Page 27 of We Chase Shadows

Wait, thinks Rosie. Is Steve flirting? Heavens above. First time for everything.

Georgie pouts at him, and Steve wags his finger again. Rosie thinks she might vomit.

She’s never seen Steve flirt before, and if this is what it looks like, she never wants to again. He is going to need lessons. It’s like watching a penguin roller-skate.

‘Sorry to break up the cat talk,’ says Rosie. ‘We wanted to ask you a couple of questions about your ex-husband?’

‘Is Vern in trouble?’ says Georgie. ‘He’s not dead?’

‘Would that surprise you?’ Rosie asks. Rosie thinks of rainbows on plant pots and corpses on doorsteps. Two different worlds?

‘Being in trouble, no,’ says Georgie. ‘Dead, yes. He’s always been very careful. Always was, right from the start. I’ve wanted to kill him myself a few times, but it’s illegal.’

‘He’s not dead,’ says Steve.

‘Not yet,’ says Rosie.

‘But he’s been threatened,’ says Steve. ‘And we’re trying to find out who by.’

Georgie looks at him. ‘Are you going to interrogate me? Will you be taking everything down?’

‘Only if you scratch the furniture,’ says Steve.

Is this how people flirt now? It isn’t how Harrison Ford flirts, but, Rosie supposes, not everyone is Harrison Ford. Although Steve, if she’s being honest, in certain lights …

‘His bodyguard was killed,’ says Rosie, trying to disrupt the mood. ‘Shot in the head.’

‘He’s got a bodyguard, has he?’ says Georgie. ‘He didn’t used to have a bodyguard. But then they even have security guards on the door at Waitrose now. Because of the shoplifting.’

‘He’s actually got three bodyguards,’ says Steve.

‘Two now,’ says Rosie, miming a gunshot to the head.

‘We’ve just been out in Italy with him,’ says Steve. ‘Nice house.’

‘I don’t suppose you know it at all?’ Rosie asks. ‘Haven’t been there recently?’

Georgie shakes her head. ‘Never been. I love a Cornetto though, to be fair to me. Another cuppa, anyone?’

‘Wouldn’t say no,’ says Steve. ‘They don’t do tea in Italy.’

‘They do if you ask,’ says Rosie.

Steve shakes his head at Rosie as Georgie pours his tea. ‘I tried, in Lucca, and whatever they brought me, it wasn’t tea. That’s why I started drinking those tiny coffees.’

‘Are you thinking I might know who threatened him?’ says Georgie, smiling. Then she turns to Rosie and turns the smile off at the mains. ‘Or perhaps you’ve come all this way because you think it might be me?’

Well, that’s a bit more like it. A bit of steel in the cotton wool.

‘Tell us about you and Vern,’ says Rosie. ‘Then perhaps we can make our minds up.’

‘We met at school,’ says Georgie. ‘Kensal Rise, if you know it?’

‘Let’s pretend I do,’ says Rosie.

‘Lot going on in Kensal Rise,’ says Steve. ‘When I was in the Met.’

‘You were a copper?’ Georgie asks.