So, they’d had a little bonding session at the hospital, had they? Well, she’d soon nip that in the bud. Jade restrained herself from banging things into the dishwasher, placing them just so, lingering over the extremely sharp knife she felt like chopping certain little fingers off with.

Spoiled, that’s what she was. A wilful, overindulged little…

‘Do we need anything?’ Mark said behind her, pulling his jacket on as he came back into the kitchen.

‘Meds,’ Jade said, quickly stuffing the knife in the cutlery basket and turning to retrieve Mel’s prescription from the notice board. ‘I thought as you were going to the chemist…’

‘Cheers,’ Mark said, smiling a little more easily than he had earlier that morning. Jade doubted he’d be doing that for long. ‘I’ll only be half an hour or so. The kids are in with Mel.’

Where else, thought Jade, suppressing her growing urge to tiptoe in and suffocate that woman with the pillow, take her baby and be done with. But that wasn’t a good idea. Being a detective, Mark was bound to cotton on to something.

‘See you soon,’ he said, heading towards the front door, obviously feeling safe to go out for five minutes now he didn’t think he was in danger of being thrown out.

Closing the dishwasher with a bang, Jade went to the window, making sure Mark had pulled out of the drive before retrieving the speeding ticket from behind the toaster.

Now to do the deed, while Melissa was disorientated, which she would be by now, and still shell-shocked after almost losing her precious Poppy.

Collecting up the rest of the post – plenty for Melissa about her arty-farty crap – Jade went upstairs, tapped on the bedroom door and went on in to find Melissa sitting on the edge of the bed, her hands pressed to her forehead and plainly feeling woozy. Evie was fretting, Jade noticed despairingly. The woman really was a useless cow.

‘Hi, Mel,’ she said, making sure not to sound too cheerful in light of last night’s events. Placing the post on the bed, she went across to lift Evie from her cot. ‘How are you feeling?’

‘A bit queasy, to be honest.’ Mel smiled feebly in her direction. So she wasn’t about to start pointing fingers for a tragedy which was clearly her own fault, which was a relief. Jade needed Melissa on side if she was going to pull this off.

‘Would you like some tea?’ she asked her. ‘You haven’t eaten much.’ She’d picked at her toast earlier, but had eaten a good portion of the egg, thank goodness.

‘I’m not very hungry, Jade.’ Mel offered her another weak smile.

‘I’m not surprised after last night.’ Jade pressed Evie close to her shoulder; she’d stopped fretting the second she had picked her up. Clearly, she knew whose shoulder she preferred. ‘I’m really sorry about what happened, Mel.’

‘Not your fault. Poppy’s curiosity obviously got the better of her. I still can’t believe it…’ She brushed Poppy’s hair lovingly back from her face, causing the little brat to stir in her sleep. ‘She’s all right, that’s the main thing.’

‘I’ll go and change Evie,’ Jade offered, heading towards the door. ‘Give you time to get yourself together.’ She’d only had half the day already. God help the woman’s family if they had to rely on her for sustenance. ‘Oh… I brought your post up.’

Melissa glanced at the envelopes on the bed half-interestedly, noting the one on top was from her Garden & Homes store and emitting a soulful sigh, which possibly had something to do with the orders she hadn’t managed to fill. Aspirations beyond her dubious talents, that was Melissa’s trouble, Jade thought with a satisfied smirk. Perhaps she should have channelled more of her energies into looking after her husband, rather than ensuring he looked elsewhere.

‘I, um, opened one of the envelopes in error,’ she said, looking apologetic as she nodded towards them. ‘I thought I’d better let you know in case you wondered.’

‘Oh?’ Melissa leafed through the envelopes.

Jade stepped back towards her. ‘It’s just… Well, it’s a speeding fine, and I was worried you might think it was me. It was your car, you see.’

Melissa looked at her in surprise. ‘My car?’

‘It’s dated two o’clock in the morning,’ Jade went on, as Mel found it and read it. ‘And as I was back here by ten thirty, obviously I was concerned.’

Melissa scanned it, her expression growing more puzzled by the second.

‘Particularly when I noted the location.’

Melissa still looked puzzled. Gormless cow, she probably wasn’t familiar with the area, even though she was a policeman’s wife. Honestly. ‘It’s in the red-light district.’ Mentally rolling her eyes, Jade waited for the significance to sink in.

‘I thought maybe someone had stolen the car. You know, for joyriding or something.’

Got her, Jade thought, supremely pleased as Melissa’s expression turned to disbelief, swiftly followed by palpable fury.

‘What, and then returned it?’ she seethed. ‘No doubt they washed and valeted it too! That absolute bastard!’

Poppy, who’d been blissfully sleeping, oblivious to the trouble she’d caused, shot up. ‘Mummy, what’s wrong?’ she asked, kneading her eyes worriedly.

‘Nothing,’ Melissa said shortly, finally managing to stand upright. Pretty quickly, all credit to her. Jade watched interestedly.

‘But Mummeee, why are you angry?’ Poppy whined, shuffling towards the edge of the bed to go after her.

‘I’m not!’ Melissa snapped. Then she closed her eyes and drew in a tight breath. ‘I’m not, sweetheart,’ she said, attempting a smile. ‘Mummy has a headache, that’s all. Go with Jade, darling. I have some things I need to do.’

‘Come on, Poppet.’ Jade extended her hand. ‘You can help me feed Evie.’

Poppy’s gaze flicked worriedly to Jade. ‘But I don’t want to,’ she whimpered, bringing her knees up and shuffling towards the headboard, as though trying to make herself smaller. Yes, and Jade knew why.

‘Go!’ Melissa barked. ‘Now, Poppy, before I lose my temper.’

‘Come on, Poppet, come with me.’ Smiling reassuringly as Melissa turned back to whatever mad mission she was on, Jade walked towards the bed. She plucked up the speeding ticket, stuffing it in her pocket, before grabbing hold of the disobedient little brat’s arm. Poppy was shuffling further away, her face set in that infuriating petulant scowl she had.

‘We’ll watch a nice DVD later. How does that sound?’ Jade asked her sweetly, all but dragging a tearful Poppy to the door. Melissa, fortunately, was too busy pulling Mark’s clothes out of the wardrobe and going through pockets to notice.

Once on the landing, Jade whirled Poppy around to face her and leaned in to eyeball her meaningfully. ‘Who did your father say was in charge?’ she hissed, squeezing the child’s arm hard.

Poppy gulped back a sob. ‘You,’ she answered tremulously.

‘That’s right,’ Jade growled. ‘Now, do not cause me any trouble, sweetheart. Not unless you want me to tell your daddy you’ve been stealing. And, trust me, you don’t want me to do that. He’s already very annoyed with you.’