"I might have forgotten," I said as we stood in the doorway of Socrico's hottest pub, "that it's a Friday night."

The Silver Star was packed with people talking, laughing, and shouting at each other. Everything was lit up in electric blue -- including the glass bar in the centre. It was a sprawling three-hundred-and-sixty-degree masterpiece so large that there was a robotic chef inside the pillar in the middle. Two human and two robot bartenders were working around it, but customers could also order using the touchglass surfaces on their own tables. Some of them were doing neither, and instead just dancing to the electric music in the limited walking space.

"I don't think there's a free table," Alex said.

"There probably is upstairs," I replied. "Have a look while I order. Do you want your usual?"

"Yes, please."

Alex moved through the crowd towards the glass staircase at the back of the room, and I fought my way to the bar. Gem Robinson, her hair dyed peach today, was one of the humans working behind it. She served a cocktail jug to a group of young grinders and glanced over her shoulder as they paid. Her eyes landed on me and lit up.

The grinders took their jug, and she hurried over with a grin. "Amber! You haven't been in for ages!"

Gazes turned our way at the sound of my name. I dipped my head, letting my dark hair fall across my face like a curtain. "When I'm not on duty, I've been trying to keep a low profile."

"Oh! Sorry." Her excited smile stayed. "Are you here with the others?"

"Just Alex."

"Ooh! Is it a date? But you're still dressed for work!" She picked up two glasses from beneath the counter and started preparing our usual drinks. A lime crusher for Alex. Just water for me.

"It's a date and a work enquiry. I know this place is usually packed, but you pay a lot of attention to your customers. I was wondering if you could confirm what time someone left last night? She's called Ri--"

"Janet Temple? The wife of the guy who died at Socrico University? Yeah, it's all over Xplora. You're finally doing the Trials with Alex!" Gem pushed our drinks across the counter. "You're eating as well, right?"

Shock almost paralysed me. "Janet was here? When, exactly?"

"Uh, kind of early in the evening. I noticed her just after seven, and she'd left before nine. She was with some other guy, but I don't think he was her husband. He looked a bit younger than the picture in the news article, and I think his hair was different. Brown? Plus, he wasn't nearly as good-looking as Lonn Temple."

Hell. I tried not to dwell on the fact that the man Gem found attractive was thirty years older than her. And dead. "Janet was definitely out of here before nine?"

"Yeah." Gem closed her eyes. "Maybe even half eight."

"What about a woman called Riannon Sotello? Do you know her?"

Still with her eyes shut as she consulted her memories, Gem shook her head. "I don't recognise the name."

I found Riannon's Xplora profile on my tabphone. "What about her face?"

Gem leaned over the counter and had a good, long look at my screen. "Oh! Yeah, she was in here last night. Also with a man. He looked older than her."

"Can you remember roughly what time they came and went?"

"They might have come just before Janet had left, or not long after she'd gone. They left much later. Maybe eleven?"

At least that matched up. I pocketed my tabphone. "Thank you."

"No problem. I'll go and put your order through. Where are you sitting?"

"Somewhere upstairs, hopefully, if Alex has found a table."

"I'm sure he has -- it's a bit quieter up there. Go to him, woman!"

I paid using the eye-scanner, and then I heeded her words. Or tried to. Walking across the room was difficult when legs were stretched out from tables and handbags had been left miles away from their owners.

Just as I reached the glass staircase, a heavy hand landed on my shoulder. "Hey, sweetheart!"

I turned my head. My assailant was an overweight, middle-aged man with crude features and a balding head. The breath that carried his words stank of beer.

My stomach clenched. I'd had to grin and bear dealing with drunks a lot as a police officer and a patron of The Silver Star, but it always made me break out in a cold sweat.

I took a deep breath and stepped forward.

He moved to block me. "Don't be shy. I just wanted to tell you how pretty you are."

He reached out as if he was going to touch my cheek. I sidled around him, my knuckles white on the drinks.

"Don't be a spoilsport." He followed me as I set foot on the stairs. "What, you with someone?"

"Yes," Alex said coldly. "She's with me."

I looked up. He was almost at the bottom of the staircase, his jacket absent and his sleeves rolled up. He stopped on the step above me and clamped his hand around my arm.

"Okay, mate, okay," the man slurred. "I didn't know, did I? Hey, wait a minute! Aren't you that couple from the news?"

Alex took his lime crusher from me, then moved his painful grip to my free hand. "Come on."

My legs moved only using muscle memory. I glanced over my shoulder as we ascended, my heart pounding, but the man had melted back into the crowd.

We reached the top of the stairs and surfaced in a room as bright and noisy as the ground floor. Two women in their twenties gyrated on a table at the end of the room. A group of men were roaring with laughter.

Alex squeezed my hand and stopped us next to a glass table at the fringes of the room, reserved by the jacket he'd thrown across the surface. Right behind it was the door leading to the balcony where Alex and I had shared our first kiss.

I smiled and released a long breath, feeling my spirits rise again. "This is perfect."

Alex pulled my chair out for me. Butterflies stirred inside as I sat down. We rarely had dates away from our flats because we could never stay in one place for long without being disturbed. But all the journalists of Socrico who were interested in us would be at Dixon's press conference tonight.

We also rarely had dates that didn't include the topic of work, but today's exceptions ended there. As Alex sat down and swept his jacket off the table, I leaned forward and raised my voice. "According to Gem, Riannon's new alibi is sound. But Janet's isn't."

Alex picked up his lime crusher. "Gem saw her?"

"She said she noticed Janet not long after seven, and she left at around half eight or just after. And she was with a man who was not Lonn."

"Is every person of interest having an affair?"

I scoffed. "It's starting to look that way. We'll have to pay Janet a visit tomorrow after we've tracked down Nora Fitzroy."

Alex rubbed the stubble across his jaw. "You know, if Janet left a little before nine..."

"She might have had the time to kill Lonn? Yeah. And, I know, as his wife she's the most likely. But she's not a researcher, so I don't see how the missing folder would fit in."

"Maybe Janet knew more about Lonn's work than she was letting on today."

A plate of pasta was suddenly slammed down in front of me. "Are you two seriously talking about the investigation on your date?" Gem rounded the table and served Alex his steak, fixing us both with a stern expression.

My sergeant looked to me for guidance on our defence.

"Gem," I said, "a lot is riding on this --"

"I know." She put her hands on her hips. "That's why you need some downtime!"

We exchanged a guilty look and made an effort to follow her advice as we started eating. Alex talked about how his family were in Rosek. I talked about my mother's work at the veterinary practice she ran and how my father was getting on. When we'd covered that polite ground, we were quiet again for a while, unsure of what else in the world there was to discuss. But slowly, carefully, and then naturally, we managed to just talk.

Time flew by, and when I looked at my empty plate, I realised how few of our conversations weren't about work.

We eventually stood up and went back downstairs. The ground floor was even busier than it had been when we'd arrived, and it took us five minutes to walk from one end of the room to the other. In the street, the air pulsed with dozens of muffled nightclub songs, and the light was starting to fade.

I shivered as we joined a crowd of Friday night party-goers, and Alex draped his jacket over my shoulders. I put my arms through the sleeves, breathing in the scent of coffee and lemongrass. He took my hand and linked our fingers together, and we walked to my flat like any other couple.

When we reached my front door, I felt his gaze on my face. I knew he wanted to spend the night with me, but that he still never presumed he could.

I opened the front door and stepped in, turning to look at him over my shoulder. All I had to do was smile.

He followed me inside.