Page 27 of For Better or for Ransom

“Believe me, we shouldn’t.” Luke grabbed one of the menus and decided on the fuet sandwich. He’d really have to do some serious exercise once they were finally back in London.

They put their order in with a waiter who spoke broken English but was able to understand them. Luke even spoke some Italian with him. The waiter said he understood Luke’s Italian better than his thick London accent in English. Yet Luke’s Italian family had always complained about how bad his accent was. It had been the first time someone had expressed a preference for Luke’s Italian side—other than Sol, who dug both sides of his cultural background and loved it when he spoke Italian to her. It surprised the detective. He wondered if that was another reason why people loved traveling: you met people who gave you a fresh perspective.

“You look cheerful,” Luke told Divya. It wasn’t lost on him that his partner had showed up that morning wearing shorts and a vintage Barcelona ’92 sweatshirt. She loved assimilating to the environment they were working in, even if for the locals, unlike for the Mancunian, the 15-degree temperature didn’t mean that it was warm enough to wear shorts.

“Thanks!” Divya said, as she took a big gulp of the tallat coffee she’d just been served. “Mate, the coffee in this city is insane!”

“If only they knew anything about tea…” he grumbled.

“Feeling homesick already?”

That was the understatement of the century. “I was already feeling homesick and then you told me I needed to stay here because your partner had hired us.”

Divya’s gaze sharpened. She cocked her head as if she was trying to decipher him. He gulped. She was famous for her detective nose. “What’s wrong with you this morning? You sound even grumpier than usual. It can’t just be that we’re not in London, eh?”

“Why not?” His tone was more nervous than he’d intended.

“Because this time is not as bad as when we were in Los Angeles and you were sleeping on an inflatable mattress and crowding Sol’s friends’ place, right? I mean, at least here you have your own flat.” Her reasoning seemed sound. It wasn’t.

“It’s Sol’s flat.” He was blushing slightly and bothered by it. He didn’t like talking about that particular subject, but if there was someone who would understand him, it would be Divya. She was good at listening.

“Sol would say it is also your flat. But it’s another thing if you don’t feel like it because you can’t feel home anywhere other than London…” Divya reasoned.

“It’s not that!” he hissed. “I’m not that limited or closed-minded.”

Divya gave him the most skeptical stare.

He breathed deeply, checked once again the café’s door to make sure Miquel wasn’t within earshot distance. “We’re about to meet the bloody ex-husband.”

“And you don’t like him…” Divya supplied.

“It isn’t even about that!”

Divya gave him a pointed stare.

“Right, I don’t like him but that has nothing to do with it. It’s the title that annoys me to no measure. I just can’t avoid it.”

“You’ve got to be more specific because I don’t follow, mate. What title?” She crossed her arms on her chest, leaned on her bentwood chair.

He sighed. “The husband title.”

Divya gave a long, dramatic eye roll. “You realize Sol divorced him, right? Hence the ex part…”

“She still married him. Pretty sure she would not want to marry anyone else because of him and Ex Number Bloody Two. But what if I also want a title?” It wasn’t until he’d said those words out loud that he grasped how much they’d been weighing on him. Yes, he also wanted the bloody title. That was the something different, something more he’d been yearning for those last few days. For some reason that realization didn’t make him angrier, though. He smiled.

“We’ll leave that for later,” Divya was quick to tell him. “I think Ex Number One and the police detective are here.”

···

Luke was going to thank Divya later. He’d hug her too—if she wanted. But he was truly thankful to his partner, his friend. First she’d managed to make him get off his chest something that had been bothering him for a few weeks now. And then she’d been able to recognize the two people they were meeting, even if she’d never seen them in her life, just based on his descriptions and on instinct. She was that good. And he was so glad she’d done it because he’d shut up instantly and Ex Number One hadn’t been able to hear what he was saying before Miquel got there.

“And of course you should probably also sync and divide when it comes to witness interviews,” Miquel was saying. He’d been talking nonstop for what Luke thought was an eternity and since the four of them had gathered around the table. Ex Number One was now offering his opinion on all the ways the Bakshi & Contadino Agency and the Mossos d’Esquadra could collaborate in the investigation of Leonardo Pascual’s disappearance. No one had asked for that opinion. That didn’t deter Miquel. “Think about it, you could save so much time!”

“Sure…bu—” Mercè tried interrupting for what was the third or fourth time. She wasn’t successful this time either. Annoyance spread over her features.

“Come on! You always complain about how swamped you are!” Miquel cut her off and Luke couldn’t suppress the smirk. The woman clearly wanted to kill Miquel. She was losing her patience. Yet Ex Number One was oblivious to it.

“Miquel.” Mercè’s tone was stern and firm. The same one Luke had heard her using in her work. The annoying ex finally shut up. “I’m not going to go into detail as to why it is that the police and their agency need to keep the investigations separate, because you wouldn’t understand.” Luke wasn’t sure he’d been able to successfully suppress the chuckle. He was enjoying the moment so much. “But I have no problem in a friendly sharing of information if the detectives here promise me they’ll share anything useful from their chat with Sandro Palau. As I said before, we’ve already talked to him and he really just looks overwhelmed by the whole situation and worried about Pascual. But you never know.”