‘Almost as much as I love you,’ she said. ‘And we’re getting closer in the Aimee Maitland case, you’ll be pleased to hear.’

I slumped at this. It didn’t seem right – Aimee’s name being brought up alongside all this backhanded dealing. If any of them had been interested at the time, maybe she’d still be alive.

‘Well, there’s nothing more to be said, I suppose,’ I said, going to the door. ‘You’ve got your own ideas, wrong though they are, and you’ve let a guilty man walk free.’

I opened the door to go but, as usual, I hadn’t got halfway out before she called me back.

‘You weren’t listening, Mr Fforbes,’ she said, looking up into my eyes, anger flashing in hers. ‘We let him go because he didn’t do it.’

    Twenty

Him

I was barely halfway home when a text came through on my phone. At first, I thought it might be Grace, and pulled out my phone feeling, for the first time that day, some degree of hope. But it was another unknown number.

Rick, I thought, feeling relieved but, if it was, he wasn’t giving it away in a text. It was simply a postcode, over East London way, and the word now.

I keyed the postcode into my satnav and headed over there.

The address, when I reached it, was that of a disused wharf in Deptford. I pulled up outside the high, steel gates of a warehouse. One of them was hanging half off its hinges, the warning sign on it barely legible from the weathering of years. It was like stepping back into the Docklands of several decades ago, before the facelift of the Eighties. The whole place seemed depressing and deserted.

It wasn’t entirely deserted, though. In the distance, towards the river, I could just make out the figure of a man. It wasn’t Rick – that much was obvious from his build. He was far too tall, too thin and imposing, and I felt my hackles rise. The whole situation had the feeling of a hit, and I was tempted to turn tail and get out of there but, at that moment, whoever it was turned to me and raised their hand, in a gesture of salute, and I realised who it was.

I pushed my way around the gate, ignoring the threat of the warning sign dangling uselessly from it, and made my way towards him, along the wharf, its jutting concrete flanked by the licking currents of the Thames.

‘You made it, then,’ said Giles. ‘I wasn’t sure you’d got my message.’

‘I got it, all right,’ I said. ‘Mind telling me what we’re doing here? It’s hardly your usual choice of venue for a get-together.’

‘All will become apparent.’ Giles didn’t meet my gaze, but instead stared out across the water. On the other side, a new building was under construction, the cranes a burnt orange against the pallid bleakness of the sky. ‘You might want to borrow these.’

He handed me a set of binoculars. He put another pair to his eyes, and I copied him, training the lenses towards where he seemed to be looking. When I focused in on what he was looking at, I put them down again, quickly.

There was a man standing near the top of a huge tower of scaffolding, its metal bones an exoskeleton encasing a newly-built tower block. I couldn’t make out anyone else, but I had the feeling he wasn’t alone. He kept glancing behind him, nervously. As I put the binoculars to my eyes again, his gaze turned in my direction.

It was Rick. I couldn’t make out his face clearly, but I knew his mannerisms and his build well enough to be in no doubt it was him. The only thing I wasn’t sure of, was what the hell he was doing up there – he was shit scared of heights.

I must have let out a gasp, because Giles turned to me, a cold smile on his face. ‘Your friend appears to be enjoying the view, wouldn’t you say?’

‘That’s not the thought that springs immediately to mind,’ I said. ‘What are you trying to achieve, Giles? He’s already admitted to everything. The bitch won’t listen.’

‘I’m not trying to achieve anything,’ he said. ‘I’m ending it. Doing what you should’ve done in the first place. And he didn’t do the murder. Don’t you listen to anything you’re told?’

‘Yes – a nice little story you’ve concocted, the two of you.’ I looked through the binoculars again. Rick was shuffling backwards on the scaffolding, his head turned away, over one shoulder, as if he couldn’t bear the view in front of him.

‘Have it your own way, Nathaniel.’ Giles put the binoculars back up to his eyes. ‘You always were a fool.’

‘I’m a fool?’ I couldn’t help a snort of disbelief. ‘You know this is going to rebound on all of us, don’t you?’

‘Not this time.’ Giles’ voice was calm and assured – the polar opposite of mine. ‘He’s written a suicide note, with the assurance his family will be looked after.’

‘Those kids don’t need money, Giles.’ I could hardly believe what I was hearing. ‘They need their father.’

‘He’s not the only one with kids.’

‘This is going to end badly,’ I said. My head was starting to swim. The docks…the water…the sky…everything was spinning around me, a wash of grey. ‘Don’t do this.’

‘Pull yourself together.’ Giles raised his arm. ‘And watch. It’s the least you can do.’

I looked through the lenses again, to see Rick cowering nearer the edge of the scaffolding. Out of the corner of my eye, I was aware of Giles waving his arm in slow, steady strokes above his head and, as he stopped, Rick stepped…no…was pushed forward, over the edge of the scaffolding.

In something approaching slow-motion, I watched as his body fell, turning over and over in a graceless arc, his arms and legs flailing against the empty air, down towards the cold, hard rubble of the building site.

I didn’t see him land – the ground was hidden by cabins and heavy plant machinery – but I felt it inside me as a blow to my chest. I sank to the ground, not in horror, but in grief. This time, I knew, Rick wouldn’t be walking away, and my heart went out to his family. To Sandy – the tough and embittered wife he’d tried to protect – and to his daughters, who’d grow up being told all the wrong things about their dad.

‘Get up, Nathaniel,’ said Giles, coolly. ‘It’s over. The line’s drawn under this now. We never mention this again. We move on.’

I hauled myself up, my body as heavy as the concrete beneath my feet, and watched as Giles dug his hands into his overcoat and strolled off down the wharf. As he went, I heard a high-pitched sound on the air and, if I hadn’t known Giles better, I’d have sworn he was whistling.

As I strained to listen, another sound came, this time from my pocket. A text message. I didn’t look at it straight away. I was still too blown away by what I’d seen. I couldn’t believe Rick was dead, and I blamed myself. If I’d been more careful with the tape…if I hadn’t put temptation in his way…would things have turned out differently?

I couldn’t answer that. I suspected Rick would still have tried blackmail. He was desperate to pay off Charlotte, and he might even have gone direct to Felicity at the start. Who could know? What I did know was that I hadn’t helped matters and, ever since then, things had gone from bad to worse. I was feeling more and more isolated. Everyone I’d ever relied on was falling away from me like petals from a dying flower – Alex…Max…Giles…even Ronnie… I’d even resolved to push Grace away, for her own sake.

Standing there by the Thames, the cold concrete beneath me, reminded me again of the time we’d walked along the Embankment. She’d been out of control then, in a tail spin. I’d despaired of pulling her out of it but, somehow, between us, we’d managed it. I wondered what she was doing and what she’d made of my text.

God, I missed her. At that moment, I’d have given anything to be by her side or, better still, tumbling with her, wrapped in the soft, silk sheets of my bed, nothing on my mind but the glory of her nakedness. I knew I’d done the right thing, distancing myself from her, but my resolve had never been weaker and, when I finally took out my phone and read the text, it dissolved altogether.