Free Trick of the Dark by Val McDermid Page A

one another.
    'You want more champagne?' Jay asked. They'd seen off a bottle when Magda returned from the Old Bailey, their relief making them knock it back like lemonade on a hot summer's day.
    'I don't want to move. I want to lie here and savour the moment.' Magda sighed. 'I feel like a weight lifted off me today. It's like I can draw a line under the past and face forward.'
    'I understand that.' Jay shifted so she lay on one hip alongside Magda, stomach pressed to hip, arm lying possessive below Magda's breasts. 'Justice has been done. Paul and Joanna are in jail for what they did to Philip. And you did your bit to make sure his death didn't go unavenged. So now you can be proud of yourself as well as feeling relieved.'
    Magda ran her fingers through Jay's hair. 'I owe it all to you.'
    'Don't be daft. I wasn't the one who had to stand up in the witness box and testify.'
    'No, but there wouldn't have been any case to testify in if you hadn't given it a helping hand,' Magda said fondly, kissing Jay's forehead.
    'Best if we put that behind us too, I think,' Jay said firmly. 'The less we talk about it, the less likely we are to let something slip.'
    Magda was too besotted to be offended by the suggestion that she might not be capable of keeping her mouth shut. 'I'll never forget it, though. What you did, it was risky. And you did it for me. You did it for me when we'd only just got together. Nobody's ever taken a chance like that on me.'
    'It didn't feel like taking a chance. I knew already you were the one for me. I knew how hard Philip's death was on you, and I had to do whatever I could to take the edge off the pain.' She snuggled even closer. 'Letting them walk free would have been an insult to his memory as well as an outrage to you. So I did what had to be done.'
    'If I needed proof that you're the one for me . . .' Magda leaned back and smiled. 'And now we can stop hiding. We can go out together, do the things that lovers do without worrying that we'll end up in some gossip column.'
    Jay chuckled. 'Chances are we'll still appear in some gossip column. But it doesn't matter now. It's not going to be a distraction in terms of the trial. We don't have to worry about some defence counsel insinuating that you had as much of a motive for wanting Philip dead as Joanna and Paul.'
    'I always said that was silly. I mean, if I'd known I wanted to be with you, I'd never have married Philip, would I?'
    'You might have wanted to be respectable,' Jay said. 'I know part of the reason you married him was because it was what everyone expected you to do.'
    'And I was always the one who did what was expected of me.' Magda smiled, an unfamiliar feeling of mischief bubbling inside her. 'At least, until now.'
    'Thank goodness. Of course, you might have wanted Philip's money. Just as decent a motive.' The lightness in Jay's tone was replaced by a more sombre note. 'Don't forget, it's still possible that somebody saw the two of us together on your wedding day. A meaningless encounter, they'd think. Unless they read some hack's innuendo and decided we were the evil plotters, not Joanna and Paul.'
    'With an imagination like that, you should be a crime writer.' Magda reached over and tickled Jay's ribs. 'Nobody who knows either of us could imagine something so ridiculous. So, where are you going to take me for our first public outing?'
    Jay pretended to think. 'I could get tickets for Arsenal at the Emirates on Saturday?' Magda pinched the skin over Jay's hip. 'Ow! I was only joking.'
    'I know. But some jokes are beyond the pale. Come on, you're the publisher of the coolest travel guides on the planet. You must have thought of something.'
    Jay leaned back on the pillows. 'I thought we might go to Barcelona for the weekend. A lovely boutique hotel just off the Ramblas, dinner somewhere glorious . . . What do you say?'
    'This weekend?'
    'That's what I had in mind. Is that a problem?'
    'I'm working on Sunday,' she said. 'And I thought I'd go up to