Only a Game (31 page)

If Northcott was surprised, he knew better than to show it. He slid into the driving seat of the Mondeo, adjusted it for his long legs, and drove Peach back in silence to the station. In the car ahead of them, they could see Edward Lanchester between a uniformed constable and Lucy Blake, turned slightly towards her, voicing the occasional words to this woman with whom he seemed to have formed the lightest and most intangible of bonds.

Peach rode in silence, wondering exactly what was passing between this odd couple. As they approached the station, he realized that his driver had been smiling for some minutes. It was an unusual lightening of the normally stern black features. He said, ‘What is it you find so amusing, DC Northcott? That's a decent man we're about to lock up for the rest of his life.'

‘It's not that, sir. I wasn't thinking about Edward Lanchester. I was just revising a few anecdotes about you for my best man's speech at the wedding.'