Page 37 of The Unforgiven

He pulled me closer to him. “Why would I say Lucy’s name?”

“I don’t know.” His hands were touching places I liked. “I was probably still dreaming.”

“It’s Saturday morning and you aren’t working, so dreaming’s what you should be doing.” More hands. More good places.

I let myself relax, breathe, empty my head and it was all going so well until my phone started to vibrate.

I froze, causing Cavan to freeze what he was doing too.

“Is that your phone?”

I sat up. He moved away, lying flat on his back in my bed, probably mentally cursing my job.

“It is. Sorry.” I answered it, catching sight of the time. Seven forty-five. “Morning.” It wasn’t a good one, clearly.

Wrigley sounded just the same at any time. “How quickly can you get to the River Irwell near Deansgate Way?”

“Half an hour. Do we have another?” I was already out of bed, grabbing my dressing gown and heading to the bathroom. I’d have to enjoy being touched another time.

“We do. Female. Still in the water and you’ve got more chance of getting there before forensics pull her out. Nick will meet you there – Vinny hasn’t picked up yet.”

I could offer Wrigley and explanation there. Vinny’s phone was still in our kitchen, but Vinny was more than likely in bed with a geography teacher at her place.

“Do you want me to pick him up?” Cavan would have the geography teacher’s number, so at least there was half a plan.

“If you can.” A pause. “Sorry, Mia. On behalf of our murderer or murderers at least, I'm sorry they didn’t pick a better timeframe.”

“Maybe they’ve done this on purpose.” I turned on the shower.

“Maybe. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

I was there in forty minutes, showered, accompanied by Vinny who was still in last night’s clothing, chipper because Dr Miz was on holiday so he didn’t have to come face to face with her when he still smelled of another woman, and even more chipper because of how last night had gone.

The scene was amass with an ant-army of CSIs when we got there, Nick already instructing the barrier to be moved further out, mainly to piss off the press who were already gathered.

“Is this the same Pusher, Detective? Do we have another serial killer?”

“Detective, should we be closing off any pathways next to water to prevent any more murders?”

“Do you agree that the police are clueless and an enquiry should be opened immediately?”

We walked past them, a dozen retorts hanging off the end of my tongue.

“Dickheads,” Vinny muttered. “You got any shoe covers on you?”

I nodded. “I keep them in all my coat pockets and I don’t understand how you can’t be organised. I’m assuming you carry condoms on you?”

“Always. You never know when the opportunity will present itself.”

“Think the same way about crime scenes and carry shoe covers the same way then.” I smacked him with the back of my hand, my hand containing shoe covers for him. “Am I going to find a sobbing geography teacher on my sofa later because you’ve ghosted her?”

“No, absolutely not.” He sounded taken aback. “I’m seeing her again tonight – depending on this.” He pointed to the clustering of cops and techs. Jenna was there, as was another familiar face, one I hadn’t seen for a couple of years, and not in this part of the world.

Tall, gangly, with a face that could’ve belonged to Clark Kent, my half-brother looked almost pleased to see me.

Almost.

“I was expecting you quarter of an hour ago.” His almost succeeded in giving me a dirty look, but failed because he was also almost smiling.