Dark Circles Read Online Free

for the second time that evening.

CHAPTER 5
     
     
    Detective Superintendent Ian Wilson sat in the living room of the apartment that he and his partner shared in Belfast. He was directly facing a large picture window with a stunning view across the early-morning city. He loved that view, and he had been staring at it since he’d risen at seven o’clock. As soon as he had woken, he had stretched his hand out in the bed and felt the empty space beside him. He wasn’t surprised. Kate was waking up earlier and earlier, and the effects of the lack of sleep were beginning to show on her face and in her shortness of temper. He had expected to find her at her desk poring over some legal papers, but she had already left for the office. He remembered sitting at her bedside in the Royal and promising that things would not change. He knew then that he was a liar, but he hadn’t realised how big the lie was. Losing their child had been a tragedy for him but for Kate, it had been a catastrophe. She had been told a million and one times that it wasn’t her fault. A miscarriage is nature’s way of dealing with some deeper problem with the foetus. However, the patina of grief hung over Kate like a veil of darkness. It began with the guilt that led to the sleeplessness that in turn led to the tiredness. Kate was beginning to run the full gamut of the symptoms of loss. It wasn’t a question of nothing changing. It was beginning to feel like everything was changing.
    ‘Sunrise over Belfast is a bit special.’ The voice came from behind Wilson.
    He turned and smiled at Helen McCann. Kate’s mother had returned to Belfast from her home in Antibes as soon as she had talked to Kate on Skype. They say that girls generally grow up to resemble their mother. If that was the case, Kate had nothing to worry about. Her mother was well north of sixty but was still strikingly attractive. Her all-year-round tan was subdued, more sun kissed than sun blessed. She was wearing a silk kimono that probably cost more than Wilson earned in a month, and although she had just left her bed there wasn’t a stray wisp of hair on her perfectly coiffed head. ‘Aye, I love this view.’
    ‘It’s rare to have the city bathed in gold,’ she said.
    ‘That’s why you live in Antibes.’
    She put her right hand on her heart. ‘Ulster is in here. And as the ad says “for everything else there’s Antibes”.’ She smiled. ‘Kate gone?’
    Wilson nodded.
    ‘I’m worried about her,’ Helen said. ‘She’s taken the miscarriage much worse than I thought. She was always such a strong girl but behind that strength was a vulnerability that once breached ...’ Her voice trailed off.
    ‘It’ll pass,’ Wilson said. ‘It’s bereavement, and it has to go through the various stages that a death entails. Eventually, she’ll accept that it wasn’t her fault, and that she’s young enough to have a lot more children.’
    ‘You’re right about the process,’ Helen said. ‘But you may be wrong about the timing.’ She looked at the man sitting in front of her. He was rumoured to be one of the best detectives in the PSNI but to her, he was just one more man who had a very incomplete knowledge of women and how they work. She knew her daughter a lot better than this Johnny-come-lately. Kate was in pain, and she was a long way from healing. A superintendent in the PSNI was by nature inured to people’s pain. That wouldn’t serve him well when dealing with her daughter. ‘Would you like a coffee? I’m nothing in the morning until I’ve had my first coffee.’
    ‘I’d love one.’ Wilson wondered why he didn’t believe that it wouldn’t take a cup of coffee to switch Helen McCann on. He didn’t know much about her, but he noticed people’s reaction when her name was mentioned. ‘We’re both grateful that you took time out to help Kate.’
    ‘I love my daughter,’ she said from the kitchen. ‘And I had some business in Belfast.’
    ‘What business is