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‘Are you all right?’
    ‘Fine.’
    ‘Sure?’
    ‘Absolutely,’ I said, trying to sound as if I meant it. Then I frowned. Something was different. ‘Did you tidy up?’
    ‘A bit.’
    ‘You emptied the bin,’ I said slowly. ‘And you did the washing-up.’
    ‘And got rid of the junk mail in the hall, and threw out the food in the fridge that was actually rotting, and plugged in your computer.’
    If it had been anyone other than Derwent who tidied up, I’d have been grateful. But Derwent was the king of ulterior motives.
    ‘My computer,’ I said. ‘Why did you even touch my computer?’
    ‘You only had five per cent of your battery life left.’ Derwent shook his head. ‘I know you like living on the edge but that’s just unnecessary.’
    ‘You must have been looking at it,’ I said, fighting to stay calm. ‘Why were you looking at it?’
    He levered himself off the counter and came towards me, crowding me, getting into my face. I’d seen him do it hundreds of times. It wasn’t even the first time he’d done it to me. It was one of Derwent’s favourite interrogation techniques. ‘What’s wrong, Kerrigan? Something to hide?’
    ‘Nothing to hide. I’m entitled to my privacy, though. Sir.’
    A minute narrowing of his eyes told me he’d registered the last word and its implications.
You are my boss. You are in my home. Your behaviour is, as usual, inappropriate and I have had enough of it for the time being
. I held his gaze, my expression stony.
    ‘I’m just looking out for you.’ His voice was soft, which meant precisely nothing. Derwent’s temper was volcanic, legendarily so, but he had enough control over it, and himself, to shout only when he needed to. And since we were inches apart, shouting would have been excessive.
    ‘You don’t need to look out for me.’
    ‘Someone should.’
    ‘I can manage,’ I said. ‘I
am
managing. So stop patronising me.’
    He didn’t move for a long moment. His expression was unreadable, at least to me. Then, to my enormous relief, he turned away. ‘I was going to carry the bin bag down for you. But if that’s too patronising you can carry it yourself.’
    I rolled my eyes at his back. ‘Thanks.’
    He wouldn’t have missed the sarcasm in my voice, but he didn’t look back. ‘Come on, then. Let’s go.’

Chapter 2
     
    IT DIDN’T TAKE long to get to the Maudling Estate – at least, not the way Derwent drove. It wasn’t the first time we’d been there in the middle of the night and I couldn’t suppress a shiver at the memory of another visit, a couple of months earlier.
    ‘All too familiar,’ Derwent said, echoing my thoughts. He was trying to find a place to leave the car on the street nearby. There was no point in trying to get into the car park at the centre of the estate. The blue lights from police cars, ambulances and fire engines flared on the buildings, reflecting on the windows. Countless people milled about, apparently aimlessly, evacuees from the buildings or just curious onlookers. Inevitably the media were there, TV reporters clutching microphones, caught in a halo of white light from their cameras. Derwent pulled in at the end of a row of vans with satellite dishes mounted on the top.
    ‘As if they have a right to be here,’ he growled. ‘You know they think they’re important. All they’re doing is getting in the way.’
    ‘They’re reporting the news.’
    ‘They don’t know any news. They haven’t been told anything yet.’
    ‘They still need to cover the story.’
    ‘A bloody great building caught fire and no one knows why yet. That’s the story.’
    ‘And when they hear about Armstrong?’
    Derwent grimaced. ‘Then life won’t be worth living. Come on. At least this time we’re not going to a van full of dead coppers.’
    ‘That’s something, I suppose.’ I got out of the car and looked up at the flats, to identify the tower that had burned. It was easy to see where the fire had been – black shadows