No Mark Upon Her

choice.
    Perhaps having the bigger pieces of furniture would help, he thought, although really, there wasn’t much point in doing more than making a place to eat and sleep until he’d tackled the painting and decorating.
    He sat down on one of the sturdier boxes, his chin in his hand, wondering if he’d made a dreadful mistake with the whole house idea, when there was a rap on the door.
    Guiltily, he jumped up, as if he’d been caught slacking, then chided himself as he went to the door. He wasn’t expecting anyone, and besides, it was his house and he could sit on a bloody box if he liked.
    But when he opened the door, he felt a flush of surprise and pleasure. It was Melody, carrier bag in hand.
    “You’ll have to fix the bell, you know,” she said. “It doesn’t work.”
    “Do come in, why don’t you?” he snapped back, instantly irritated. “I’ll add it to the list.”
    Unperturbed, Melody followed him into the sitting room and surveyed his lack of progress. “Feeling a bit overwhelmed, I take it? I thought maybe you could use some help.”
    “Sorry,” said Doug, abashed. “You’re right. I can’t quite figure out where to start.”
    “This should help.” Melody opened the carrier bag and pulled out a bottle of champagne. It was, Doug saw, already chilled. And expensive. “And I thought you might not have glasses here yet,” she added as she removed two champagne flutes carefully wrapped in a tea towel.
    Yet , thought Doug. Trust Melody to unthinkingly bring champagne that he could never afford, but try to be tactful about the fact that she knew he wouldn’t own champagne glasses.
    “I thought we could toast to new beginnings,” she said, a little more tentatively. “New house, new boss.”
    “Brilliant. Thanks.” Doug wasn’t sure how he felt about either of those things at the moment, but at least, thanks to his former girlfriend, he knew how to open a bottle of champagne properly. Taking bottle and glasses into the kitchen, he peeled back the foil, then used the tea towel to cover the cork as he eased it out.
    There was a soft pop of escaping gas as the cork came free, then he tilted the pale gold liquid deftly into the glasses.
    “You’ve missed your calling,” teased Melody as she accepted hers.
    “Headwaiter? That’s a thought,” he said as he lifted his own glass. “Probably better pay and easier hours.”
    “Cheers.” Melody clinked the lip of her glass against his. “And I hear you were a bit of a hero yesterday, so we should drink to that, too.”
    “Me?”
    “With the arrest and everything. I wish I’d been there,” Melody added on a wistful note.
    “No, you don’t,” said Doug, more harshly than he intended. He couldn’t tell her how ashamed he felt, remembering how he’d stood there, frozen as a dummy, while Ross Abbott waved his gun at them. He should have been the one to tackle Abbott, and instead he’d let his guv’nor risk his life.
    It didn’t bear thinking about.
    “Sorry,” he said, again. “Cheers.” He tipped back half his glass, then sputtered as the bubbles went up his nose.
    “Easy with that stuff.” Melody smiled, but he detected a hint of concern beneath it. “I’ll tell you what. The boxes can wait. Let’s have a look at the garden. Then I believe you owe me an uninterrupted lunch, Sergeant Cullen, with an Eton Mess for afters. We can make sock monkeys together.”
    “Sock monkeys?” He looked at her as if she’d gone completely round the twist. Was this some sort of weird proposition?
    “At the Jolly Gardeners,” Melody explained. “I saw the notice when we were there before. You can make sock puppets while you’re having Sunday lunch. They even provide the socks.” She finished her glass, her cheeks going slightly pink. “Where’s your sense of adventure, Dougie?”
    Where was it, indeed? Doug thought his life had suddenly taken an unexpectedly surreal turn. But, then, what did he have to lose?
    “Okay,” he said. “The boxes can wait. Sock monkeys. Why ever not?”
    F reddie had mopped the mud and blood off the cottage floor. Yesterday’s storms had blown through and left the day washed sparkling clean, so he’d opened the windows to air the place out and turned on the central heating to take away the chilly damp that seemed to have settled into the bones of the cottage since Becca’s death.
    He swept and tidied, and when he found the photo lying facedown on the carpet, he looked at it for a long moment,