Chapter One

Darien

As soon as my office door closed on my last appointment of the day, I tipped my head back and closed my eyes. I loved being a probation officer, but there were days where that love stretched itself to its limit, and today was one of them. The morning had included a hostel visit and an appearance in court, which might have been okay if they weren’t on opposite sides of London, with traffic proving a nightmare.

That meant I’d gotten back to my office late, all my afternoon appointments subsequently behind schedule. Had I had lunch? I didn’t think so. There hadn’t been time. At least my brother owning a restaurant meant I could swing by Quinn’s Brasserie on the way home and throw myself at his mercy. Assuming he was there.

I smiled at the thought he might not be. My work obsessed brother had changed a lot over the past eighteen months, since I’d talked him into employing one of my clients. I wished I could claim that I’d known the two of them were perfect for each other, that I’d set them up, but I hadn’t. The news they were together had blindsided me as much as anyone. They were a good match, though, bringing the softness out in each other. Good job, seeing as they were engaged, and Levi would be my brother-in-law before the year was done.

A scream from one of the other offices had me jerking upright in my chair. I’d assumed everyone else had already gone home, but apparently not. Despite it being a scream of excitement rather than fear, it still warranted investigation.

The screamer—Katherine Hollander, one of my work colleagues—was standing in her office, clutching her phone to her chest. As soon as she noticed me hovering in the doorway, she bounced toward me in one of the best impressions of Tigger I’d ever seen, her eyes gleaming and her usually immaculate blond hair coming loose from her plait like she’d already done a lot of bouncing before I arrived.

I just had time to get out “are you okay?” before she swept me into her office and made me bounce with her. On a day where I’d already used up all my energy reserves, it was a big ask, but I dutifully joined in because it seemed rude not to.

“Darien!” she said, her eyes wide.

“Katherine,” I replied as the bouncing continued.

“They said yes!”

“Did they?” We were going round in a circle now, the bouncing on the spot no longer doing it for her. “Who’s they?”

“The people.”

“Oh, the people. Well, I’m glad we cleared that up.”

“And it’s going to be next week.”

“Is it?” We reversed direction. It was like being stuck on a fairground ride you couldn’t get off even if you wanted to. “What is?”

“The baby. The seven-month-old. ”

“Wait!” I pulled her to a stop, everything clicking into place. Katherine and I had worked together for over three years, Katherine confiding in me when we’d gotten more friendly during a drunken pub visit that she and her husband couldn’t have children and that they were on an adoption list and had been for some time. “Are you telling me you’re getting a baby?”

“Yes!” Tears welled up in her eyes and I pulled her into a hug, which was infinitely better than the bouncing. “They just called. He’s called Oliver, and they sent a picture, and he’s perfect in every way. We’re going to be parents, Darien.”

I squeezed her tighter. “I’m so happy for you and Greg. You’re going to be great parents. The best. Little Oliver’s a lucky boy to get you two.”

She ducked out of the hug and went over to her desk to rearrange bits of paper. “It’s next week, though, and there’s so much to organize before then.” She hefted a pile of casework folders. “I’m going to have to reallocate these before I go on adoption leave, which means everyone’s going to hate me for adding to their workload. And you know what?”

“What?”

“I don’t care.” She laughed, the sound bright and carefree. “Because I’m going to be a mother.”

I smiled, her joy infectious. She stopped laughing when she caught sight of the time. “Aren’t you going to be late?”

“Late? Late for what?”

She pointed a finger at me. “Ha! You nearly had me there. But you… Darien Quinn. You’re one of the good ones. I wouldn’t have set you up with Emily if you weren’t, because, as you very well know, she’s one of my oldest friends. You’re going to love her and she’s going to love you. ”

Christ on a fucking bike! I had a date tonight—the wheels put in motion by Katherine, who’d suddenly decided out of the blue one day that Emily and I would be perfect for each other. According to Katherine, the recently divorced Emily was ripe for a nice man and I fitted the bill. I was supposed to wine and dine her and then we were supposed to fall in love and live happily ever after.

Katherine shoved me toward the door. “Go! I need you to make a good impression. Whatever you do, don’t talk about her marriage. Talk about nice things. Things that’ll make her forget that her ex-husband was a dick who didn’t deserve her. How many cases can I give you?”

“What?” The abrupt change in subject had my head spinning.

“Cases,” she said. “Try to keep up. I have to reallocate them, remember? How many can I give you?”

“Er… two.”

“Marvelous!” And with that, she closed her office door and left me standing out in the corridor.

There was no time to go home and shower, which wasn’t the most auspicious start to a date. But it was that or be late. In the end, I doubted Emily even noticed. Katherine had warned me not to talk about Emily’s husband, but didn’t seem to have given the same advice to her friend, who talked of nothing else. Whenever I tried to steer the conversation in another direction, I met with resistance. Despite the two of them having recently divorced, it seemed feelings were still present. At least on her side, anyway. I couldn’t speak for him.

I didn’t have to fake yawning; it started spontaneously. Not because of the conversation, but more as a reflection of how taxing the day had been. Emily went up in my estimation when she insisted we skip dessert so I could go home and get some sleep. I did, falling into bed like a drunken man despite only having had one beer and falling asleep as soon as my head touched my pillow.

I frowned at the two folders waiting on my desk when I already had a full schedule. And then I remembered that Katherine’s adoption leave started today, and that these were the cases I’d agreed to take on. There would be a replacement for her, seeing as her leave was for a year, but how long that would take to implement would be anyone’s guess. Sinking into my chair, I pulled them closer. The top one had nothing on the front except for a name: Ralph Fletcher . I had a quick flick through it, nothing that unusual jumping out at me. Ralph was fifty-two and had been in and out of prison for most of his life, his crimes petty enough that they only netted him six months to a year inside. He’d get out on license and then the cycle would start again.

I believed in rehabilitation wholeheartedly, but I wasn’t sure even I could stop the prison merry-go-round that Ralph was currently riding on. That didn’t mean I wouldn’t try, just that I was realistic about the outcome, and wouldn’t beat myself up when he got sent back to prison again.

Putting Ralph’s folder to one side, I stared at all the post it notes in a variety of colors affixed to the other folder. It seemed Katherine had a lot to say about this one. I started at the top. Sorry about giving you this one, but Harry refused point-blank to take it. Harry was our colleague, his time as a probation officer nearing the fifteen year mark. He was the most qualified out of the three of us, but with that long tenure came a great deal of cynicism. No doubt he’d decided the case was beneath him.

I read on. Felix isn’t too bad as long as you treat him with respect. Felix? I lifted the first post it, Katherine having stuck it over the name. Felix Church. Why did that sound familiar? Had I had him as a client before? A moment of pondering had me concluding I hadn’t. Why did I recognize the name then?

Green post it-note. Obviously, it’s a tricky one. Sorry.

Blue post it note. He has a prison visit scheduled tomorrow prior to his release. You either need to make space for it or reschedule. I’d advise against rescheduling. It doesn’t take a lot to get his back up.

Pink post it note. I really tried to give it to someone else. I asked Mike and Lauren as well.

Yellow post it note. You know what… I need to discuss this with you. Call me. She’d circled those last two words so hard that the pen had gone through the paper. I dutifully picked up the phone and called her. She sounded breathless when she answered, like she’d run to get the phone. No doubt a seven-month-old was proving quite the handful. Rather her than me. I cut to the chase, figuring from the crying in the background that my time would be limited. “Why do I recognize the name Felix Church?” There was a silence. Well, not quite a silence, because Oliver was still proving that there was nothing wrong with his lungs. But Katherine had gone silent. “Katherine?”

“You don’t know who he is?”

“No.”

“Oh, come on, you do.”

“I don’t. Or I wouldn’t have asked.”

She sighed. “Eight years ago. The case was all over the news. ”

“What case?” I could have gotten the bare bones of the case from the folder, but Katherine had asked me to call her, and I had, so she may as well give me the information now.

“A sixteen-year-old girl died. Her body was discovered in Epping Forest. She’d been strangled to death. The hunt for her killer took months. Her distraught parents were all over the news, begging anyone with any information to come forward.”

My stomach did a flip. I’d been your typical student during the manhunt, busy balancing final year exams with partying with friends. But I remembered the news coverage. Possibly because I’d visited Epping Forest a few times. I tried to recall what I knew about the case. “The murderer was a man in his thirties, wasn’t he?”

“Julian Blackwell.” The crying had stopped. I assumed Katherine had picked Oliver up and was rocking him. “He got life imprisonment.”

“So Felix is...”

“The boyfriend… the much younger man Julian had been cohabiting with for three years prior to the murder. Julian testified they were in it together.”

“And were they?”

“Well, Felix always denied it, but the court didn’t believe a word of it. As well as Julian turning against him, there was other evidence that implicated him.”

“Such as?”

“Traces of the girl’s DNA in his car. That was the killing blow, according to the press. Julian had his own car. Why would he have used Felix’s if he didn’t need to? It supports Julian’s account that they hid the body together. In the end, the jury found him not guilty of murder, but guilty of being an accessory and concealing evidence. He got thirteen years. ”

“Hence him being out on license after seven.”

“Yeah. As you can probably imagine, they weren’t very popular,” Katherine continued. “What with the victim being a minor and the whole homosexual angle. The papers really went to town on it, making them out to be the gay Bonnie and Clyde. The trial was a complete shit show. Angry parents. Angry community. You’d have been hard pressed to find someone who wasn’t angry about it. You’re going to need to make sure he keeps his head down when he gets out. I talked to him about it, but I couldn’t tell whether it sank in.”

“What’s he like?” I asked, a pounding already starting up in my temples.

“Difficult.” Katherine sounded guilty, as well as she might.

I picked up a pen and doodled on one of the post its, my brain deciding to draw prison bars. “What do you mean by difficult?”

“Moody.”

“He’s in prison. He’s hardly going to be full of the joys of spring.”

“More moody than most, then. Until a year or two ago, he was still shouting his innocence from the rooftops to anyone who cared to listen.”

“What happened a year or two ago?”

“Do you want the official version or the unofficial version?”

“Both.”

Katherine let out a little sigh. “Official version is that he realized the error of his ways and accepted his role in what happened, attended all the group sessions, and showed remorse.”

“And the unofficial version?”

“That he did what he needed to do to get parole, said what he needed to say.”

I grimaced. He wouldn’t be the first, but it was never what you wanted to hear as a probation officer. Katherine made a shushing sound, which I assumed was for baby Oliver rather than me. “I’m going to have to go, Darien. Oliver’s nappy needs changing. Which is Sod’s Law when I’ve just got him to doze. Now, I’m going to have to wake him up to change his nappy.”

“The joys of motherhood,” I teased.

“Yeah.” I could hear the smile in her voice. “I’m not complaining, really.”

“You are, but that’s fine. A parent’s allowed to. It doesn’t mean you love him any less.”

“See,” she said, “it’s advice like that, which makes you such a fantastic probation officer.”

I rolled my eyes at the praise. “Yeah, yeah. I do my best.”

“You do better than your best. One more thing before you go.” She sounded serious.

“What?”

“Don’t fall for him.”

For a moment, I was stunned into silence. “Fall for who? Felix Church?”

“Yeah. It wouldn’t be a good idea.”

I laughed at the absurdity of the idea. “You don’t need to tell me that.”

“Good! I just felt like it needed saying.”

I was still shaking my head at the strange comment by the time we said our farewells and hung up. It seemed Katherine was already going a bit doolally from lack of sleep. Fall for one of my clients. As if.