'Her own mother, though. God!'
Gill lifts her wine glass and waves it dangerously, sketching a circle of outrage in the air before bringing it to her lips. Rachel watches, blinks slowly.
'I mean,' the glass is poised in mid-air, 'I've seen it all. Everything. This job. It's not the first time.'
Rachel's eyes are fixed on the fingernails that tap and hold the glass, the same colour as the swirling wine. As much as she'd like to see and not hear, see all of Gill's delicate features and not hear any of her hard brutal words, she can't block out the sound.
'But her own mother. You'd never think she was capable of it, if you didn't do a job like ours, would you?'
Rachel needs to be a whole lot more drunk. She needs to be incapable of hearing, incapable of thinking, incapable of speaking. But she's not. She's just at the stage of saying something that will get her in to trouble.
'It's not as if she was a proper mother though.' Gill's eyebrows shoot up. Rachel keeps going.
'Not like your Mum, or Janet's. She barely even knew her.' The eyebrows dropping and eyes narrowing make Rachel notice the defensive tone in her own voice.
'They were practically strangers,' she mumbles, hoping that will be an end of it.
'Strangers don't brutally murder each other.' Gill says blankly. Rachel doesn't even get her mouth half open to protest before Gill cuts her off.
'Well, sometimes they do, but not like that. The whole psychology of that killing was personal.'
'So if they're pretty much strangers to each other, why do you even suspect her?' Rachel can't help herself. She doesn't even know why she's fighting for this woman, who definitely is a stranger to her, just another suspect encountered in the line of duty. She doesn't understand why she's suddenly worth starting a row with her boss over.
'That's the point.' Gill slams her glass down hard. The table quivers. It's too late to back out now. Rachel has started something that she cannot stop.
'They're not strangers. There's enough feeling and history between them to make anything possible.'
Rachel is getting hot. Unbidden, she hears her own voice, the words of two days ago... Why don't you just get out of my life? I never wanted to see you again. I never want to see you. Her own mother's face - she can't remember Sharon's expression when those words came flying at her, vision twisted by rage. Rage. Anger. Hurt. Betrayal. All those excuses that Rachel has heard so many times before. Motives.
Gill is looking at her funny. Rachel grabs the bottle and tops her glass up, swigs half of it back in one mouthful before even thinking to offer it to Gill.
'Crime of passion.' Rachel blurts it out as she's pouring the wine.
Gill's eyes snap up and Rachel's hand slips sideways even though she's got her eyes glued to what she's doing. Wine almost splashes everywhere but Gill shifts her glass, ever so slightly, just in time. There's a small slosh in the glass and tiny drops fly up to spatter their hands. Rachel raises her head.
'A crime of passion, that's what the psych said, right? That's not mother and daughter.'
'There's all different kinds of passion Rachel.'
Gill holds her gaze. Rachel opens her mouth to speak then realises that she has no idea what she is about to say.
'Hey,' Gill says gently, touching Rachel's knee. 'What's up?'
Rachel shakes her head and tries not to jump, either away from or towards the hand. She's not sure which she would way rather go. She's not sure what's up with her tonight either. Something is bugging her but she doesn't know what and she'd rather not try and work it out. Things won't leave her alone, images keep niggling at her mind. That woman, Helen, with her scruffy jeans and her skinny, snappable arms and her enormous eyes. Rachel has sunk a bottle and a half of wine already but she still hasn't manage to drown the image of those eyes yet. She doesn't get it. She doesn't usually let work get to her like this. And nor does Gill. What is with that? The boss has been going on about this woman for the past half hour. A strange dark feeling that has been lurking in her belly all along starts to take shape. Rachel thinks of the way Gill watched Helen down the corridor from custody. What was she thinking? What's she thinking now?
Gill's hand pressing harder on Rachel's knee brings her back to the present, the table in the pub, the late hour, the nearly empty bottle of red wine, Gill.
She wants to stop thinking, badly. The drink isn't working. There is only one thing she can think of that will do it tonight.
She rests her hand on top of Gill's for a second.
'Can we get out of here?'