him be for a bit,’ Nick said. ‘We’ve worked on this. Let’s not spoil it by hurrying.’
‘We’ve worked on this?’
He grinned at that, tension easing. ‘Okay, smartyboots. You’ve worked on it. How many tablets did you give him?’
‘Four at twenty-five milligrams.’
‘Enough to stop the worst sneezing.’
‘Even mine,’ she said virtuously. She wrinkled her nose and her eyes danced. ‘See? Not even a sniffle.’
‘Miraculous. How many did you take?’
‘Hmm. Somewhere between zero and none. I can’t quite remember.’
He smiled and they waited on, both knowing that once Len was deeply asleep they had nothing to fear. Ten minutes. Fifteen. It was strangely intimate: sitting in a pile of bedding holding the child in his arms with Shanni watching over them.
‘He has such huge problems,’ she said out of the blue.
‘Who?’ Were they talking about Len?
They weren’t. ‘Harry, of course.’ She sighed, placing a hand on Harry’s mop of fair curls. ‘I’m so worried about him. They’re threatening to put him into a home for psychologically disturbed children.’
‘Is he?’
‘Psychologically disturbed?’ She shrugged. ‘Maybe. Wouldn’t you be if your dad was dead and your mother and stepfather hated you?’ And then she frowned at the look on Nick’s face. ‘Why? What have I said?’
‘Nothing.’ He somehow put aside shadows of past hurt and shook his head. ‘This has nothing to do with me. Or you, either, as far as I can see. He’s just one of your students, isn’t he? What do you get from taking the worries of the world onto your shoulders?’
‘Meaning you think I’m stupid for trying?’
‘Maybe.’ He shrugged.
She gave him a long, measuring look. ‘No. You don’t mean that. For a lawyer, I thought you were pretty good to Len just then.’
‘I’m a magistrate. I have to learn niceties.’
‘Legal niceties. Not human niceties. But…you were nice just now. It wasn’t all an act.’
How did she know that? She didn’t!
‘So how about you, then?’ he demanded, changing tack. Talking about him made him feel like running a mile. ‘Surely your family—your uncle with the car dealership—wouldn’t seriously think about employing such a kid?’
‘There’s no hope for him if someone doesn’t,’ she said sadly. ‘So maybe it’s just as well there are people like my family in the world. People who care.’
‘People who’ll get walked all over.’
‘Says you.’ She shrugged. ‘The nice magistrate who tries so hard not to be. Nice, I mean.’ And then she smiled, letting him off the hook where he was beginning to squirm. ‘Anyway, maybe…’ She cast a long look across at Len—and another at Harry. ‘While we have both our children sound asleep, I think it’s time we got ourselves out of here, don’t you?’
‘I couldn’t agree more. I’ll get the gun.’
It was time to leave. But there was a part of him—a part which he didn’t understand in the least—that didn’t want to leave at all.
There was no choice. Move…
But when he went to hand over Harry, the child’s arms tightened like a vice, and if Nick had tried to disengage him he would have woken and sobbed.
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