Helen had told her that she needed to go – she was keen to get all the calls over with before anyone started asking about Stephen Mitchell – and Pascoe had said that she would call again in an hour. Then she’d said it, quickly. Stay strong. Where the hell had that come from? It sounded weird, oddly intimate, touchy-feely. Not the sort of thing Helen was expecting, had grown used to, not … professional. Then again, perhaps it was just Pascoe’s job to make it sound exactly as though she really was Helen’s closest friend. Maybe she reacted differently when the hostage was a copper. Or maybe there was nothing strange at all about what Pascoe had said, and it was just another of the thoughts that had begun to reel and crash aimlessly around inside Helen’s head. She’d looked into the faces of plenty of drunks and sky-high addicts in holding cells, met enough people whose minds were not functioning properly, temporarily or otherwise. She’d listened to the ramblings. She recognised the patterns.
