They walked up the steps into the building and Alec awkwardly stood in the hallway as Emma unlocked her door.
"How long have you lived here?" He asked and Emma shrugged.
"Since my godfather passed, so about ten years. Sorry it's small and kind of messy," she added as she let him in. The studio was indeed small although not very for a person living alone. Alec could see her bed area, partially sectioned away from the rest of the flat by a large partition, and the rest of the flat made up a sitting area beside the kitchen.
"Go ahead and take a seat. Is white tea fine?" Emma asked as she set down her keys and set the kettle to boil before rummaging around in her cupboards.
"Uh, yes, thanks." Alec answered awkwardly as he settled into an armchair and Emma pottered about.
"So, you said you have a daughter." Emma said conversationally as she moved about. "Do you see her often?"
"Um, no, not at the moment." Alec answered and she glanced at him.
"That must be hard for both of you."
"She doesn't really talk to me." Alec confessed with a slight shrug. "She's… a bit upset with me."
"Uh oh. What did you do?" Emma asked, but at Alec's expression she moved on.
"Do you have any family in the area?"
"No. No, both my parents have passed away."
"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that." Emma said sympathetically.
"It's fine. My mother passed about ten years ago, cancer, and my father went peacefully about six years ago." Alec answered and Emma shook her head.
"I don't imagine it makes it less painful." She said as she handed him a mug of tea. "Although, I suppose you can guess I don't know myself."
Alec nodded before he said awkwardly, "Listen, I am sorry about bringing up your past."
"No, I get it." Emma sighed as she sat on her sofa. "And you know that I mean it when I say I do get how hard your job is. And here I was, a single woman living alone, no solid alibi for the night a child's killed - of course you'd be suspicious."
Alec nodded and again he hesitated before he offered, "You can talk to me about it. If it'll help to talk."
Emma tilted her head.
"It's a very long story."
"I've got all night." Alec shrugged and Emma cocked a brow.
"I'm pretty sure you need sleep." She told him.
But he answered grimly, "I don't sleep well anyway. Besides, have you looked at yourself? You look like you haven't slept a decent night since last Friday. And I'd bet it's because you keep remembering your dad's case."
Emma smiled a little sadly.
"Am I really that obvious?" She asked and Alec shrugged.
"Maybe I'm just that good." He answered and Emma's smile grew a little bit.
"All right. Since you went ahead and poked your nose into my troubles anyway and since you're offering, you may as well share the burden."
She settled back in her seat and began slowly, "It's been so long and for years I did my best just to never think of it. I'm not even really sure where to start."
"The beginning is usually a good place." Alec suggested and she smiled.
"I suppose it is." Emma sipped on her tea and her chocolate brown eyes lost focus a little as she went back in time in her memories.
"As you figured out, my dad was DI Thomas Kensington, one of the most decorated London officers of his time for solving the Lambeth Ring. My mum was a florist, and a hippie. I think she and my dad first got together because opposites attract, to tell the truth. They were as different as night and day."
Emma shook her head.
"My mum was the one who named me. Ocean Serenity Kensington. God, I hated my name growing up. My dad didn't like it much either, he'd just gone along with my mum when I was born but he always called me 'Ann'."
Alec smiled a little as Emma recalled her father fondly; then her expression darkened and she looked down into her mug.
"But, one day when I was fourteen, I woke up to find my dad dead in his study. He'd been strangled and there were signs of a fight and a break in. It made front page news for days, the famous DI Kensington killed in his own house. And you can imagine how the press were."
Alec could indeed picture that very easily.
"The most popular theory was a robbery gone wrong. My dad wasn't supposed to be back home that day, he'd been working on a case and meant to be at the station the whole night. And there were several valuables missing from the house. It was tough to investigate though, because the killer had cleaned the entire room afterward. And I mean literally everything, the detectives didn't even find blood on the broken lamp in the study. Only a couple of really faint blood stains on the floorboards and on the armchair cushions survived the scrubbing but they couldn't pull matches so it wasn't much help."
She sighed. "And people just weren't telling the truth. I'm sure you're very familiar with that but, a crowded place like London, it's not any easier to find the truth with so many people and so many people telling lies just..."
She trailed off while Alec nodded. He did understand that, too well. Alec thought sourly of Mark Latimer but he was surprised when Emma went on a bit bitterly.
"Everything came out in court later. The defence were trying to find someone else they could blame so everyone's lies were brought to light. How Mr. so-and-so had lied about being out with his mates and was instead shagging Mrs. so-and-so in the garage. How so-and-so's daughter was actually not at home but high on illegal drugs with her friends in the school car park so how could we believe her statement. How so-and-so was cheating on his girlfriend and another so-and-so was hiding petty theft."
Emma stared blankly ahead.
"You listen to some of the things that come out in court and you just think, is this what humanity is? Are we really all just liars and cheats and sinners? It's really depressing." She shook her head. "That's why I really admire people like Ellie and you, Alec. You guys do this work, you see this kind of thing more than the rest of us and you don't crack."
"Is that why you're so strict about abiding the law?" Alec questioned and Emma gave him an odd look. "Miller told me when she was defending your innocence at the beginning of Danny's case."
"Partially. I've always been like that to some extent, my dad being a police officer and all. I guess he must have instilled a strong moral compass in me from when I was little or maybe it's hereditary. But yeah, after seeing all that I did in that trial… I just thought, I don't want to be like that. I don't want to have something I'd want to hide forever, something I'd be so ashamed of if it became public that I'd derail a murder inquiry just to save my own skin. I can do without the curiosity or the greed or the lust or whatever else; I'd rather be able to be proud of who I am."
Alec digested that in silence while Emma took another sip of her tea. He finally asked slowly, "How was your mother caught? It was reported the police had already arrested a local robber at the time; the press said it was a robbery gone wrong."
"Yeah, they arrested the guy and the press had a field day." Emma grimaced and looked back at her mug.
"But my mum… she'd been acting weird for weeks. She was all weepy in front of the police and papers, and whenever she saw me in the house; but I never heard a sound coming from her when she thought I wasn't listening. But what triggered my suspicions was really something she'd said when we were first questioned after they found my dad. I didn't think of it at the time, I was too shell-shocked but I remembered it later. She'd told the police she was in bed, asleep, by about eleven the night my dad died."
"Time of murder?"
"The coroner had put it at between 9pm and 2am; I found out all the details later when the case went to court. Given the signs of break in and tracing my dad's steps, the police estimated that the murder had likely happened closer to midnight when my dad approximately came home from work, or later."
"What was so odd about your mother being asleep?"
"My mum didn't sleep that early, only ever slept before midnight if she was sick. She and dad often fought when they thought I couldn't hear because she'd complain he kept coming in late and he'd argue she was always awake anyway and that she was the one who banged about and kept him awake past midnight even on the days he did come in early. And for someone who had slept a good seven or eight hours by her own statement, she looked absolutely exhausted in the morning although I think we all put it down to shock and grief at first."
"So you suspected her of killing your father?" Alec asked and Emma turned her head away.
"I suspected she knew more than she let on. She wasn't likely the killer, they were looking for a man and my mum definitely didn't have the strength to fight my dad physically. But once that suspicion started niggling in my head, it was like I was going to go mad. I kept noticing all the little things, related and not, and I couldn't tell at first if it was just my own paranoia or if I was seeing proof of my mother's guilt."
Alec could understand that too; it was his job after all to be suspicious. And Sandbrook had almost sent him mad, so he knew exactly what Emma was describing.
"I realized later it was a bit of both but it was my gut instinct that was right in the end. I'd correctly noticed the crying, or the lack of when there were no witnesses. I also noticed her impatience, frustration and erratic nightly behaviour that were supposedly due to grief, which was odd because I knew she didn't love my dad anymore, if she ever really had. Turned out later that she was getting frustrated because of guilt… and because she couldn't contact or be with the man she was cheating on my dad with."
Alec paused, slightly taken aback. He'd known, of course, that the culprits of the famous case that he'd read about as a young officer had been the wife and her secret lover. But he hadn't expected Emma to say it so plainly and so emotionlessly.
"She slipped up eventually. There were signs before, he was a bit touchy with her at the memorial, he came by to give condolences and I'd notice the way they were looking at each other. Again though, I thought I was being paranoid. And it wasn't like she was the only person I was suspecting. Once they arrested the other guy, though, I think she thought it was done. I caught her speaking on the phone with Barlow in the bathroom."
Emma rubbed her face, laughing a little morbidly as she recalled that night.
"I didn't say anything then to let her know I'd heard her, but I stayed awake the next couple nights, waiting for her to do something. She eventually snuck out and I knew she'd gone to him. I searched her bedroom and found a set of relatively new babydolls I knew she wasn't wearing for my dad. There were tiny bloodstains on one of them, even after it was washed. I think she was wearing it under her clothes or something the day the police came looking at the house; whatever the case, they hadn't found it before."
Alec stared at her but Emma just looked back down at her tea as she said softly, "I took it and reported her to the police."
Alec didn't say anything but he was a bit stunned by this piece of information. He knew you couldn't trust the media to be accurate but it had never come up anywhere that the daughter had been the one who found the blood-stained lingerie, only that Emma had testified against her own mother in trial. Everyone had assumed the police had found the evidence. Emma took a deep, shuddering breath before she looked at Alec with a wry smile that wasn't quite able to mask the sorrow in her brown eyes.
"I think a part of me just wanted to be sure it wasn't her. But the blood matched both my dad and Barlow. They took her and Barlow in for questioning. She cracked first and told the truth. She'd been cheating on my dad for a couple weeks. My dad came home early from work and caught her. He was furious and threatened to throw her out with a divorce and to charge the other guy. Barlow blew it, he feared the rap he would get, he ended up strangling my dad. And my mum not only watched but she helped him clean up afterward. That's why she was so tired the next morning."
Alec gazed at her sympathetically as Emma tucked her chin on her knee and stared back into her mug.
"But, that wasn't the worst part. Barlow pleaded not guilty even with my mum's confession. Tried to drag us through the whole trial."
Emma swallowed; she still had nightmares about that day when Barlow had pleaded not guilty.
"He was a lawyer and thought he knew how to get out of the whole thing. Scariest part was that he was right. As the trial went on, I could see he might get off because all he needed was three people on the jury to believe there was a possibility he hadn't done it. He had an alibi even if it wasn't great. He didn't deny he had been having an affair with my mum but he argued that was how his blood got on her babydoll and that he hadn't killed my dad; that she was trying to pin it on him because he broke things off with her. Claimed she was crazy and obsessed."
Emma shook her head and she leant back, her head falling back on the sofa.
"But as you probably know, a witness came forward. A woman from Liverpool, who had been in London for business for the week when my dad died. She'd been out really early the morning my dad was found, I think it was 4am or something, on her way to the office, and she saw someone matching Barlow's description leaving my house by the front door. She didn't think it was weird, she assumed he lived there because someone closed the door behind him. She hadn't reported it because her kid got into an accident that morning; she hadn't watched the news all week so she had no idea what had happened. By the time she caught up, my dad's death was old news. No one goes back to read about last week's murder after all."
Emma smiled without humour while Alec just listened quietly.
"But then news of the trial came and she happened to read the details; realized Barlow was the guy she'd seen and that he didn't live at my house. Barlow didn't look anything like my dad, my dad was kind of short and normal build. Barlow was tall and pretty big, he liked bodybuilding. Not many people could match his description and none of the other suspects did."
Emma grimaced, her tone going hard as she finished.
"Press absolutely loved it. Miracle, they called it. Barlow was caught, got life. My mum got ten years. That's all she got. Ten years for helping a man who killed my dad." Emma's voice cracked just a little.
"I'm sorry." Alec murmured.
"She still went screaming though." Emma muttered. "And crying."
Alec hesitated as another question occurred to him. "Is she still alive then?"
"I don't know. I never kept contact. She's dead to me." Emma answered flatly. "My godfather took me in. Harry was already divorced by that stage and he was living in Manchester. I did homeschooling because I couldn't stand going out anywhere. I asked him to help me change my name when I was sixteen since he was my legal guardian with my mum in prison. I changed it to my dad's mum's name and just picked a new surname."
"You didn't take on your godfather's name?" Alec asked and Emma shook her head.
"I was scared my mum would try and track me down. So I changed it completely, picked a surname at random and that was that."
Alec nodded thoughtfully. It made sense but another thought had occurred to him when Emma had spoked of changing her name. "And the rest of your family?"
"As far as I know, my grandparents are dead." Emma answered with a shrug. "My father's parents at least definitely are and he was an only child. My mum ran away from home when she was a teenager but she said her parents were dead. I don't know if she meant literally or if she meant they were dead to her but I never saw them either way so it didn't really matter."
"And no one came forward after they heard the news?" Alec asked in surprise; that was unusual.
But Emma shook her head.
"Oh no, plenty of people came forward. Suddenly I had an aunt and an uncle from all over the bloody country." She said scathingly. "Especially when people found out my dad had left everything to me. But I didn't trust anyone who came forward. My own mum had proven that familial ties don't mean much."
There was a long beat of silence following Emma's words before Alec murmured, "Thanks - for trusting me with all this."
"It feels… good, actually." Emma confessed as she leant back on her sofa again. "Well, not… saying it. I haven't thought about it in so long that it kind of hurts to think about it, to remember it. But… I feel better now."
"Maybe I should do therapy." Alec half-joked and Emma laughed at him. Really laughed.
"Oh, God, no, you'd be terrible. I can just picture you now, telling patients to stop whinging about their problems when you've dealt with murderers and thugs." She chuckled and Alec joined her.
"Ah, you're probably right."
They settled back comfortably before Alec asked, "Can I ask one more question?"
"Sure."
"You said you were hurt by fraudsters like Connelly." He began carefully and Emma frowned.
"Did I?" She asked and he nodded.
"You were shouting it when we came in to take him out of the Latimer house." He explained.
"Huh." She scrunched her nose. "I don't remember that, I was probably too angry. I hope Beth doesn't remember that later."
Alec waited patiently and Emma made a face.
"Well, you can probably guess but there was a woman. Greying red hair, green eyes I think, and a soft voice. Funny thing is, I remember her voice really well even now." Emma sighed. "She promised she could talk to my dad for me. Kind of like Connelly was doing to Beth. I was fourteen, terrified, grieving and just really lonely. I think I wanted to believe her."
Emma grimaced again and Alec did the same sympathetically.
"You can imagine what happened. She got what she wanted. And all I got for years, even after she was gone, was wondering if it was possible, yearning for my dad, to talk to him. But he was gone. And nothing could make it better but things could sure as hell make it worse."
Her hands had tightened around her mug, her knuckles going white. Alec reached out and took her hand gently, prying it looser. She looked at him then and she became sheepish.
"Sorry."
"Don't be." He shook his head and set his mug cup so he could lean forward on his knees. "I asked and I can understand it. I haven't been through it from your perspective but..."
"But you've seen it happen enough times." Emma finished for him.
He nodded and Emma hesitated before she asked, "Did the same thing happen then? Sandbrook?"
Alec stilled and he looked at her. He didn't look angry just surprised but Emma still felt unusually apologetic as she explained, "I looked it up when Laurie mentioned it during that public meeting days ago."
"Yeah, there were similar things on Sandbrook." Alec answered heavily. "But it's always the same with the big cases."
There was a beat of silence and Alec began gruffly, "I suppose it's my turn to talk now."
"You don't have to tell me if you feel you owe me." Emma interrupted, shaking her head. "I told you about my past because I wanted to, even if you did go snooping. And I told you… because I was finally ready to talk about it. So don't feel obligated."
Alec stared at her oddly and he asked slowly, "Are you… always this understanding?"
"You've seen me when I wasn't." Emma smiled and she gestured at the empty mugs between them. "Do you want another cup?"
"No. I think I should head back." Alec admitted and they both stood up. And stilled as they realized they were much closer than they had realized when Emma had been curled back in her sofa.
Alec swallowed as he looked down at her. Emma was looking back at him, almost like she had that morning at the hospital. Unlike then, however, when she'd had a bit of a deer-in-headlights expression, she looked surer of herself. And Alec had to ask.
"Why did you trust me with your past?"
Emma stared up at him and she turned the question back on him, "Why did you trust me to keep your secret?"
He stared at her, his own answer reflected back at him in her eyes. This time when he leant in, she didn't move.
At first, his lips were hesitant as they touched hers tentatively, as though testing her. When she didn't push him away, Alec grew more confident, his lips melding against hers and his hands wrapping around her waist while Emma's hands slid up his arms and around his neck as she answered his kiss. It wasn't rushed and it wasn't slow; instead, it was like the mutual attraction that had grown between them. Steady and just right.