‘Jonah, have you …? Oh sorry! I hadn’t realised you had a visitor.’ The door burst open and a young woman entered, stopped as she noticed Bethan, and then turned to go. Her hair was blond and curly, making a halo around her face. As a child, she would certainly have been first choice for an angel in the school nativity play.
‘No, don’t go Lucy. Come in and be introduced. This is Bethan Abbott. She’s interviewing me about how I manage to cope with adversity. I think she ought to meet you.’
‘Of course! Your chance to become a TV star – I’d completely forgotten.’ The newcomer turned to Bethan and held out her hand. ‘I’m Lucy Paige. You’ll have met my mother, Bernie Fazakerley.’
‘Lucy,’ Jonah told Bethan seriously, ‘is a very important person in the story of my life. In fact, I’m not sure how things would have turned out, without her – and Our Bernie.’
‘Don’t be silly!’ Lucy blushed. ‘We didn’t do anything special – just what you’d expect in the circumstances.’ She looked directly at Bethan and spoke earnestly.
‘Jonah was very good to me – to both of us, but specially to me. He used to just turn up every year on my birthday, with some wonderful present – not expensive, but always just the right thing. And then, after a few hours, he’d go off again. It was like having my own private Father Christmas. He always made me feel as if I was the most important person in the world while he was there. So of course we wanted to help when he needed it.’
‘It was like this,’ Jonah put in. ‘I worked with Richard Paige – that’s Lucy’s father – when he was a Detective Inspector and I was a raw Detective Constable. He was my boss and my mentor, but I was transferred to another team and we lost touch. He died as a result of an accident while he was on duty – that was eighteen years ago now – and I went to his funeral.’
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