Stop Dead (DI Geraldine Steel)

features had been clearly defined. Now it was as though he had been drawn in soft charcoal and someone had come along and smudged the edges of his portrait; his chin lost in sagging jowls, eyes peering from wrinkled folds of skin, the mop of fair hair she recalled all but vanished, leaving a shiny pate bordered by a few wisps of white. But when he smiled and held his hands out shyly, the years slipped away.

     
    ‘How are you, Dad?’
    He nodded and they embraced wordlessly. When she pulled away he covered his face, but not before she had seen tears in his eyes. All at once she was struggling to keep her own emotions under control.
    ‘I’ll put the kettle on,’ Molly said. ‘The others will be here soon.’
    Geraldine was glad she had arrived early, to meet her father without his neighbours and friends there to gawp.

     
    The rest of the afternoon passed in a blur of introductions. Molly seemed to be related to half of Ireland. Her three sons and seven grandchildren all turned up. Geraldine hoped her father wasn’t grieved that not one of the guests at his birthday party was his blood relation. Even Geraldine was a stranger who had shared his home for ten years. She wondered if her parents’ inability to have more children after Celia’s birth had contributed to the breakdown of their marriage. But that was all in the past. Her adoptive mother was dead, and he had a new life.

     
    Seeing him surrounded by Molly’s family, it felt inappropriate to raise the issue of her search for her birth mother. She would ask him another time. In any case, it was unlikely her father would be able to help her. After all her anticipation, she decided against mentioning it, even though searching for her birth mother had been the main factor influencing her decision to travel to Ireland. Her father didn’t ask about his own daughter until Geraldine was leaving, speaking quickly, as though the words pained him.
    ‘Celia’s fine.’
    ‘And the child?’
    ‘Chloe? She’s fine too.’
    She didn’t know what else to say.
    ‘Still just the one?’
    Geraldine nodded.
    ‘And you?’
    ‘No-one, Dad. Just my work.’
    He smiled sadly at her, not knowing what to say. He had forfeited the right to pass judgement on her adult life before it had begun.

     
    Geraldine was relieved when it was time for her to leave. She suspected her father felt the same way. It would have been nice to have spent more time with him, and get to know him better. As it was, their parting was oddly formal.
    ‘It’s been great seeing you again.’
    ‘Yes, we must keep in touch.’
    Geraldine agreed, and this time she really meant what she said. She turned to wave as she drove away, but her father had already closed his door.

CHAPTER 73
     
    I t was glorious to oversleep and spoil herself with a late breakfast. At her favourite café along Upper Street she lingered over freshly squeezed orange juice, brown toast, and fluffy scrambled egg and bacon, with a cafetiere. England was enjoying an unexpected spell of beautiful autumn sunshine. After breakfast she strolled along the busy main road and back down the quiet side street to her flat. Picking up her car she drove into work to start on the paperwork which had to be completed before the case could finally be closed. However cut and dried the result, everything had to be in order for the prosecution, to ensure the case was watertight. Even after a confession, facts could be twisted. With a decent lawyer even those who were blatantly guilty could evade conviction on a technicality.

     
    It was hard to focus on her report. So many people had been involved in the case: widows and witnesses, victims and families, suspects and passersby, those who had been touched for an instant, and those whose lives had been transformed forever. Just twenty-four hours earlier, Geraldine could have recited chunks from key statements in the investigation. She had known names and relationships, and could have stated where suspects had been at the time of any one of the four murders, without recourse to her notes. This morning, she had to double-check the name of Patrick’s former mistress. The investigation over, she was already losing her grasp of names and dates, actions and injuries, that had occupied her thoughts over the past few weeks to the exclusion of everything else. Now she was exhausted, and her head felt empty.

     
    She didn’t stay late at work, wanting to reach Kent in time for the start of her former