Ultimatum

Thirty-nine

18.05

‘Are you sure you should be going out tonight?’

Gina Burnham-Jones’s babysitter and neighbour, Sue, was a big maternal woman in her late sixties who’d decided to take Gina under her wing after Jones had left, and who worried about her constantly.

Gina smiled. ‘Of course I’m sure. You can’t let people like that dictate your life.’ She avoided using the word ‘terrorist’ so as not to worry Maddie, who was currently playing with her Sylvanians on the lounge floor.

‘What are you sure about, Mummy?’ she asked, looking up from her game.

‘Nothing that concerns you, young lady,’ said Gina with a wink.

‘Ears like a hawk, that one,’ whispered Sue.

The doorbell rang. That would be Matt. Gina got up from the sofa, conscious of the fact that there was no frisson of excitement like there had been with Jones in the early days.

‘Who’s at the door, Mummy?’

‘A friend of mine. We’re going out.’

Maddie jumped up from her game and wrapped her arms round Gina’s waist. ‘You’re coming back, aren’t you?’

Gina felt a surge of guilt. Maddie missed her dad badly, and the experience of him leaving had made her insecure. ‘Of course I’m coming back, darling,’ she said, kissing her daughter on the forehead and exchanging glances with Sue, who was pulling an irritatingly sympathetic face.

She wondered how Maddie was going to react when she met Matt, and knew it wasn’t going to be instant happy families. Jesus, why did life have to be so complicated?

Gently extricating herself from Maddie’s arms, Gina said her goodbyes and went to the door, checking herself in the mirror en route and feeling pretty satisfied with her reflection.

Matt took a step back when he saw her, a look of admiration in his eyes. ‘Wow, Gina, you look beautiful.’

‘You look pretty good yourself,’ she said, and he did. He was wearing a neatly pressed dark suit and three-quarter-length Crombie coat which, coupled with his well-groomed silver hair and strong bearing, gave him an air of comforting sophistication. His aftershave was strong but smelled good.

‘So, are you going to finally tell me where we’re going?’ she asked as he put an arm round her waist and led her to his car.

‘Well, we’re going into the centre of town, I can tell you that much. But the final destination remains a surprise.’

Gina felt a twinge of irritation. She liked a surprise as much as the next person but the whole cloak-and-dagger aspect of this evening seemed a bit much.

‘I don’t mean to be a pain,’ he said with a rueful smile, reading her thoughts. ‘But when you do find out, you’ll be pleased that it was a surprise.’ He leaned forward and kissed her lightly on the lips. ‘I promise.’

‘OK,’ she said, intrigued once again. ‘I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt.’

The funny thing was that Matt wasn’t the type for surprises. A police officer with twenty-nine years’ service, he was a typically logical and pragmatic detective who, by his own admission, had no imagination whatsoever. He tried to be romantic — he was clearly trying to be romantic now — but he could never quite pull it off.

‘I’m surprised you got the night off,’ she said as they got in the car, ‘what with all this terrorism stuff going on.’

‘There’s only so much we can do,’ he answered, ‘and there are plenty of people better qualified than me out there looking for them.’

‘Do you think the terrorists will do something when their eight p.m. deadline runs out?’ Whatever Gina might have said to Sue back in the house, she was still nervous.

‘If they do, it’ll be something small-scale. Whatever the media might say, these people bark a lot louder than they bite. And it’s not something you need to worry about.’ He smiled at her as he pulled the car away from the kerb, and there was a gleam in his eyes. ‘Tonight we’re going to enjoy ourselves.’