'You assaulted your detective inspector?'
Inés did not look amused. Her left eyebrow was doing overtime.
'Would you tolerate his routine groping?'
It was like a dead fish, flapping against her thigh. Miranda shuddered. She'd had enough of that with her last unsatisfactory bedfellow except that if her detective inspector had used the same anatomy, he would have been arrested for public indecency. It was just his hand. Cold and clammy digits were one of Miranda's pet hates. It was inching across again. She sighed. Why did he keep insisting on doing this? Last time she had accidently stabbed him very lightly with a fork. He couldn't prove otherwise. But here he was again, groping her thigh. He was a leg man, it seemed.
She did what she had been told by the police therapist. Channelled her anger into something more constructive before she blew a gasket. She picked up her piping hot chicken curry and deliberately sloshed it onto his lap, taking care not to spatter her trousers. He roared and pushed his chair back. She shoved her pot of sherry trifle perilously close to his crotch.
'Here, cool yourself down with that. And don't you fucking touch me again' she muttered low enough for him to hear. Her footsteps rang out as she exited, to some silent admiration for a change.
Miranda tossed her head dismissively.
'I never liked sherry trifle anyway.'
The eyebrow raise made another appearance but this time in grudging admiration.
'I underestimated you, detective Blake.'
Miranda rolled her eyes. Well obviously.
