"Baba!" Adalet sprung out from behind the corridor the moment Cihangir walked in, just getting used to the joy of bipedal locomotion. She scurried over to him, her chubby frame wobbling and naked and he picked her up and spun her round.

"What's baby been up to today, huh?" he asked. "Been a good girl?"

"Mmhmm," she mumbled and immediately began wriggling in his grasp. He set her down and gently pushed her back into the house, kicking his shoes off and following her in. The thought that the one-bedroom flat gig would not work out anymore now that there were three of them sprang into his mind, bright and vivid. He winced a little and not only from the shoe-bite.

The walls of the once perfect seeming but now frustratingly narrow living room were plastered in various shades of crayon, colour pencil, formula and baby-biscuits. Great swathes of fabric from the sofa cushions were being ripped off in increments every day. The TV was perpetually on and perpetually running Peppa Pig or some indistinguishable variant. And something was very definitely burning.

"Where's my other lady?" Cihangir ventured cautiously.

"Dying." A cough came from the general direction of the kitchen. He leaned past the doorframe and saw Fatema in the middle of the room, hands on hips and body bent forward, closely examining whatever was in the oven.

"Investigating something?" he asked.

"Um no? That's your job, weirdo. What if you put something in the oven and it's definitely not time to pull it out but it's probably burning? Because it looks okay but it's burning, right?" She turned to him, her petite face covered in sweat but absolutely sincere. She had an apron on, surprisingly but the tie around her neck had come loose and it flapped uselessly around her waist. The white t-shirt she had on, which he realised was probably his, was flecked with ragu and some red stuff he hoped was minced meat.

He sighed as theatrically as he could manage. "Let's do Chinese this time. It was Pizza yesterday, right?"

Her face lit up and she bounced towards him, standing on tiptoes to kiss him. "Eww," she said. "You taste like paperwork."

"You taste like bad lasagne." Cihangir took his tie off and hung it around the bedroom doorknob. He phoned the Chinese place and ordered as much as he thought the budget could manage. Then he picked Adalet up and carried her to the kitchen, watching Fatema try to do damage control. He tickled the baby's belly and pointed to her mother.

"Look at that. That's what you call a bad example."

Fatema stuck her tongue out at him and Adalet giggled. "How was work?" she asked.

"Pretty good. I think." He looked down a little. "No more overtime at least."

"I wouldn't bet on that yet. Plus, promotion equals huge salary not equal tiny house, right?"

"Hey, don't fight dirty," Cihangir said, pouring himself a glass of orange juice and sitting on a little plastic stool in the corner of the already cramped kitchen, baby Adalet on his lap. It was pristine, though, he had to admit and that was quite unlike Fatema's general character. She did it out of sheer requirement, she told him. Little pots lined the tops of the faux-timber cabinets, vines snaking out of them and making patterns all over the wall.

"Seriously, though," she said, turning to him and biting her lips. "House hunting. Add it to your stupid day planner thing if you need to but princess over there definitely needs more room than this."

"I know," he said. "There's a drop in rent a little further out of Kruv. Roomy, apparently?"

"We'll go tomorrow?"

"We'll go tomorrow."

"Yay!" she said and blushed a little. He knew she liked talking about this even less than he did. She had managed to assiduously avoid the topic for the past so many months but the elephant in the room was growing big enough to choke them.

The phone rang, far too loud and abrupt. It interrupted some telepathic waves that seemed to be floating around the room. They were still getting used to thinking together, something they both regarded with curiosity and wonder. It felt good for him to speak without speaking. "Probably the Chinese guys," he said, getting up. "Didn't know the way last time either."

"If you're going to get angry and say bad words again, you put my daughter down. The things this girl says when you're not around."

He handed Adalet over to her. "Says the girl who used Public Enemy as a lullaby."

He scurried towards the phone, ignoring the outraged squeal he heard from behind him.

"Hello," he said.

"Bossman," the reply came.

"Oh shit."

"See?" Fatema giggled from the kitchen. "That's where she gets it from."

"Bossman," Constable Dernig said through the phone. "Where are you? On the road?"

"No, I'm at home, Subby. What?" Subby was Damyan Police slang for Sub-Inspector but it had evolved to be a catch all phrase for anyone under you.

"Okay, first of all, don't shoot the messenger. Second, emergency meeting."

"What happened?" he asked.

"No clue, sir. I was on the expressway when I got the call. Looking for the next U-Turn. Apparently, Manuel's involved."

"He's over there?" Something snapped deep inside Cihangir when the scale of whatever this was going to be sank in. Emergency meeting. Manuel. Work.

"No, somebody's picking him up. Come over to headquarters asap, sir."

Cihangir put the phone down and saw Fatema leaning against the kitchen door. "No overtime, huh?"

"Don't be like that," he said, and he was surprised at how much actual venom his voice carried.