A Place of Safety by Natasha Cooper

watched them afterwards, and decided that Jess, like a lot of other actors, was so insecure that she had to flirt with everyone to get the reassurance she needed to believe herself worth anything at all. Trish had tried to tell Caro that she didn’t think there was any need to worry. As far as Trish could see, Jess was safely besotted with her.
    ‘So,’ George said three minutes later, as he was ladling out vast helpings of fish pie. ‘What have your people discovered about this body in the Thames, Caro? Presumably it was murder.’
    Trish closed her eyes. She and George had always differed over the best way to help David. She wanted him protected from
everything that might remind him of his mother’s death, but George thought that merely stopped him growing the kind of shell everyone needed to survive. He thought the situation called for what he always described as ‘a little ordinary insensitivity’. And boarding prep school.
    ‘I don’t know, George,’ Caro said, without even blinking. ‘But then the case isn’t being handled by my bit of the Met and I don’t know any of the officers involved. Frankly, you probably know as much as I do from the papers.’
    ‘At school,’ David said, surprising Trish with the firmness of his voice, ‘they’re saying the man was probably an illegal immigrant, killed because he was going to tell the police about the traffickers who’d brought him in.’
    ‘I suppose that’s possible, but it’s not a theory I’ve heard before. What else are the Blackfriars Prep Irregulars saying?’
    ‘I haven’t talked to them, Caro,’ David said, looking worried again. ‘And I don’t know who they are.’
    ‘It was just a joke,’ Caro said. ‘In some of the Sherlock Holmes stories, Holmes uses a group of boys to find things out for him and he calls them the Baker Street Irregulars. Are there any other theories at school?’
    ‘Yes. They think he could be a drug dealer killed in a turf war with another gang.’ David kept his gaze fixed on Caro’s face, while his fork mashed the fish into a disgusting-looking paste. ‘But I didn’t know there were any gangs round here.’
    ‘Don’t play with your food,’ George said sharply. ‘If I’ve given you too much, just put your fork down tidily and leave it alone.’
    David bit his lip.
    ‘If you’re stuck, may I have it?’ Caro said. ‘I missed my lunch and I’m starving.’
    He looked up at her with something close to worship. He lifted his cutlery in one hand and shoved the almost-full plate towards her, accepting her clean one in return.
    ‘That’s great. Thank you. And you mustn’t think that because the body was found at Blackfriars, that’s where it went into the river,’ Caro said, forking up the pulverized fish and potato. ‘There are ferocious tides in the Thames, which could have brought it here from miles away.’
    Trish watched blood returning to David’s bitten lip and pale cheeks.
    ‘I never thought of that,’ he said, picking up his water glass. When he had swallowed, he added: ‘It was really good, George. I’m sorry I couldn’t finish it. Thank you very much.’
    Jess arrived just then and distracted everyone. When Trish had poured her a glass of wine, and invited her to sit down on David’s other side, she followed George into the kitchen.
    ‘I know, I know,’ he said, standing with his back to the oven, before she could even open her mouth. ‘I shouldn’t have snapped at him. But there are times when his pickiness drives me mad.’
    Trish didn’t answer. She wasn’t going to tell him it didn’t matter, and there was no point repeating what she’d already said so often in the past about how threatening food could seem to people like her and David.
    ‘Will you take the dish in while I get another bottle?’ George said calmly. ‘We’re running a bit low.’
    When he had followed Trish to the table, he bent to kiss Jess’s cheek.
    ‘I’m sorry I’m so late, darling,’ she said,