Unfortunately, downtime at the office was dull as shit too. He found biscuits in the kitchen and pinched a couple to go with his tea, then went back to the officers’ room and called his daughter. “Hannah? What are you up to this weekend?”

  “Studying this morning. Then over at Laura’s. I might stay over.”

  “Which one’s Laura?”

  “Black girl, really tall, the one who guessed what you did before I told her. Laura Atwell.”

  “Oh. that one. I thought that was Emma.”

  “Emma is the one who fancies you.”

  “She does not. Christ, Hannah, where do you get these ideas?”

  “From Mum.” She giggled. “When are you coming back?”

  “Dunno, love. Could be another all-nighter. Stay over at your mate’s, but let me know if you change your plans. What’s her number?”

  “I’ll text it to you. I called Mum. She says hello. Anthony’s just won some school prize for science. Going to be a genius like her.”

  “Good for him.” Steve had never met Stella’s son but it was nice to know her second family was doing well. Hannah had visited the States several times since the split, and he and Stella encouraged the half-siblings to get to know each other and be friends. “Let you get back to work.”

  “Thanks.” She sighed heavily. “Hate exams.”

  “Everyone does. Love you.”

  “You too, Dad.”

  Hannah’s text arrived, and Steve had no compunction in running a quick backwards search on the phone number to get Ms Atwell’s address. Hannah’s mate was another student, with no criminal history, thank God. Hannah would be fine, he hoped, but he’d call her later to make sure. Steve was paid to provide security to wealthy families, but security for his own, he did out of love.

  With nothing to do, he wandered down to the lab. Manit waved at him. “We have a partial fingerprint match. Tommy Weston. I just sent the report to Maria and the police team.”

  So Sherwood was the real deal. Some of the tension in Steve’s shoulders dissipated. “Keep going.”

  “Of course.”

  As he walked up the stairs, his phone rang.

  “Mr McCallum?”

  “Mr Sherwood? What can I do for you?”

  “I remembered something else. A street sign. Oakenden Way, Finchley.”

  “Brilliant, thank you. I’ll call you back.”

  He ran up the rest of the stairs to Maria’s office. “Oakenden Way, Finchley. Sherwood found it from his memories of Weston’s activities. Try number fifteen.”

  He waited while she called the Met and spoke to the liaising officer. She hung up and said, “We have three possible associates who fit the descriptions and sketches he gave us.”

  “Should I go to that address?”

  “Let the police handle it.” She drummed her fingers on the desk. “I wish we could tell the family, but I don’t want to give them false hope.”

  “No, best not.”

  “So now we wait. Did this interrupt plans for your weekend?”

  “No. Was just going to do some cooking. You know, to freeze.”

  “Always nice to find a man who cooks.” Her tone was airy but her mouth was tight, and her eyes kept darting to the phone. They couldn’t even listen in on the police scanner. The Met wouldn’t want to alert the kidnappers they were on their way. Steve prayed to the Catholic god he no longer believed in that this was it, that the child would come home alive. He hated abduction cases. He’d worked too many on the Force.

  The minutes ticked by. Steve was no good at small talk. Maria was, but her mind was elsewhere.

  After ten minutes, she forced her attention and smile back onto him. “How’s Hannah?”

  “Good. She’s working hard—”

  Maria’s phone rang. She snatched it up. “Yes. Right. Good. Thank God. Where are you taking him? I’ll call the family. Thank you.”

  “He’s safe?”

  “Taking him to the Royal Free,” she said, punching numbers into her phone. “Maria Costello here. Yes, for Mr Hakim.”

  Steve waited until Maria had given the family the news they had waited and prayed for. “So, need me for anything else?”

  “No, go enjoy your weekend. I’ll have a new assignment for you on Monday. Good call, this morning, Steve. Well done.”

  Not really, he thought, as he remembered how he’d nearly buggered it all up with his hasty assumptions. “Thanks. May I call Mr Sherwood to give him the good news?”

  “Let me. I’d like to use him again, so let’s keep him in a good mood.”

  And was that her subtle way of telling him that he wasn’t good at diplomacy? Probably. He gave her Sherwood’s number and mock-saluted as he left the office.

  Bright mid-May sunshine on a Saturday afternoon made his suit seem out of place, and he thought about just going home, changing into something more comfortable, and opening a beer. But he felt guilty about his doubts over Sherwood’s honesty, and his earlier insult, and it wouldn’t kill him to do something nice for a man who’d just found a baby and probably saved the little boy’s life.

  So he caught the Tube back up to Camden Town, stopped in at the Sainbury’s to buy a decent bottle of champagne, and walked from there to Sherwood’s gallery. It wasn’t even one o’clock. He hoped the place would still be open.

  Fortunately, it was. The Chinese lass who’d been there before greeted him politely, though with some reserve. “Is it possible to speak with Mr Sherwood?”

  “I’ll check, Mr...?”

  “McCallum. Steve McCallum.”

  She nodded and called from her desk. It took a while for her to get an answer. “Luce, Mr Steve McCallum is here, asking to speak with you? Yes, okay.” She hung up. “Please go on through to the workshop. You know the way?”

  “Yeah, I do, ta.”

  He went to the back of the gallery and opened the heavy metal door. The workshop was cooler and quieter, the light even and bright through the skylights.

  Sherwood was at his table again, drawing. “Welcome again, Mr McCallum. Your employer rang and we had a very pleasant conversation.” He didn’t look up as he spoke, though he sounded friendly enough.

  “Uh, good. She’s very pleased. It’s about the best outcome we could have hoped for, and it’s all because of you.”

  “Except the baby lost a toe.”

  “Well, yeah. Seen them lose more, including their lives.”

  Sherwood looked at him then, stared for a couple of seconds, then nodded. “You’re a former police officer?”

  “How can you tell?”

  “Unless you’re actually a kidnapper....”

  “Oh right. Yeah. Um, I wanted to say thank you in person. And apologise again. I was a proper dickhead to you earlier.” Steve set the bag with the champagne on the table. “I don’t know if you drink or whatever, but anyway...thank you. And sorry.”

  “You’re welcome, and forgiven. And yes, I drink.” He reached over for the bag and looked inside. “Oh, that’s lovely, thank you. Unnecessary, of course.”

  Steve shrugged. “Like I said, it could have been so much worse.”

  “I can imagine. Would you like some tea?” He looked over at the clock. “Or can I buy you lunch?”

  “I should be buying you lunch.”

  “We can buy each other’s.” For the first time since Steve had met him, Sherwood smiled, and his whole face changed. From looking rather solemn and haughty, he now looked normal. And handsome in a way that owed nothing to his makeup. Steve didn’t much go for femme guys but on Sherwood the makeup didn’t really look feminine, even with the skirt and the sparkly violet nail polish.

  “All right. If you can spare the time.”

  “I have to eat. To be honest, my stomach’s only just now ready for food. I wish I could forget those images. Come on. I’ll put the bottle in the fridge when I get home.”

  He led Steve back out to the gallery, told Chun he’d be back in an hour or so, and went out to the street, immediately turning his back on it. “There’s a small place I like that serves good basic stuff, away from the High Street.”

  “Sounds fine. I eat anything.”

  “So do I. This way then.”

  Sherwood averted his gaze as he passed people, and his shoulders straightened as they entered a side alley. “Just down there,” he said, pointing to a doorway that if you didn’t know it housed a café, you’d never suspect it could.

  The café was quiet with no background music, although the place had around twenty patrons seated already, Steve estimated. A large woman greeted Sherwood and hugged him against her generous bosom. “Luce, my baby, come sit down.”

  “Shona, my friend is eating with me today. Steve McCallum.”

  “Lovely to meet you, Steve. Over there, my love, as usual.”

  Sherwood led Steve to a table at the back, and seated himself to face away from the body of the restaurant. “Two soups, two salads, please,” he told Shona. “And a pot of—”

  “Tea, I know. You and your bloody tea.” She bustled off to behind the counter, and presumably told someone in the kitchen what they wanted, although Steve didn’t see her do it.

  “There isn’t a menu,” Sherwood explained. “In spring and summer, it’s soup, salad and ice cream for afters. In winter, it’s stew and pudding. Different every day, but that’s all they do. You can have bread with it, and if you’re very good, a biscuit with your tea.”

  Steve smiled. “Sounds fine to me. I hate having to decide what to eat.”

  “Good. I’m glad you came back to see me. I’m not usually a cranky sod but I had a stonking headache.” Sherwood shivered. “They caught him at least.”

  “Yeah. And with his record, he’ll be going down for a good long time.”

  “Anyone who hurts a baby deserves never to come out of prison. I don’t agree with a lot of criminal laws but that’s a hard line for me.”

  “And me. Do you mind if I ask about your Talent? Is it why you don’t look at people?”

  “Clever of you to realise that. I don’t avoid everyone, just strangers...and people I know and dislike.”

  “How does it work?”

  “I have no idea. Oh, you mean what do I see? It’s like a series of scenes stretching out behind you. I can see you on the Tube, talking to your boss, even you coming to the shop earlier.” He squinted. “You were looking inside a bin?”

  “Looking for the phone the guy tossed. That’s an incredible gift.”

  Sherwood shook his head. “It’s a pain in my arse and always has been. It’s taken me a very long time to be able to ignore the ordinary stuff and see past it. I wasn’t able to draw people in front of me until five years ago. I could draw anything else, but people? Too confusing.”

  “Like having ten TVs on at the same time.”

  “Like having fifty on, all tuned to different stations, so you don’t know which one to look at.”

  “How far can you see back?”

  “The clearest images are the most recent. When I crossed paths with that creep, it must have been only an hour, hour and a half since he’d....” Sherwood looked down. “You know.”

  “Yeah. But how far after that?”

  “A day? If I really, really concentrated, probably a week, ten days. I wouldn’t do that. It would give me a migraine. I never actually want to see any of it. Most people’s lives are deadly dull, and I can live without knowing my bank manager bonked his girlfriend over lunch, or someone’s just taken a massive shit.”

  Steve winced in sympathy. “No wonder you don’t want to look. How can you even look at me?”

  “One at a time isn’t so bad, if the other person hasn’t done something disgusting or evil. I have to be looking at them, not just in the same room, or a photo or whatever. The police want mind readers. I don’t do that. I can see you looking in the bin but I have no idea why you’re doing it. If I couldn’t read your lips I wouldn’t know what you were saying either.” He said the last with a cheeky grin that made Steve smile back.

  “I think you can probably guess.”

  Shona brought their food over. “Tea’s coming, Luce.”

  “Ta, love.”

  The soup was French onion, and delicious. “It’s been hours and hours since breakfast,” Steve said after he’d inhaled half the bowl. “I was starving.”

  Sherwood only nodded, but Steve got the slight impression that his remark had caused scorn. “Did I say something wrong?”

  “No. Just...I went through a bad patch a few years ago. When I was a teenager, actually. I was homeless for over a year. So there were a few lean periods and I did actually have to go without food for a couple of days at a time. So when someone says ‘they’re starving’ I can’t help but think ‘no you’re not’. Sorry, I know it’s an expression.”

  “That’s why you support homeless charities?”

  “Yes. And the LGBT ones, as you doubtless discovered.”

  His black-lined green eyes stared at Steve from under dark brows, daring him to say something. “I’m bi myself,” Steve said. “I’ve never actually said that out loud.”

  Sherwood held out his hand, and Steve took it. “Congratulations on coming out,” Sherwood said, smiling again.

  Steve let his hand go. “It wasn’t like I was hiding it. I got married very young, stayed faithful, so it never came up in my marriage. And after the divorce, I never had any reason to actually tell anyone I slept with.”

  “I understand. Different generation. We were much more direct about it, much earlier. Although there are still homophobes ready to make our lives hell.” He looked down at his soup bowl, now empty, and swapped it for the salad.

  “Never had a problem with it personally. Because of marrying so early, I suppose.”

  “Of course. I made the mistake of telling my step-father when I was seventeen. I think he might have coped better if I hadn’t been wearing a dress.”

  Steve didn’t know how to take that. “I’m sorry.”

  “It was the making of me, though if you can imagine what a lump of clay goes through to become a sculpture, you might have some idea what it felt like. So you were married. Do you have children? Do you still speak to your ex?”

  “Nosy, aren’t you?”

  “I am, a bit. Tell me about Steve McCallum.”

  Steve tackled his salad, wondering why he didn’t tell Sherwood to shove it. The guy was pretty to look at, but no one was that pretty. “Nothing much to tell. I joined the Met when I left school, worked my way up to Royal protection officer, and retired seven years ago to join Titan House. Met Stella, that’s the ex, when we were both nineteen, and she fell pregnant. We were in love and wanted the baby, so we got married. One daughter, the love of my life, and Stella lives in the States now. She was a student when she had Hannah, went back to her studies when Hannah started school, and now she teaches physics at a university over there. She’s remarried with a son.”

  “Interesting you said more about her than about yourself, Steve. Why did you stop being a cop?”

  “Do you mind if I say I can’t talk about it?”

  “Not at all.” Sherwood reached over and touched Steve’s hand. “Sorry for being intrusive.”

  “No problem.” Though Steve wouldn’t have put up with it if he hadn’t felt so grateful to the man. “The food is great. You were right.”

  “It’s wonderful. I try not to tell anyone about it because then it’ll become fashionable and I’ll never get a seat. Our secret, okay?”

  “Okay. Doesn’t Shona mind?”

  “No. She doesn’t want to be discovered either. She’s happy as it is. Being successful is a double-edged sword.” He shook his head a little. “Now isn’t that a self-centred complaint?”

  “Not really. I’ve worked around enough famous people to know the pitfalls.”

  “So you do understand.” He looked at Steve’s watch. “Time for a cup of tea, then I better get back to relieve Chun.”

  Steve didn’t know whether to be relieved or sorry. “Thank you for bringing me here.”

  “You’re welcome. Do you often have weekends free?”

  “No. One in four is guaranteed, unless something like this comes up, which it very rarely does. I work evenings, weekends, all hours. If I wasn’t already divorced, I would be now.”

  “Ah. So if I wanted to have dinner with you....”

  “Why would you want to do that?”

  “You’re nice, and different from the people I usually meet. The police I usually meet,” Sherwood added, grimacing.

  “I’m not a cop any more.”

  “Exactly. I’d just like more time to talk to you. Is that a bad thing?”

  Steve tried to work out why it would be. “No,” he said slowly. “But if I’m honest, you’re more like our clients. Makes me nervous.”

  “I don’t use security. I told your Ms Costello that.”

  “Right. I just mean you’re the type.”

  “Rich, corrupt, and in exile? I don’t think so.”

  Steve opened his mouth to argue, then didn’t. He picked up his tea cup and hid his irritation behind it.

  Sherwood’s mouth twisted. “I’ve offended you.”

  “No, I’m fine.”

  “Hmmm. So if I wanted to book you for dinner, I’d need to do it a month in advance?”

  “It depends. I can’t say. It changes so much, and they’ve got used to me being around. Available.”

  “Sounds like exploitation.”

  “Sounds like a middle-aged man with no hobbies and no life, you mean.” Steve had had enough. He stood. “Thanks for lunch. I have to go. Sorry.”

  He handed Shona twenty quid for his half of the meal, thanked her, and rushed out. There was no sign of Sherwood following him. Just as well. Maria wouldn’t like him to start yelling at a potential client in the middle of a restaurant in Camden, even if the potential wasn’t there, it wasn’t really a restaurant, and Camden Town was noisy as hell anyway.