Chapter Twelve

She cooked dinner that evening, trying to make amends for her screw-up the previous night, so that by the time Archie got home the cabin was warm and smelling of cooked tomatoes and peppers. It was her one-and-only party piece – a veggie lasagne – plus a steak for Archie which was resting in the oven. Despite going vegetarian after her very first post-mortem she had no issues with other people eating meat.

He raised an eyebrow. ‘Good day?' But she was relieved to sense that his anger of earlier – justified anger – had dissipated.

As they ate she told him what had happened at the inquest, and on reaching the bit about the anonymous phone call, he shook his head, torn between admiration and disapproval. ‘You're going to get yourself sacked one of these days.'

‘Curzon never saw me.' She topped up their glasses with wine – corner-shop Shiraz but totally drinkable.

‘When he hears about the coroner's finding he'll be apoplectic. And he's bound to wonder why the cops suddenly asked for an analysis of the clothing.' He washed down a mouthful of steak with his wine. ‘What on earth made you think about a bull attack, of all things?'

Cassie shrugged, remembering wheeling Felix's reconstituted body back into the body store after his PM. The look of shock on his face had dulled, but as she'd gone to zip the body bag closed over his face she'd frozen, gripped by the feeling that foreshadowed her moments of connection with the dead: a slip-sliding sensation, a humming in the air, her senses gone into overdrive.

Run! A single word that seemed to rise from his unmoving lips in a whispered shout. And then silence.

When she'd resurfaced from the moment, it had made her think.

You couldn't run from a car .

She had gone straight back to the plastic sealed bag in which his running gear had been stored. Opened the ziplock and put her face into the opening. A faint smell wafted out. Animal, not human . Of course, she couldn't identify what kind, but outside a zoo there was only one animal strong enough to throw Felix far enough to cause fatal injuries.

‘I dunno,' she told Archie. ‘Maybe I smelled something on his clothes when he came in.'

She dropped her gaze, feeling uneasy about telling him a half-truth. It was something she'd never shared, this feeling that the dead sometimes ‘spoke' to her. Was that wrong? Shouldn't she be able to talk to him, of all people, about it? But trying to imagine the conversation she found it never ended well. He was a scientist, a stone rationalist, and he would think she was batshit crazy. Anyway, as she always told herself, what she picked up from her guests was probably no more than a combination of her subconscious observations and a vivid imagination.

Probably.

Whatever the source of her hunch, the outcome would hopefully bring Felix's parents some closure and even comfort. Their son hadn't been struck by a driver who left him to die without even dialling 999; it had simply been a terrible freak accident.

Archie was looking at her with a half-smile on his face. ‘You're not actually a witch are you?'

‘Uh-huh.' She nodded. ‘Can't you taste it in the lasagne?'

‘What?' He frowned, his forkful paused halfway to his mouth.

‘Toe of newt.'

He laughed but there was something dutiful about it.

‘What's up?' she asked him, pushing her plate away.

‘You are a witch,' he said wryly.

‘And you'd make a terrible spy.'

He set his knife and fork together on his empty plate. ‘That was delicious.'

She just raised her eyebrows but she felt a sense of vertigo. Was he about to dump her?

‘Look what it is, I've been offered a special attachment with Prof Farmilow in Gloucester. He's the man to study hematopathology with so it's a big honour to be asked.'

‘Wow. That's great.'

Archie wanted to specialise in the study of diseases of the blood, bone marrow and lymph system so it would be a big break for him.

‘Yeah, his assistant has gone off sick so he'd like me to start tomorrow.' His long-lashed grey eyes scanned her face.

Tomorrow?!

‘How long would it be for?' asked Cassie.

‘Three months.' He eyed her tentatively, trying to gauge her reaction. ‘Obviously, it's way too far to commute so I would need to stay down there for the duration. But we could meet up some weekends when we're both free, obvs.'

‘It's a great opportunity, you should do it,' she told him.

His face grew a frown, and after a pause he said, ‘You want me to go, don't you?'

‘No! Of course not,' she said, quickly. ‘It's just you shouldn't turn it down. I'll miss you, obviously, but I'll survive.'

He didn't appear entirely convinced by her protestations. As he stood to take the dishes to the sink he whacked his head on the ceiling for the 109th time since coming to live on the boat.

Honestly? Her instant reaction to the prospect of having the place to herself again could be summed up in one word.

Hallelujah .