doesn’t say anything.
‘Technically, yes, but Rhys is from Cwm Coed. His mam, Glynis, still lives there. And it’s literally on my doorstep. So I’ll—’
‘We’ll do it together,’ Leo says, with uncharacteristic decisiveness. If this turns out to be a juicy job and Leo gives it away, Crouch will never let him forget it.
There’s a long pause as they lock eyes, before Ffion breaks away with a sigh presumably intended to suggest she doesn’t give a shit either way. ‘Fine. Follow me. Call me if you get lost – I’ll give you my number.’
‘I’ve got it, remember?’ Leo takes out his phone. ‘I’ll call you now, then you’ve got mine too.’ He scrolls through his contacts to find HARRIET NYE, and dials.
Instantly, Ffion’s cheeks colour. Leo could kick himself. Now neither of them can pretend he doesn’t have her number and that’s the reason he hasn’t texted her—
Why isn’t her phone ringing?
Leo lifts his own to his ear, to check it’s working.
‘Thank you for calling the showroom. Our offices are closed over the holidays, but if you’d like to book a test drive, please leave your name and number and we’ll get back to you as soon as we reopen.’
A long and uncomfortable silence falls between Leo and Ffion, before he can bring himself to look away from his phone. Ffion smiles sheepishly. ‘It really was fun. And it’s not that you’re not – I mean, it’s just that . . .’ Her eyes glint, as she mimics his own efforts at letting her down gently.
Leo winces. Ffion keeps a level gaze on him, then grins. ‘Let’s start over, shall we?’
Leo nods forcefully. ‘Good plan.’
‘We’ll forget last night ever happened, and crack on with the job, yeah?’ She winks. ‘Forget we’ve seen each other naked.’
It’s impossible, Leo thinks, as he follows the little Triumph out of the car park, to not think of the thing you’re supposed to forget, when you have literally just been reminded of it.
*
Ffion drives as though she’s making on blues and twos to a burglary in progress. She throws the Triumph around corners, hurtling over potholes with such vigour that Leo flinches on behalf of the suspension. No wonder the poor car looks as if it’s falling apart. Leo follows more sedately as the Triumph bounces over a humpback bridge – a foot of sky between tyres and tarmac – before taking a sharp left to climb the track which leads to Cwm Coed.
The narrow, winding road is hewn from the mountainside, with passing places at regular intervals. Sheep appear suddenly at the sides of the road, or wander carelessly from one side to the other, and Leo slows to a crawl. There was no snow earlier, but, here, a dusting lines the roads and collects in the crevices of the rocky sides. As the incline grows steeper, Ffion’s car drops to a walking pace, and Leo falls further back. He glances at his hands-free, thinking he might try Allie again, but of course there’s no service.
How do people live in places like this? In fact, why do they live in places like this? Where you can’t get anywhere except by car, and you have to walk down a mountain to get a phone signal? Leo had found the move from Liverpool to Chester painful enough, struggling to adjust to an area with more fields than factories, but Allie had wanted to be closer to her parents when Harris was born.
Career-wise, transferring to Cheshire had felt like a shrewd move. Bigger fish, smaller pond. Leo was on CID within six months, successfully applied to Major Crime the following year, and hoped for promotion within the department. He hadn’t reckoned on DI Crouch, who had taken an instant dislike to him. Calm down, calm down, Crouch is fond of saying whenever Leo opens his mouth in a meeting, paddling the air with his flat palms in a poor imitation of Harry Enfield’s TV Scouse character. Do the rest of the team laugh because it’s funny, or because they’re licking the boss’s arse? Either way, Leo’s jaw always tightens, unwillingly justifying Crouch’s stupid impression.
He considered moving back, after the divorce. He thought longingly of the familiarity of his old force, of slotting back into drinks on Friday night and five-a-side on Sundays.