Morrow pulled her car into the steep driveway and crunched on the handbrake, leaving the Honda in first gear. She didn’t trust it on the gradient.

The living room curtains were drawn. Orange light bleeding around the edges, shining bright and warm into the night. The light was on in the hall as well. This was her second favorite moment in the day, drawing up to the house, knowing Brian was in there. Her first favorite moment was climbing into bed. Rock and roll.

She opened the door and stepped out, locked the car and looked around the quiet neighborhood. A nice area for a family to grow up in. She smiled to herself and walked up to the door, fitted her key and opened it, calling, “Hiya,” as she put her door keys back in her pocket and hung her coat up in the cupboard.

“Hiya.” Brian came out to meet her. “How was London?”

“It was grim. Bannerman wouldn’t let me take Harris because he’s seeing revolutions everywhere…”

“What was the bar like?”

“Good-looking women, ugly men. Saw Kay again though, and her boys.”

“Go OK?”

“Yeah, they did really well.”

He was standing half in the hall, half in the kitchen, holding on to the door frame. It was an odd posture for him. He looked secretive, coy, as if he was blocking her way, as if the kitchen was full and he was about to spring a surprise party on her.

She nodded at him. “What?”

Brian balked at conflict. Morrow quite liked a fight but not in the house. Brian didn’t like any kind of antagonism. He took a deep breath. “Come in here.”

She followed him into the kitchen, expecting a surprise as soon as she walked in. The kitchen looked the same, same table, same bland fitted units the old couple had left, usual kitchen cloth draped over the tap to dry, usual bowl of dinner waiting for her in the microwave.

She smiled. “What’s going on?”

Brian looked worried. “I want you to sit down.”

She took a chair. He sat next to her and chewed his bottom lip. “Danny came here today.”

She looked around suddenly as if he might still be in here, and when she spoke she found she was whispering. “Here?”

“Yeah.”

“You met him?”

“Yeah.”

“When?”

“Teatime, about five, five thirty or something.”

“Why didn’t you phone me?”

“Didn’t want to bother you.”

Brian wasn’t injured. He didn’t even look scared or bothered. She touched his cheek and he smiled at her, seeing how protective she was of him. They sat close, huddled, suspicious.

“I don’t like him coming here.”

“I know.”

“I don’t want him knowing you.”

He took her hand. “I’m all right.”

She squeezed his fingers. “I’m sorry.”

He squeezed hers. “No need.”

“Was it about JJ?”

“Yeah, and Kay Murray.”

“Kay Murray?”

“Someone came to see him, told him to pass on a warning to you: you’ve to lay off the Murray boys.”

“He’s warning me off?”

“No, he’s telling you someone else wants you warned off.”

She snorted. “He can’t come here and tell me what to do.”

“Is that what he was doing?”

Morrow shrugged. He’d never done anything like this before. She sat back and thought her way through the possibilities. Danny could be telling the truth, but that would be out of character. If he was lying she had to wonder why he would tell that lie. He wanted her to lay off the Murray boys but wouldn’t say it directly. Then it hit her: Joe was sixteen. Alex had lost touch with both of them but Danny and Kay probably still knew each other back then. She considered for a moment the possibility that Danny was Joe’s dad. But Joe didn’t look much like Danny. He didn’t act at all like Danny. And then she remembered the flat, how little Kay had, buying four lots of shoes at Costco, all the same, because they were waterproof and would last a winter. She was working as a cleaner and a carer and clearly supporting herself and her kids. She wasn’t taking anything from Danny. But Kay was proud. She wouldn’t have taken anything from Danny.

It could have been true, Danny could be warning her that someone else, not him, knew they were related and wanted her to lay off the Murrays. It could have been Kay herself.

“She doesn’t trust us,” she said.

“Who doesn’t trust us?”

“Kay Murray. She doesn’t trust the police.” Alex shook her head at the table. “Could Danny be his dad? Joe’s lovely.”

“Is he?”

“Does he know Joe?”

“He didn’t sound as if he did.”

“Why, what did he say?”

Brian shrugged. “The Murray boys, he kept calling them the Murray boys. Someone wants you to lay off them.”

She was lost in her thoughts for a moment until Brian said, “I made a nice lamb stew. Will I heat it up?”

“Please.”

Brian stood up, shut the microwave door and put it on for three minutes, watching, waiting with a spoon. Morrow saw herself and Kay in the avenue that first time they met and how pleased Kay was that she was a police officer and how she might have gone home, or sat on the train and thought about her, being an officer, and how that was an alternative life for her son.

Joe might be her nephew. She laughed to herself. If she was related to Kay in a distant sort of way she wished she’d known. She’d have loved an excuse to stay in touch.

The microwave pinged, Brian opened it and stirred and then shut it and put it on again. When he sat down he was smiling. “He looks like you.”

“Think?”

“Yeah,” he touched her lips, “same chin.”

“He can’t warn me off anything—”

“Alex.” Brian leaned forward, put his hand flat on her stomach. “He isn’t warning you off anything. He’s calling a truce.”

“You don’t know him—”

“No, I don’t but I can see that he’s asking you for help and you’re saying no.”