Stop Dead (DI Geraldine Steel)

sticks. Not yet, at any rate.’
    ‘Don’t worry,’ Hannah laughed. ‘He’s joking.’
    ‘I suppose I’ll have to stack the dishwasher now, won’t I?’ he grinned.
    Hannah and Geraldine settled down for a chat over another glass of wine while Jeremy clattered about in the kitchen.
    ‘I don’t want to hear any details of your latest gruesome case,’ Hannah said and they both smiled.
    ‘So tell me how it’s all going here,’ Geraldine replied. ‘Because I haven’t really got anything to talk about except work and to be honest I’m more than happy to get away from all that for an evening.’

     
    Hannah complained about her exasperating daughter and Geraldine sipped her wine and made sympathetic noises. Hannah’s family life felt reassuringly normal, the kind of existence Geraldine had once envisaged for herself.
    ‘She’ll grow out of it,’ she assured her friend.
    She felt herself unwinding.
    ‘But listen to me jabbering on,’ Hannah said at last. ‘What about you? How are you finding life in London?’
    Geraldine considered. Ian had asked the same question. Both her friends spoke of London as though the capital was a foreign country, although it was less than two hours’ drive away. When the roads were quiet she could make the journey in just over an hour.
    ‘Well,’ she hesitated. ‘It’s not that different really, but it feels different. It’s hectic. Everyone seems busy, all the time, and everywhere feels crowded. People rush around all the time, with no time for anything, so it’s not what you’d call friendly – although I’m making friends on the force,’ she added quickly, noticing concern in Hannah’s face. ‘There’s a more obvious ethnic mix, and it takes longer to feel you belong because everyone’s so busy.’
    ‘I can’t say you’ve sold it to me yet.’
    ‘No, but I like it. It’s very exciting. There’s always something going on.’

     
    Hannah poured another glass of wine, and Geraldine made up her mind to take the plunge.
    ‘There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you,’ she said.
    ‘Well? Is it a man?’ Hannah grinned.
    ‘No, no, it’s more complicated than that. It’s hard to explain.’
    ‘You’re not ill are you?’ Hannah asked, putting her glass down and leaning forward, suddenly anxious.
    ‘No, no, nothing like that.’
    ‘You haven’t done anything – anything … ’ Hannah paused at a loss what to say.
    ‘It’s about my mother.’
    ‘Your mother ?’
    Hannah looked baffled. Geraldine’s mother had died nearly a year earlier.

     
    Geraldine paused.
    ‘The thing is, the woman who brought me up, the mother you knew – she wasn’t my mother. Not really. Not at all, in fact.’
    ‘What do you mean?’
    ‘I was adopted.’
    ‘Oh, I see.’
    Hannah looked relieved, then frowned.
    ‘But why didn’t you tell me before? And why are you telling me this now?’
    Geraldine explained she had only discovered the truth about her birth after her adoptive mother’s funeral.
    ‘I didn’t know anything about it until last year when the mother you knew died. It explains a lot. My sister being blonde while I’m so dark. She always looked like Mum; you could see the resemblance. I never looked like either of my parents, not really.’
    ‘You mean Celia wasn’t –?’
    ‘Celia was our mother’s biological daughter but after Celia was born there were complications and Mum couldn’t have any more children so they adopted a baby.’
    ‘You.’
    ‘Me.’

     
    Hannah stared at her for a moment.
    ‘And they never told you?’ she asked at last.
    Geraldine shook her head and tried to keep the bitterness out of her voice.
    ‘Celia knew. She says she thought Mum had told me and, to be fair, I suppose it wasn’t Celia’s place to tell – but my mother never breathed a word.’
    Geraldine broke off, afraid she might become emotional.
    ‘Oh my God, you poor thing. So how did you find out?’
    Briefly Geraldine told her how Celia had passed on the paperwork pertaining to her birth and adoption after their mother’s death.
    ‘So Celia really thought you knew.’
    Hannah looked stricken for an instant then shrugged.
    ‘It doesn’t make any difference to anything though, does it? I mean, she was still your mother.’
    ‘But –’
    ‘And she was a wonderful woman.’
    Reminded that Hannah had always liked her adoptive mother, Geraldine decided not to say anything about her unsuccessful attempts to persuade her case worker