A Place of Safety. Helen Black
now?’
‘Four. Two come for respite care one weekend a month, and Rachel comes every Thursday.’
‘Is she still traumatised?’
Penny see-sawed her hands. ‘It has got better, but I’m still stripping and washing the beds till Saturday.’
‘Have I ever told you how much I admire you?’ asked Lilly.
‘Only twice a week.’
The sensei called them to the dojo and they began their stretching.
‘I should do something like you,’ said Lilly.
Penny stamped hard with her left foot and punched with her right. ‘You don’t have time.’
‘But all I do now is commercial stuff. I don’t make a difference to anyone’s life.’
‘Oh, Lilly, stop beating yourself up. Everyone has to make a living.’
Lilly kicked out and grunted hard.
‘I just wish I could do something to help those that need it most.’
‘We can’t help everyone,’ said Penny. ‘And frankly there are a lot of people who should jolly well help themselves.’
The sensei clapped his hands. ‘Ladies, you may spar.’
The two friends turned to one another and bowed deeply in respect. Then they proceeded to kick the shit out of each other.
Lilly plotted the rest of her evening with precision and relish. Sam was at his dad’s, torturing the new baby, so she would bathe at length and make the most of the unopened basket of Jo Malone oils that Jack had bought for her birthday. At the time she’d thought it a ludicrous extravagance, but she had to admit they were so much better than the cheap crap she usually picked up in the supermarket. She would paint her toes a glamorous shade of crimson and then cook herself a feast. Steak Béarnaise. Blood oozing from the meat into the eggy sauce, the tang of tarragon vinegar piercing its unctuous blandness.
She would not give a moment’s thought to Anna Duraku.
When the bath was run, she lit a candle and sank into the oily heat until only her nostrils cleared the surface. Bliss.
Ring ring. The phone. She’d ignore it.
Ring ring. Worse than the phone, it was the bloody doorbell. Who the hell could it be? Jack was still mad at her for going down to the station and had gone out for a drink with an old mate who’d quit the force to open a dry-cleaners’.
Lilly pulled a towel around herself and padded downstairs.
Ring ring.
‘Keep your hair on, will you,’ she shouted, and yanked at the door handle. After three firm tugs the door opened a few inches.
‘You need a new frame.’
It was Milo, his breath white against the cold.
Lilly dripped and blinked. ‘How do you know where I live?’
‘Everyone knows everything in this village.’
Milo looked her up and down. From her ragged toenails to the towel barely covering her arse and back down to the pool of water gathering on the floor below her.
‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I needed to speak to you about Anna.’
Lilly cringed with embarrassment and ran for the stairs.
In her bedroom she threw open her wardrobe doors in search of her good jeans. They were snug at her hips but not at her thighs, and the style magazine Penny passed on each week had declared them the hottest jeans of the season. Lilly had found a bargain pair in TK Maxx and they looked great with a black V-neck jumper. She scraped her wet hair into a knot at the base of her skull. No time for makeup, maybe just a slick of mascara. At least she smelled good.
Lilly stopped in her tracks. What the hell was she doing? Why was she in a tailspin because an attractive man had turned up at her house? She reminded herself that she had Jack. A good, kind and decent man. A man her son adored. A man who thought oral sex was part of the deal and not just for anniversaries and birthdays. A man who had stood between her and a bullet.
Deliberately, she put her jeans back in the wardrobe and pulled on the lumpy jogging bottoms that lived on a wicker chair in the corner of her room. She zipped a beige fleece over a thermal vest and pulled on slipper socks.
The message was clear.
She found Milo in the kitchen, tinkering with the buttons on her dishwasher.
‘It’s broken,’ she said.
He laughed in the direction of the sink, where a mountain of crockery tottered. ‘I can see that. Do you have a screwdriver?’
Lilly opened a kitchen drawer and rummaged. She pulled out a knife, a hammer and a can of Mace.
‘My safety kit,’ she said, in answer to Milo’s puzzled look. She handed him a screwdriver. ‘I had some trouble on one of my cases.’
He simply nodded and went to work.
‘You’ve come to ask me to take on Anna’s case,’ she said.
‘Of course.’
No flannel, no spin. Lilly smiled. ‘I really can’t, you know.’
Milo twisted a screw. ‘There.’
‘It’s fixed?’
He shrugged a shy confirmation.
Lilly couldn’t hide her delight. ‘I could kiss you.’ She had spoken without thinking and needed to backtrack. ‘Don’t worry, I won’t.’
‘I’m not worried.’
They looked at each other, their connection a fraction too long.
Lilly was the first to break away ‘I’ll make you some dinner.’
Milo sank back in his chair. ‘So much food.’
Lilly cleared the plates. ‘There’s lemon tart if you want some. I made it at the weekend but it should still be good.’
Milo shook his head and rubbed his stomach. ‘Are you trying to kill me?’
‘Oh, you know—lawyer, cook, murderer.’
‘A person of many talents.’
Lilly stroked her dishwasher and felt its soft rumble. ‘As are you.’
‘My father taught me many things.’
The sadness was unmistakable.
‘Where is he now?’ Lilly asked.
‘Gone,’ he said.
‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pry.’
‘You English people are so funny Everything is private business, you don’t care about anybody else.’
‘That’s not true,’ she said. ‘We just don’t like talking about painful things.’
He fixed her with the jewelled glint of his eyes. ‘If you don’t talk, how are you going learn?’
Lilly closed her eyes, willing herself to pull away.
‘I can’t take on Anna’s case.’
Milo stood to leave with a half-smile. ‘You are a very strange woman, Lilly Valentine.’
When he had left, Lilly noticed a package on the work surface. She opened it up and began to read Anna’s statement from her application to remain in the UK.
TIRANA DURAKU
My name is Tirana Duraku and I was born in Glogovac, some 25 kilometres from Pristina, the capital of Kosovo.