He waves towards the bustling kitchen and stifles a yawn. ‘I’ve ordered you a coffee already.’
The newspaper on the table between us has Rosalind’s Mona Lisa face on the front page. I pick it up and toss it onto the next table, face down. I’m sick of her being everywhere.
‘Great, great.’ I feel energised by my theory. Alive. It’s a little cooler today and I blow-dried my hair this morning. It falls heavy and thick around my face. I toss it back behind my shoulders, ducking my head, trying to catch Felix’s eye. It’s not often I like what I see when I look in the mirror but I did this morning. ‘So don’t you want to know what I know?’ I ask him.
He laughs almost in spite of himself and grabs my hand briefly. ‘Yes, of course I do. Sorry. I’m just tired. Shit with Maisie.’
I pause. ‘That’s okay. I understand.’
Felix has described his eldest daughter as a dangerous volcano set to erupt. I can’t imagine navigating the delicate layers of a teenage girl—how to manage that raw energy—but Felix always seems fairly calm when he talks about his daughters. Not that he talks about them often. Home life is a dangerous territory for us so we normally try to avoid it altogether.
Coffees are placed in front of us and I breathe in the aroma, realising that today is the first day since Friday I have woken up feeling normal. My stomach feels settled. I’m lighter on my feet. I rub my foot along Felix’s under the table.
‘Don’t be doing that. We’ve got check-in soon.’ He smiles at me and everything is fine again. His eyes sparkle as he leans forward and whispers, ‘You look especially pretty today.’
I wave him away, pleased. ‘We’ve got check-in soon, remember.’
He gives my foot a soft kick. ‘So?’
‘So … I don’t think that George Ryan was Rosalind’s father.’
Felix’s eyes widen. ‘No way.’
‘It’s nothing fancy, just basic biology. Rosalind had brown eyes. Really brown eyes. George has blue eyes. So did Olivia. I saw a photo of her at their house and then there was one online too.’
‘Just like their sons.’
‘Just like Rosalind’s half-brothers,’ I agree, downing my coffee.
He looks at me, his own eyes glowing as he considers my theory.
‘Okay, okay. Look, I don’t know much about that kind of stuff, but surely it’s just an anomaly.’ He glances at his watch and gestures for me to get up. ‘I mean, how could no one have picked up on it before?’
He pays and we walk outside, crossing the skate park that leads to the station car park. It always strikes me as ironic that a skate park was built next door to a police station and, based on how infrequently it’s used, I assume the local skaters feel the same way. Despite the rapidly warming air, dew still kisses at the grass. The grey sky looks backlit with swirls of eggshell blue breaking through.
‘Well, apart from the fact that I’m brilliant, I guess no one really thought about it. Especially because Olivia died when Rose was only a few days old. People were probably pretty distracted by the idea of a tiny baby being left without a mother. And because Olivia wasn’t there as Rosalind grew older, maybe the comparisons between them were never really made.’
‘But George Ryan might have known all along.’
‘He might have. Who knows? Maybe he and Olivia weren’t even sleeping together. That would have made it pretty obvious. But, if they were, then he may never have realised.’
‘Rosalind might have known. Or found out.’
‘Sure. Though, equally, she might never have given it much thought. You tend to assume your parents are who they say they are.’
‘They might have both known and been really open about it,’ Felix suggests.
‘Maybe. Though he certainly didn’t mention it the other day.’
‘Probably not the best time for a family history tour,’ he says.
My phone trills and we both look at it in my hand. A silent number.
‘Going to get that?’ Felix asks.
‘No. It’s probably just my favourite reporter again. I keep forgetting to call her back. She can leave a message.’
Felix rolls his eyes at me. He doesn’t get my issue with Candy.
We step inside the station and the air turns musky with sweat, disinfectant and burnt toast.
I’m still focused on our genetic mystery. ‘George could have found out somehow last week and lost it.’
‘He was in surgery though, remember.’
‘Yeah, but his sons weren’t,’ I remind Felix.
‘What, you think they could be working together?’ Felix seems unconvinced.
I sigh. ‘No, not really. I just think we can’t rule it out.’
Felix pauses and taps the archway of the door as he looks at me, thinking. ‘Are we sure Olivia Ryan died the way it’s reported? Maybe George found out about all this a long time ago and flipped his lid and killed her once he knew the child wasn’t his.’
I pause too. ‘I think it would be pretty hard to fake an internal haemorrhage. But we should look into it. That type of scenario makes much more sense than a random psycho.’
We walk down the corridor.
‘Everything makes more sense than a random psycho. Especially if it’s like the guy I went out with last night,’ Anna says, smiling as she falls into step with us. She makes a gun shape and tilts it at her head. Anna’s bad luck with men is notorious around the station, so much so that many of the junior cops often feel bold enough to offer her the stability of an exclusive relationship, but she prefers to find losers on the net. Felix thinks she simply enjoys regaling us with outrageous stories to liven up our dull lives.
‘Rough night, Anna?’ I say.
‘Rough evening,’ she clarifies. ‘There was no way I was seeing in a new day with this guy. The night shift was bad enough.’ She laughs good-naturedly. ‘But I live to date another day.’
Felix laughs. I can hear the rumble of the waiting uniforms. They are still fresh and eager for this case but that will soon fade. We have one more week before the possibility that our case will become cold looms large, the hours start to feel pointless and new crimes begin to hold more appeal. Fresh cops tend to be like kids with a new toy at Christmas; cases only have so much appeal before they want to play with something else for a while. Us detectives are different. We tend to stubbornly hold on to our favourites until the clues and cast of suspects are prised out of our hands, and we’re pulled kicking and screaming away, forced to pay attention to something else.
‘Wait,’ says Anna. ‘Before you go in I just wanted to say that we’re going to release the body to the Ryan family today. We were pretty sure we would but it’s definite now. We’ve got all the preliminary tox in, which seems clear, so she’s good to go.’
Felix and I exchange glances.
‘You’ve got all kinds of samples, don’t you, Anna?’
She shrugs. ‘Of course.’
‘For example, if we need to match DNA to prove paternity, then there won’t be any issues?’