Artistic License (11 page)

I think he gets it, Sophy. I think every neighbour in a five kilometre radius is now fully informed on that point.

Mick, to his credit, was doing a reasonable job of swallowing back the laughter.

“Duly noted,” he said with heavy solemnity, and she glared at him and managed a reluctant smile.

“I just like to make these things clear from the outset. There’s no point raising false expectations.”

“I appreciate that.” He waited patiently while she unlocked the front door, surveying the perimeter of the yard in a thorough but almost absent manner that was probably instinctual to him. “Just tea?” he double-checked thoughtfully as she turned on the lights.

“Well, I may be able to run to a chocolate biscuit. I found them at the supermarket. Wheat-free, fat-free and taste-free.”

“All I wanted to know.”

As she busied herself in the kitchen, putting the kettle on to boil and searching for a suitably manly mug, he pushed his hands into his pockets and wandered over to the coffee table, casually eyeing her course materials strewn over the surface. When she emerged from behind the counter with a cup in each hand – hearts and floral patterns for her; Snoopy for him – and a plate of pseudo-biscuits balancing precariously on her wrist, he was reading the second page of her current essay.

“Hey,” she protested, and made a grab for the papers.

Mick easily fended her off, lifting his cup of tea from her grasp with his free hand.

“Thanks,” he said. “And ssh. I’m reading.”

“Well, stop reading,” she responded snappily, sitting down beside him. “That’s off-limits to anyone but my lecturer.”

“It’s interesting,” he said, although he deigned to return the pages to her. “I’ve heard of Keith Heatherly, obviously,” he said, naming the famous New Zealand modernist painter, “but I wasn’t aware that his wife was an artist as well.”

“Alicia Kemp,” Sophy confirmed, nodding. “She’s actually one of my favourite artists, but she’s almost completely unknown. She painted a lot in the 1940s and then basically gave it up to raise her family. I’m arguing that she was right there with many of the early proponents for local modernity. I’ve managed to track down some of her works in regional museums, but apparently a private banker in Auckland has the majority of her surviving paintings and his collection is totally private and inaccessible. Anyway,” she shook her head, smiling. “Sorry. It’s almost one o’clock in the morning. Class dismissed.”

“I like listening to you talk about art. You’re doing what you love. Can’t underrate that.” Despite the clear sincerity of the compliment, he looked tired. There were fresh grooves etched at the corners of his mouth and shadows beneath his eyes. Guilt panged as she observed him with concern.

“Has it been a really long day?” she asked sympathetically. “And I dragged you out of bed.”

“A crisis in the London office dragged me out of bed,” he returned easily. “Followed by a hysterical guest at the hotel and Sean with a spider in his room.”

“A spider?” Sophy repeated, blinking.

“Hates them.”

“Oh.” She snorted with laughter. “Poor Mick. Actually, poor Sean. I’m petrified, myself.”

“I wouldn’t get up close and personal with one by choice either, but I don’t make a scene about it.”

“You didn’t join in the girlish screams?” she teased. She toed off her heels and tucked one leg beneath her on the couch. She was wearing her work uniform of black skinny jeans and a plain black tank. Mick was wearing his leather jacket over a basic tee and pants, black on black on black. They looked like the poster children for today’s modern biker couple.

“Tends to be frowned upon in the Army,” he said, grinning before his expression turned more serious. “Sophy, about this car you saw.”

Her smile faded.

“I didn’t really see it,” she admitted, shifting uncomfortably against the cushions. “Honestly, Mick, I’m not even sure it was following me. I think I’ve just let everything that’s been happening get to my head.”

“I don’t think we should ignore the possibility. Particularly given the incidents with the gifts.”

“They’re probably harmless. Just someone trying to be nice,” she said, biting her thumbnail as she watched him.

“I agree,” he replied calmly. “There probably is no harm in it and the person in the car was likely looking for a number on a letterbox or waiting to pick someone up. But we can still be cautious. Could you see the colour of the car, any identifying features, any numbers on the license plate?”

Sophy considered, tried to think back to the moments before she’d panicked and hopped away like a spooked rabbit.

“It was dark,” she said doubtfully. “And I was trying not to look too hard, to be honest. I didn’t want to alert the driver if he was watching me.”

“He?” Mick asked quickly.

Sophy shrugged.

“Or she. I assumed it was a man, I suppose. Not really based on anything but assumptions. The car was dark, but I couldn’t say exactly what colour and I wouldn’t have a clue on the make. I don’t know anything about cars. As long as they have four wheels and preferably a cute paint job, I’m good to go.”

“License plate?” He was apparently not to be deflected by the brief diversion into the girly.

“Mick, I
really
wasn’t looking.”

He had put down his cup of tea to pull out an electronic notebook.

“I know,” he said, “but you’re an artist, Sophy, and you’re one of the most observant people I’ve ever met. You probably pick up details without consciously realising it. Try to think back without forcing it.”

She puffed out her cheeks in a heavy, tired breath. After a few minutes, her lips and nose twisted in a grimace and she shook her head.

“No good,” she said. “Sorry. I just wanted to get out of there. I had visions of guys in black masks leaping out of the back seat.”

“You did everything right,” he assured her again, tucking the device back inside his jacket and briefly touching the pad of his thumb to her chin. It was a casually affectionate gesture that made her heart thump. He sat back and gave her a slightly unreadable look before he picked up his tea again. “What kind of vehicle does Gallagher drive?”

He uttered the question in meticulously bland accents over the rim of his cup and for a moment she entirely missed the implication.

“Dale?” she asked blankly, then: “
Dale?
”

Mick just watched her, one brow raised.

“Mick, what… Dale?” she asked in disbelief for the third time. She stared at him in astonishment. “Why on earth would you think that Dale was loitering about town at midnight, following me home?”

“Have you considered that he might have sent the gifts?”

Sophy opened her mouth. Closed it again.

“He has a thing for you,” Mick said coolly.

God. Parallel universe. Any minute now, she would wake up or Mick would turn into a tap-dancing donkey or something.

“What? I…what?”

“He has a thing for you,” he repeated calmly.

She managed to produce a noise between a splutter and a sneeze.

“He
does not
.” She actually felt…
scandalised
. It was as if he’d told her, in those irritatingly bland tones, that Nigella Lawson had given up baking cakes to peddle diet pills, or Rodin’s
The Kiss
was actually a portrait of vampiric exsanguination, or her parents were practicing Satanists.

It was ludicrous.

“No, he doesn’t,” she said, more firmly. “Why would you even think… He’s Melissa’s ex-boyfriend!”

The prosecuting counsel appeared to be unimpressed with her defence.

“Do you think that might be
why
he’s Melissa’s ex-boyfriend?” he asked, unperturbed.

What? She didn’t…
Ack.

“Dale does not have a thing for me,” she said between gritted teeth.

Apparently a wise man knew when to retreat from the fray.

“Maybe not,” he conceded, and it was the verbal equivalent of a placatory pat on the head.

Much more of this and she would have no enamel left on her back molars.

“Why don’t we change the subject?” she suggested tightly.
Right now.
“And talk about something more pleasant. Like religion and politics. Or the hearing on Friday.”

There: an appeal to the man’s Nile-wide chivalrous streak. His attention was immediately diverted.

“Are you worrying about it?” he asked, reaching for her hand. Mick was a definite toucher. She was not, by nature, but her usual reserve was apparently situation-specific. Her fingers turned in his grasp, curling around his. “Because I wasn’t giving you a line at the hospital to avert a meltdown, Soph. It really shouldn’t be a big deal at all.”

“Will you be there?” she asked, and hoped that it had come across as curious rather than needy. She wasn’t so far gone that she was going to fling her arms around his knees and cling.

He looked a bit surprised.

“I will if you want me to be,” he said slowly, releasing his hold, and she frowned.

“But don’t you have to give evidence?”

“No. The firm submitted a report to the police, but there are plenty of witnesses to Darvie’s part in the incident and he was taken into custody on the premises. The Crown needs your statement to place Maria Harper at the scene.”

She had originally brought up the trial as a distraction; now she really was getting nervous again.

“Oh.” Sophy frowned. “But…I thought you said you were going to Auckland this week as well?”

“I am,” said Mick grimly. “I’m going first thing Friday morning.”

To judge by his lack of enthusiasm, one might have thought that his impending journey would involve crossing the river Styx rather than the Waitemata Harbour.

She thought he was going to continue the trend of strong and silent, and leave it at that, but he went on, sounding as if she’d pulled the information out of him with a pair of red-hot pliers: “My brother’s getting married on Saturday.”

It was the first time he’d voluntarily initiated a conversation about his family. She had been starting to wonder if they were arms dealers or lifestyle nudists. Leaning her head back against the couch, absently rubbing the stiletto-ache in her heels, Sophy studied him. She thought it best to remain quiet, let him decide if he wanted to go on.

“My father is fairly…adamant that I attend,” he said. His large hands were playing with the half-empty mug, which he realised after a minute and stopped, leaning forward to put it carefully down on the coffee table, a safe distance from her study notes.

“Well, sure,” she said cautiously. “It’s a big deal, I suppose, your siblings tying the knot. And a wedding is always exciting.”

Actually, she ranked weddings as social occasions only slightly less hellish than school reunions, but it didn’t seem festive to say so.

Mick’s lips twitched.

“Hmm,” he said. “This will be the fourth time in six years that we’ve had that particular thrill. It started to pall before the first round of vows.”

“Your brother’s been married three times already?” Sophy asked disbelievingly. “And he’s…how old?”