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was one of them. If she was fazed by the male attention, she didn’t show it. Lock guessed she was used to that kind of reaction to the point where it barely registered.
    He and Ty stood as she reached them. Lock did the introductions. Tarian sat down. The waiter was dismissed with the back of her hand and a curt ‘In a moment.
    ‘So?’ she began. ‘Do we have an agreement that you’ll help my son?’
    Lock picked up the folder and tossed it across the table at her. ‘We did. But I can’t work for someone who lies to me.’
    ‘It was stupid of me not to tell you,’ said Tarian, her eyes fixed on Lock. ‘I thought that if you knew you might not be prepared to help. I didn’t think you’d be amenable to helping someone who’d been accused of stalking.’
    ‘A little more than accused,’ said Lock, tapping a finger down on the folder. ‘Judges don’t hand those out for nothing.’
    ‘And I’m taking it seriously, Mr Lock. Though I do have to say that . . . Well, Marcus gets obsessional about things. And sometimes he doesn’t realize the effect that can have on other people. He never actually threatened this young woman. He was just overly persistent.’
    Ty was looking at Lock. ‘That so?’
    Lock nodded. ‘I went out and spoke to her last night. He never threatened her, but she still felt threatened. Not sure how useful a distinction that is, Mrs Griffiths.’
    ‘What else did she say?’ Tarian said. ‘Only we’re trying to sort something out with the administration at USC to see if Marcus might be able to return in the spring.’
    ‘And I hope you do,’ said Lock. ‘But I’m afraid we can’t help you.’
    ‘Can’t?’ asked Tarian. ‘Or won’t?’
    ‘We protect people from others, not from themselves,’ said Lock. ‘You need a mental-health professional, not private security. And I don’t say that to be unkind.’
    Tarian leaned forward, lowering her voice. ‘Teddy’s spoken about that. About having Marcus . . .’ She hesitated. Lock had noticed that, unlike cancer or heart disease, when people spoke about mental illness they tended to be more careful about their choice of words. It was as if, even after all this time, the stigma wouldn’t go away. ‘Well,’ she continued, ‘my husband thinks Marcus might be better off if he was placed in some kind of secure facility. For his own good. But until he does something . . .’
    Right now, Lock couldn’t shake off his unease. The girl he’d spoken to at USC, the one who had been stalked by Marcus Griffiths, had told him way more than he was going to share with Tarian.
    ‘By which time it will be too late,’ said Lock.
    ‘I don’t want that to happen,’ said Tarian. ‘Please, if you would just meet with my son. Perhaps if someone such as yourselves were to recommend that Marcus needs residential care it might be taken more seriously.’

12
     
    Ty got into the passenger seat of Lock’s R6 and closed the door. They were waiting for Tarian. They would follow her car the short distance to her son’s apartment in Marina Del Rey.
    It was hot. High eighties. That was well above average for Santa Monica, where the ocean breeze tended to keep things nice and pleasant. A heatwave was predicted. It would get up to the nineties here on the coast and the hundreds out in the Valley.
    A grey Mercedes with tinted windows appeared. Tarian had the driver’s window lowered so they could see it was her. She cruised past them. Lock pulled out behind her and into the traffic on Ocean Avenue.
    ‘So we assess him like we would any other external threat to a principal?’ said Ty, one arm dangling out of the window as they drove past a couple of young women in denim shorts and crop tops rollerblading down the sidewalk.
    Lock buried the gas pedal to make a light and stay with Tarian’s Mercedes. ‘Something like that,’ he said.
    ‘What’s going on here, Ryan? Is there something you’re not telling me about this?’ What did that co-ed at USC