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- Herausgeber: Pushkin Vertigo
- Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
- Sprache: Englisch
Caleb Zelic can't hear you. But he can see everything.The latest pulsating thriller in the Caleb Zelic series A DEAD COP ALWAYS SPELLS TROUBLE When deaf PI Caleb Zelic finds one of his clients murdered, it's a bad day; when he discovers the man was federal police it's the beginning of a nightmare. Against his better judgement he is drawn into the investigation. SOMEBODY IS CLEANING HOUSE Soon Caleb finds himself mixed up with his crooked ex-partner Frankie, and more bodies turn up as someone tries to cover their tracks. Then a nine-year-old girl goes missing. THE KID'S NEXT Franke and Caleb are determined to find her, but will she be alive when they do? Together they will follow a trail that leads to betrayal, death and an agonizing choice. Emma Viskic is an award-winning Australian crime writer. Her critically acclaimed debut novel, Resurrection Bay, won the 2016 Ned Kelly Award for Best Debut, and an unprecedented three Davitt Awards: Best Adult Novel, Best Debut, and Readers' Choice. It was also iBooks Australia's Crime Novel of the year, and was shortlisted for both the CWA Gold and New Blood Daggers in the UK. Emma studied Australian sign language (Auslan) in order to write the character of Caleb Zelic. She is currently writing the fourth Caleb Zelic thriller.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020
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PRAISE FOR THE CALEB ZELIC THRILLERS
‘Outstanding, gripping and violent… a hero who is original and appealing’
Guardian
‘More than lives up to its hype… Fierce, fast-moving, violent… it is as exciting a debut as fellow Australian Jane Harper’s The Dry, and I can think of no higher praise’
Daily Mail
‘Trailing literary prizes in its wake… superbly characterized… well above most contemporary crime fiction’
Financial Times, Books of the Year
‘Combines nuanced characters and thoughtful plotting’
Publishers Weekly (starred review)ii
‘Clever, brilliantly observed… Viskic just keeps getting better. Caleb Zelic is the perfect character to explore Melbourne’s diverse culture and all aspects of its society, high and low, ugly and beautiful’
Adrian McKinty, author of The Chain
‘Caleb Zelic lives in a genre of his own: the perfect outsider in an uncaring world. Inventive, loyal, tormented and whip-smart, he stands at the moral centre of a twisting tale of corruption’
Jock Serong, author of The Rules of Backyard Cricket
‘Terrific… Grabs you by the throat and never slackens its hold’
Christos Tsiolkas, author of The Slap
‘Outstanding… Pacy, violent but with a big thundering heart, it looks set to be one of the debuts of the year and marks Emma Viskic out as a serious contender on the crime scene’
Eva Dolan, author of Long Way Home
‘Adds to a bumper year for quality Australian crime fiction… The dialogue is excellent… [it] zooms along’
Sunday Express
‘Emma Viskic is a terrific, gutsy writer with great insight into the murkiness of both criminal and heroic motivations’
Emily Maguire, author of An Isolated Incident
‘Accomplished, original and utterly riveting, so much so that I read it in pretty much one sitting’
Raven Crime Reads
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For Dad
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Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; who put darkness for light, and light for darkness; who put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter.
isaiah 5:20
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CONTENTS
1.
A children’s farm was a nice change. Clandestine meetings were usually held in dark pubs, not urban pastures with good sightlines and pleasant views. Half an hour before closing time, a few families were still out wandering the gardens and gazing at cows. Crisp air and deep-blue sky, a lingering warmth to the late afternoon sun. Melbourne autumn at its best.
Caleb paid the staggering entrance fee and headed down the path at a brisk pace. The five-block drive from his office had taken twenty minutes thanks to roadworks, and everything about this possible client screamed anxiety – the anonymous email address and lack of phone number, the request they meet immediately.
A feeling of lightness despite the rush to get here: the end of a good day, in a good week, in a greatly improved year. Thank God.
Caleb reached an enclosed garden with amber-leaved trees. Fluffy chickens were scratching at the ground, their feathers moulting like snow. No self-described stocky man in a charcoal suit. No men at all. Just a mother and her bandy-legged toddler offering grass to the disinterested birds. A glimpse into a possible future: a small hand in his, Kat by his side, an afternoon together in the sun. The mother turned and said something to him. Her words were too fast to catch, but her expression was clear: Go away weird, smiling man.
He left. 2
No one was waiting on the other side of the gate, or by the barns. Looked like Martin Amon was a no-show. A bit of a surprise; the man hadn’t come across as flaky in their brief email conversation. No worrying overuse of capital letters or exclamation marks, just a few blunt sentences that gave the impression of someone used to taking charge. Maybe it was just as well. Odds were, Amon was an uptight manager worried about minor fraud, but his urgency could also signal something more ominous. The exact kind of work Caleb avoided these days. He only took safe jobs now – employee checks and embezzlement cases, security advice – nothing that could bring fear and violence back into his life. A lesson finally learned after his brother. After Frankie.
He looped around the far side of the garden for a final look. More chickens here, three of them pecking at a darkened patch of grass near a wooden shed. Small lumps of something pale and glistening. A cloying smell, like a butcher’s shop on a summer’s day. He knew that smell, still started from his dreams with it thickening his breath.
He stopped walking.
A long drag-mark led from the birds into the shed; wet, as though someone had slopped a dirty mop across the grass. Stray tufts of down had stuck to it, stirring gently in the breeze. White feathers, stained red.
Bile rose in his throat.
Movement to his right, the mother and toddler coming around the corner towards him. The child gave him a gummy smile and offered a fistful of grass. No air to speak; no words. Caleb put up a hand and signed for them to stop. The woman froze, her mouth opening as she noticed the pallid flecks and damp grass, the chickens peck, peck, pecking. She scooped up her child and ran.
He should run, too.
Should turn and leave and never come back. 3
He skirted carefully around the chickens and followed the long stain to the doorway. No windows, his eyes slow to make sense of the shadows. A peaked wooden ceiling, high stacks of hay against the walls. The man was lying on his side by the door. Charcoal suit, a few extra kilos softening his stocky build, sandy hair matted at the back. No face, just a bloodied pulp of flesh and bone. 4
2.
They left Caleb to wait in the farm’s cramped office, surrounded by posters of children and plump cows, half-drunk cups of tea. By the door, a bored constable sat in a swivel chair, flicking through her phone. Dark outside the room’s lone window, night falling hours ago, along with blanketing exhaustion. A temptation to rest his head on the cluttered desk and sleep. No idea what he was waiting for, just that the homicide detectives had been about to let him go when they’d received a phone call and conferred hurriedly outside, asked him to stay.
Amon had been shot. A bullet to the back of the head, exiting his face. Caleb didn’t know a lot about guns, but he’d seen the devastation they could wreak on a body. Had felt the hard kick of one in his hand, the warmth of another man’s blood.
He started as the constable leapt to her feet. Two suited men were coming through the door, both taking up a lot of space for not very large people. A quick flash of their IDs and a few impenetrable words to the constable and she left, closing the door behind her. Both men gave Caleb the cop once-over as they crowded into the room; one smaller and clean-shaven, his mate with a brown goatee like a half-eaten rabbit. That beard was going to be a problem, concealing most of the man’s bottom lip, and all of his top one. When the hell had Victoria Police started allowing its employees to have facial hair?
Beardless pulled the free chair in front of Caleb and sat, but 6there was nothing settled about him: feet flat on the floor, eyes constantly moving. Rabbit-face perched a buttock on a low filing cabinet, even tenser than his colleague.
‘Thanks for waiting,’ Beardless said. ‘Makes this all a bit easier.’
An easy read: clear and steady, his voice faint, but audible. Caleb almost sagged with relief – he was too tired to lip-read any mumblers.
‘Sure,’ he said.
‘Our colleagues in homicide say you don’t need an interpreter.’ The detective’s eyes slid to the hearing aids he couldn’t possibly see beneath Caleb’s dark hair.
‘No.’ Caleb fought the urge to check his aids were covered as he asked the obvious question. ‘You’re not homicide?’
Beardless paused before answering. ‘AFP.’
Federal cops interested in a state crime. And cops not eager to share their names. The murder felt professional, not just the silencer the killer must have used, but also the shot to the back of the head. Organised crime, maybe?
‘Why are the feds interested in Amon?’ Caleb asked.
‘We’ll ask the questions if you don’t mind, Mr Zelic.’ Beardless pulled Caleb’s phone from his pocket and passed it to him. ‘We’ve had a look at the emails between you and Martin Amon. What else can you tell us about him?’
Caleb could push it, ask to see their IDs and get his homicide mate, Tedesco, involved. But that would only drag him deeper into whatever foul mess this was – and ‘Make Good Decisions’ was his new motto. Very new motto. Plastic wrapping just off, a new-car smell to it.
‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘The emails are it.’
A low rumble as Rabbit-face spoke, the fur parting slightly, then closing.
Shit, even worse than Caleb had expected. No point turning 7up his aids; amplification wasn’t going to make the man’s voice any clearer, or his mouth more visible. Had to admit defeat. ‘Sorry, I can’t understand you. The beard’s a problem.’
Beardless gave his mate a flat look. ‘We’re in agreement, then – the face-fur’s got to go.’ He pulled a bound notebook from his breast pocket and flipped through it. ‘So the first contact you had with Amon was an email saying, “I need to speak with you immediately. Utmost discretion required.”’
‘Yes.’
‘And that was enough for you to meet?’
‘It’s not unusual. I do business fraud – no one wants their shareholders knowing about a light-fingered employee.’
‘Had you heard of the deceased before? Someone mention him? Say he might be in touch?’
‘No.’
Disappointment in the detective’s expression, quickly hidden. ‘Even a vague comment? No name used?’
‘No.’
‘You speak to him at all?’
‘No.’
‘Not even a few words?’
‘His face was gone. It made lip-reading a bit tricky.’
A long stare for that; milk-coffee eyes, a little bloodshot. ‘On the phone, I meant. You said you were running late – you call to let him know? Maybe use a public phone? Borrow one?’
‘I don’t do voice calls.’ Caleb hesitated, then added. ‘Can’t.’
Beardless covered his mouth and spoke, watching Caleb carefully. It’d be the usual adolescent test, something foul and personal, probably involving a close relative. Caleb gave the man a dead-fish stare until he lowered his hand.
A little glance between the two cops, and Beardless slipped his notebook away. ‘Thanks for your help, Mr Zelic, you can go now. 8For your own safety we’ll keep your name out of it and ask you not to mention Amon to anyone. Online or in person.’
Caleb didn’t move. The cops obviously knew a lot more about Amon than they were letting on. If he pressed them they might let something slip.
‘Are we going to have a problem?’ Beardless asked.
Make Good Decisions. Whoever Amon was, his murder had made two feds rigid with tension. Getting involved could only lead to trouble.
‘No.’ He stood and walked to the door, went out into the clear night air. Didn’t look back.
3.
Caleb was almost at the café when he saw the car again: an anonymous black sedan with tinted windows and a mud-spattered numberplate. The third time he’d seen it since leaving his office. Hard to know if it was following him or if he was just being jumpy. Twenty-four hours since Martin Amon’s death, his adrenal system was still in overdrive. He adjusted the rear-view mirror, squinting in the dying light: one car back and holding steady.
Decision time.
The small shopping strip was just around the corner. Pull over or keep driving? Most of the stores would be closed at five-sixteen on a Tuesday evening; not enough witnesses around for comfort. But better than none. Past the shops, there were only factories and warehouses.
He slowed as he took the bend, then sped up and pulled into the kerb. Door half open, eyes on the mirror. The black sedan rounded the corner. It drew nearer, headlights off, the driver a hazy silhouette. Closer, nearly level. Passing. It kept going, the brakelights flashing once as it reached the next bend, then it was gone. He breathed again. Just someone taking the same traffic-avoiding route across town. Nothing to do with him, or a dead man with his face shot off.
The news reports hadn’t revealed much so far. No mention of Caleb or Martin Amon by name, no possible motive suggested, 10just a lot of speculation. An online search hadn’t revealed anything on Amon, either. Which meant the man had been habitually cautious, or using a pseudonym.
Caleb sat for another moment in the rapidly cooling car, then got out and headed for Alberto’s Place. The small café fronting the street was closed, but the kitchen staff would still be hard at it, readying orders for shops and hotels across Melbourne. Pies and pastas, sausages, pastries, all made to old family recipes. He’d grab some swoon-worthy food and surprise Kat with a picnic dinner at her studio, reassure her that he wasn’t backsliding. She’d been worried when he’d told her about Amon last night, would still be worried.
He ducked down the laneway to the back of the old redbrick building and stopped outside the glass door. The kitchen’s high ceiling was deep in shadow, the only light coming from candles, torches and phones set around the room. They were propped on shelves and benches, their combined wattage illuminating every hand movement and expression of the workers inside. Six people, all managing to carry on signed conversations as they cooked, their Auslan only slightly hampered by their latex gloves. Weekend plans and boyfriends, grandchildren, fitness regimes. Alberto Conti prowled among them, his hands never resting as he issued instructions and tasted dishes.
Caleb shoved his hearing aids in his pocket and opened the door, moved into silence and warmth. The aromas of frying garlic and onion, roasted walnuts, oregano. He received a staggered round of waved hellos as each person noticed him, the most exuberant one from Alberto. Seventy-two years old, sinew and bone, burnt-leather skin. Not the fellow runner Caleb had initially assumed, but a former featherweight boxer.
He gave Caleb the usual rib-cracking hug, along with a slap on the back. Something was seriously off about the man’s 11strength-to-weight ratio. Forty years older than Caleb, a head shorter, but it’d be close odds in a fight.
‘The power out?’ Caleb signed when the wiry man finally released him.
‘No, we’re being romantic.’ Alberto made a suitably lovesick expression to go with the beating-heart sign. He pulled a heavy-looking canvas bag from a shelf and placed it ceremoniously in front of Caleb, a hint of real reverence in his face now. ‘I’ve given you pork belly instead of sausages. Best you’ll ever eat.’
‘Kat’s not a big fan of pork. You want me to check the fuses? The power’s on in the rest of the street.’
‘It’s under control. She’ll like this pork. Better than your mother could make if she slept with the butcher. With the pig.’ But he slipped a large quiche into a cardboard box and added it to the bag. ‘How’s Kat? She OK?’
‘Yeah. Good.’
‘I don’t understand you two. You should just move back in together. Particularly now.’
Always a moment to re-acclimatise to Deaf directness after a week in the hearing world. And to wonder how Alberto had managed to extract more personal information from him in four months than most people did in years. Decades.
‘It’s on the agenda.’ Caleb stilled. Through the servery hatch, a glimpse of a car driving slowly along the street, no headlights against the encroaching gloom. Maybe grey, maybe black. It passed without stopping.
Alberto waved to get his attention. ‘I’ve decided to get those security bars you’ve been going on about. Can you organise it?’
‘Sure.’ The street was empty now, no passing cars, with or without headlights.
Another wave from Alberto. ‘Tomorrow?’
Caleb gave him his full attention. After months trying to 12convince the man to up his security, why the urgency? A lifetime as a signer had made Alberto’s face as easy to read as his hands: he was worried and trying hard not to show it.
‘Something wrong?’ Caleb asked.
‘Yeah, I got sick of you nagging me.’
‘Alberto, what’s happened?’ He realised he’d accidentally spoken out loud, and stopped.
Alberto’s lip-reading skills were as proudly non-existent as his speech, but he’d obviously got the gist from Caleb’s expression. ‘You worry too much.’ He patted Caleb’s hand.
Leave it. Alberto obviously didn’t want to tell him, and mixing friendship with business was always a mistake – another lesson learned since Frankie.
Caleb checked the street and slung the bag of food over his shoulder. ‘I’ll get on to the installer first thing.’
He received another hug and escaped outside with his ribs intact.
An empty laneway; no hiding spots or lurking attackers. He headed for the street. Dusk had slipped into night, bringing with it the scent of cool earth. Dinner, a few precious hours with Kat, then home; sleep the sleep of the almost content.
A darting shape ahead, the black sedan pulling across the alley, blocking his exit. The driver’s door flung open.
He dropped the bag and ran. Back towards Alberto’s – no, couldn’t risk everyone’s safety. Past the kitchen and down the laneway. The glare of headlights behind him, coming closer. Fuck. Wouldn’t make it. A walkway just ahead, too narrow for a car. Sprinting towards it, his shadow racing before him, breath rasping. Headlights bright, the car nearly on him.
And around the corner. Dark. Overhanging trees and sheer fences, concrete path just visible as he ran.
Smack. 13
Reeling backwards, clutching his face.
A wire safety fence across the path, construction site beyond it. Fuck, have to climb. He hauled himself up, feet slipping as the fence swayed. Too slow, childhood meningitis stripping some balance along with his hearing.
Quick check behind him. A dim shape, someone running. Seven, eight metres away, something in their hand.
A weapon.
A gun.
Clawing up the fence, fingers gripping, pulling at the wire. Nearly at the top. Hands on the –
Slamming pain.
Skin, lungs, marrow fusing.
Down. 14
4.
Minutes, years, for his brain to unscramble. Lying on his back, the hard blow of the concrete still pounding through him, arms and legs half-numb. Panic spiked before he made sense of it. Not dying, not shot – tasered.
Light flared to the right as someone set a bright torch on the ground, the kind people kept in car boots and sheds. A waft of floral perfume as a woman came to stand in front of him. Oh fuck – Jasmine. At least, that’s what he called her. She’d never given him her real name, never shown ID to prove she was the federal cop she claimed to be.
He sat up, ignoring the spasm of pain in his back, and Jasmine knelt in front of him. Mid-thirties with drab brown hair and forgettable features, a tight mouth. The stun gun in her hand was designed to look like a phone. Probably the same illegal weapon she’d used while interrogating him four months ago. She’d half-drowned him in a bathtub and repeatedly stunned him, claiming it was to keep her cover. No idea what her excuse was this time, but she’d been after Frankie then, and she’d be after Frankie now.
She checked to make sure he was looking and launched into speech.
Silence.
Shit, his hearing aids were still in his pocket. They weren’t exactly news to Jasmine, but he wasn’t going to fumble around 16with numb fingers trying to put them on in front of her – like peeling back his skin to reveal his inner workings. Except she’d be impossible to lip-read without them; no faint tone, just her fast stream of words and the hard line of her mouth. A mouth that had grown even harder at his lack of response to the question she’d obviously just repeated.
Fuck it.
He reached for his aids and she thrust the taser towards him.
He froze.
‘I’m getting my hearing aids,’ he said quickly. ‘Can’t understand you.’
She glanced down the laneway and gestured for him to go ahead, impatience on her face as it took him a few attempts to hook them over his ears and insert the receivers. He brushed his hair over them and faced her.
‘… you … stand … now?’ A thin thread of a voice.
He filled in the gaps: ‘Can you understand me now?’ He’d probably only catch every second or so word, but it’d be enough to guess the rest.
‘Why the hell did you tase me?’ he said.
‘I told you not to run.’
‘Yeah, very helpful. If you’re after Frankie, I don’t know where she is. Ask her criminal mates – start with her sister, Maggie.’
Jasmine scanned the path behind them. ‘They’re not in contact, but … you … her.’
‘Slower.’
‘You. Know. Her. Better than anyone.’
He’d thought he’d known Frankie, thought they were friends as well as business partners. ‘Frankie fucked up my life and nearly got my wife killed. Even if I could find her, I wouldn’t.’
Jasmine leaned closer. Chapped lips, the remnants of dark lipstick clinging to the corners, skin stretched tight across her 17cheekbones. ‘I’m not asking you, I’m telling you – find her. She’s got documents I need. Get me them or Frankie, I don’t care which. You’ve got two days.’
He knew something about those files, but he wasn’t about to tell Jasmine.
She was scanning the tops of the high wooden fences, braced as though about to run. His muscles tensed in response. What would it take to scare a cop who’d chased a man down an unlit alley?
Sudden clarity in his fogged brain: she’d claimed she was a fed.
‘Is this connected to Martin Amon?’ he asked.
‘Yes. I need –’
‘Show me your ID.’
She darted another look down the laneway then withdrew a thin leather wallet from her back pocket and threw it to him. Inside was an official-looking seal bearing a crown and the words Australian Federal Police, her unsmiling photo beside it. Senior Constable Imogen Blain. Imogen – a name he’d seen written, but never said.
He noted her badge number and returned it. ‘What’s Frankie got to do with Amon?’
‘I told you, she’s got documents we need. That’s why Martin contacted you. I told him –’ She faltered. ‘I told him you’d be able to find her.’
‘Wait. You mean Amon’s a cop? A federal cop?’
Her jaw worked. ‘Yes.’
An oil slick of fear in his stomach: a murdered fed. Whatever Imogen was involved in, he needed to be very far from it, very quickly. There was no way she was investigating this officially – not with her furtive approach and lack of partner, the fact no one else had mentioned Frankie. Imogen was either on the outer, or not a cop at all. 18
‘I can’t help.’ He went to stand.
‘If you don’t, I’ll make your life unbearable.’
He knew unbearable, knew its rank and sweating weight. Nothing she could do could come close. ‘Do your worst.’
‘Fine. I’ll arrest you for murder.’
Cold seeped through him. How could she know?
‘Did you really think we didn’t know, Caleb? You shot Michael Petronin and left him to rot on the beach. A falling-out among thieves. That’s what we’ll tell the jury. And they’ll believe it.
Particularly when they find out the victim was Frankie’s thug brother-in-law.’
Petronin’s mangled neck and blank eyes, the warmth of his spraying blood, the salt taste of it.
Get it the fuck together and think. She couldn’t know, not for sure; there’d been no evidence, no witnesses.
He tried to keep his voice even. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘Really? Because someone does.’ Imogen pulled a sheet of paper from her coat pocket and shoved it at him: a photocopy of a handwritten letter with yesterday’s date. No police letterhead, but set out like an official statement, with the author’s name and signature blacked out. Words of varying sizes sloped across the page.
I saw CALEB ZELIC kill that man on the beech last year they were aguing and CALEB ZELIC had a gun and shot the man dead. I know CALEB ZELIC becose I seen him round and he is deaf.
Imogen’s dry lips were moving. ‘… find Frankie or do twenty years for murder.’ She stood and flipped a business card onto his lap. ‘Your two days start now.’
She walked away, the darkness swallowing her.
5.
Early the next morning Caleb went for a run along the Yarra. A need to clear his head so he could think. Once, he would have thrown himself headlong into finding Frankie, but he was trying to be smarter these days. A steep learning curve. He ran over the pedestrian bridge and up the dirt track that hugged the river, bruised muscles gradually loosening. The smells of warming earth and lemon-scented gums, the sky a smudged grey above the trees.
The morning news had brought the unwelcome confirmation that Martin Amon was a federal police officer. Everything hinged on the information Caleb’s detective mate, Tedesco, was hunting down for him. If Imogen wasn’t a cop, he’d ignore her threats. If she was, he was in deep shit – even if he could find Frankie, she’d never choose his wellbeing over hers.
Frankie. Former-Sergeant Francesca Reynolds, fifty-eight years old and a mind like a serrated knife. Thinking about her only brought confusion. They’d been partners for five years, friends for longer, and the entire time she’d been secretly working for crims to fund her addictions. She’d endangered Kat, lied and betrayed him. And then she’d turned around and risked her life to save them both.
It would have been easier just to hate her.
He rounded the bend to where the river cut a broad swathe through the eucalypts. The water was shallow here, a quicksilver glint as it skimmed the rocks just beneath the surface. 20
‘… twenty years for murder.’
It had been self-defence. After four months of intense therapy, he could finally believe those words. Petronin had hunted him down and tried to kill him, very nearly succeeded. But no jury would believe it. Not when he’d covered up the killing, not when it involved Frankie and her family.
He slowed and stopped. Barely sweating yet, but it was time to head back. He could do it, he could hold everything together. Start by taking the most important step.
Kat was wielding a chainsaw in the large metal garage that served as her workshop. Wearing goggles and ear protectors, a bandana in the red, yellow and black of the Aboriginal flag. A bird was emerging from the large block of red gum she was carving. Powerful wings and sharp talons: a white-bellied sea eagle, Kat’s totem animal. She’d done a lot of eagles this year, the first of them a sleeve tattoo that ran down her left arm with lacy feathers of ochre and brown. The ridge of the wing was a long, pale scar, a legacy of Frankie’s betrayal.
Kat lowered the chainsaw and stepped back to examine her progress. He called her name, then flipped the lights when she didn’t respond. A bright smile as she turned. He’d been seventeen when he’d first fallen for that smile, but a grown man could appreciate being on its receiving end and possibly grin inanely, wondering what he’d done in a previous life to deserve it.
She shoved the goggles onto her forehead and pulled off a glove with her teeth so she could sign. ‘What are you grinning at?’
‘You.’
