“You know?” Jayne said.
“Know what?” Donald asked.
“She knows Lawrence didn’t kill Paul Erikson. That means she knows who did.”
“Do you, Gemma?” Ryan asked.
“I have my suspicions.”
“That means she isn’t going to tell us what those suspicions are,” Jayne said.
The police had taken Lawrence in for further questioning. Before getting into the car, DI Patel had, not at all politely, told me to make myself available for an interview in the morning. I might, or might not, do that, depending on what happened next.
We stood on the street outside the nightclub after the police had driven away. The doorman who’d admitted us earlier was still on duty. I gave him a cheery wave, but he looked straight through me. I suspected Albert had instructed him not to let us back in. A few patrons emerged, bedraggled, bleary-eyed, some of them looking quite the worse for wear. They pointedly crossed the street to avoid us.
Jayne wanted to go back inside to look for her missing shoe, but I convinced her that might not be such a good idea. “We must look awful,” she said.
“As though we’ve been in a bar brawl,” I said.
“How am I going to explain this to Andy?”
“Leave it to me,” Ryan said. “Hopefully we can sneak into the house before everyone is up and it won’t be necessary. Although it’s going to be hard to explain this,” he pointed to his right eye, “shiner, and that,” he pointed to my dress, “ruined garment to Gemma’s parents.”
“On the bright side,” Jayne said, “Andy won’t notice if I never wear those shoes again.”
Sir John Saint-Jean chuckled. He slapped Donald on the back with such force the older man almost pitched forward into the street. “Good man to have in a fight. Wouldn’t have thought it, to look at you.”
Donald beamed with pride. “My friends are worth it.”
Jayne gave him a hug, and he blushed.
A car came down the street. Its lights flashed twice and it pulled up in front of us. Sir John had called us a ride. “You people take this one,” he said. “I could use the walk.”
Ryan, Jayne, and Donald called good night and piled into the Uber. “Thank you,” I said to our rescuer.
He grinned at me and cracked his knuckles. “Always happy for a chance to practice the old skills. A chap can get rusty. You can pay me back when you find that book Paul was trying to unload.”
“There never was any book.”
He nodded. “I suspected as much. Unlike Pippa Doyle to care about a book, no matter the potential value. I assume it was the blackmail letter DI Patel referred to. No need for me to know what that’s about.” He started to walk away. Then he turned abruptly. “On my way here, the cabbie had the radio on. There’s been movement in the Australian freighter dispute. If you need any further assistance while you’re in London, don’t hesitate to ask.”
We drove through the quiet streets in silence. It was still dark, but a watery light touched the horizon to the east. Delivery trucks had started making their morning rounds, and a few yawning early-bird workers, along with yawning late-night partiers, were heading for the tube stations. Blinds were rattling and pavements swept as coffee shops and cafés opened for the day.
All was quiet on Stanhope Gardens. Except for the lamp in the front hall, the house lights were off. Only Horace met us at the door.
“What are we doing tomorrow?” Jayne gave the dog a hearty thump on his rump, and he wagged his stubby tail in appreciation. “By which I mean today.”
“Pippa has arranged a special private tour of Hampton Court Palace,” I said.
“About the case, I mean.”
“I have to think things over,” I replied.
I looked at my circle of friends. Jayne, always by my side. Donald, ready to do anything for us. Ryan, who loved me no matter how much trouble I caused him. I felt tears flood my eyes.
“Good heavens,” Donald said. “Aftershock has gotten to her. I have to admit, I’m feeling a mite wobbly myself. Unaccustomed physical exertion does that to a chap of a certain age.”
“I’m dead tired, but I won’t be able to sleep,” Jayne said. “I’ll pop up and check on Andy.”
Jayne and Donald went upstairs together, accompanied by Horace.
I smiled at Ryan. “Let’s go into the kitchen and find some ice. You need to put something on that eye.”
“Too late to do much good, I fear,” he said. “When Louise asks me how my vacation went, I can say it was eventful and not offer any explanation. That’ll drive her nuts.” Louise Estrada was his partner at the WLPD.
Ryan took a seat at the breakfast bar while I rummaged in the freezer for the ice. Unfortunately, I’d caught a brief glimpse of myself in the hall mirror as we passed. A bruise was forming on my right cheek, which would be noticeable for several days. Jayne had a deft hand with makeup when she wanted to, which wasn’t often, so I hoped she’d be able to disguise it tomorrow.
Tomorrow. Which was now today. Friday, two days before we were due to return home. An eventful vacation indeed.
I wrapped several ice cubes in a clean towel and applied them to Ryan’s face. He gathered me close and we stood together, feeling the beating of each other’s hearts and the soft exhale of breath.
Footsteps in the hallway, a cough, the sound of dog’s nails on the floorboards. Ryan and I pulled apart, and my father and Horace came into the kitchen. Dad looked at us both, shook his head, and said, “Productive evening?”
“Partially,” I said. “You told DI Patel where we were. How did you know?”
“Pippa thought you might need intervention in the event things went awry; she rang me and we conferred.”
“She conferred with both you and John Saint-Jean,” Ryan said, holding the ice pack to his face. “Pippa’s very good at maneuvering people. I wouldn’t want to play chess against her.”
“You would not,” I said. “She was the champion in the club at Cambridge. She gave up the game because she was getting bored with it.” Ryan yawned, and I said, “Why don’t you grab a few hours’ sleep? I want to check into a few things on the computer. If I can find what I’m looking for, I’ll let you know. I won’t leave the house without telling you. Promise.” I gave him my most honest smile and crossed my heart.
Ryan did not return the smile. “You’ll text me as you’re leaping into a speeding vehicle and consider that telling me so as to not break that promise.”
My father laughed and filled the kettle. “Tea, love?”
“Yes, please,” I said.
My mother was next into the kitchen, dressed in a lacy peach satin robe and fluffy slippers. She looked at Ryan. She looked at me. She looked at my father. “I ran into Jayne creeping down the hallway like an errant schoolgirl who’d climbed in through the window after an all-night party she was forbidden to attend. I simply do not want to know. You’ve started the tea, Henry. How nice.”
I used my father’s computer, after promising him I wouldn’t do anything illegal that might compromise him. If I did need to go places on the internet I wasn’t supposed to go, I’d get my iPad. But I knew that wouldn’t be necessary. What I needed to know would be publicly available and easy to find.
It was.
I waited impatiently until the reasonable hour of nine o’clock and then I made two phone calls. The first person agreed to meet me, the second was more cagey. “I suggest you come,” I said. “Or you will be reading about it in the papers.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Meet me, and I’ll explain.”
“How do I know this isn’t some sort of trick?”
“You don’t. Ten o’clock. Don’t be late, now.”
Jayne was in the kitchen with Dad when I emerged, the remains of tea and toast, croissants, butter, and strawberry jam between them.
“A good old-fashioned pub crawl,” Dad was saying as I came in. “Every time you come here with my daughter, I have all sorts of grand plans for things you can do in London, and you end up doing none of them. Next time, ditch Gemma and come alone with your young man.”
“Speaking of ditching Gemma,” I said. “I’d like your help this morning, Jayne.”
She’d showered and washed her hair and was once again her normal bright and perky self.
“Andy still asleep?” I asked.
“Yup. That bruise on your cheek is looking nasty.”
“It’s okay,” I lied.
My father indicated the newspaper in front of him, folded to the front page. “The Australian freighter has been allowed to go on its merry way and all parties are standing down. Everyone claims to have saved face. A rare good result all round. What do you need Jayne for, pet? Anything I need to alert Jasmine Patel about?”
“I have her number if I need her,” I said.
“Are we taking Ryan on this outing?” Jayne asked.
“Yes.” Ryan headed straight for the coffee pot and poured.
“How are you feeling?” I asked.
His hair was wet from the shower and he’d dressed in fresh khakis and a clean shirt. The bruising on his face had deepened and spread, and his right eye was swollen. “I’m feeling fine.” He twisted his jaw to check if it still hurt. It did.
Ryan and I could both be good liars when it suited us.
He wrapped his free arm around me and pulled me close. “If we’re going out, you need to change. You look like you had quite the wild night.”
“Which I did,” I said. “Dad, can you entertain Donald and Andy for a while this morning?”
“The sound of snoring coming from the room next to ours is deafening,” Ryan said. “I suspect Donald’s out for the count.”
“We’ll have to manage without his trusty brolly,” I said.
“Andy still hasn’t gotten accustomed to the time change,” Jayne said. “He won’t be up before noon.”
“I’ll take them on a pub crawl then,” Dad said happily.
“I went out for croissants earlier,” Jayne said to Ryan. “There’s more in the bag on the counter. Help yourself.”
“I will,” he said.
I poured myself a cup of coffee and took it upstairs with me while I changed and did something to make myself look moderately respectable once again. I decided not to ask Jayne to disguise the evidence of last night’s fight on my face. It gave me a slightly dangerous look that might prove to come in handy for what I had in mind.
“We’re going to the bookshop,” I said to Jayne and Ryan as we walked down Cromwell Road to Gloucester Road tube station.
“This time, Gemma, I insist you tell me what’s going on before we get there,” Ryan said. “I’m not going in blind, and I’m not letting Jayne do so either.”
Jayne nodded. “Right. Spill.”
“You spent time last night on the computer,” Ryan said. “This morning you have that gleam in your eye that tells me you’ve figured it out.”
“And the game is, once again, afoot,” Jayne said.
“That too,” Ryan said. “I’m not making threats, Gemma. I’m just asking you to, for once, trust me. Trust us.”
“Okay,” I said.
“Okay?”
I nodded.
“That was easier than I expected. First, how sure are you it wasn’t Lawrence?”
“Close to positive. Paul met with Lawrence at Pippa’s wedding, not with Alistair or Genevieve. The letter would be worthless against Lawrence himself. He has no reputation to worry about. But he knows the letter could compromise his father, and he wanted to avoid that. I find his actions in that one instance admirable. At that meeting they discussed terms under which Paul would hand over the letter. Lawrence is virtually broke. He has nothing to pay Paul off with. I believe he told Paul that, and that he needed time to raise the money.”
“Raise how?”
“His sister, Zoe. She’s not wealthy, but we’re unlikely to be talking big bucks here. Just enough to get Paul out of whatever hole he dug himself into. My impression of the Denhaugh siblings is that, if anything, her family and their reputation means more to Lady Zoe than it does to Lawrence, the heir. Lawrence might have thought he could convince her to pay to avoid scandal. After agreeing to meet again, Paul and Lawrence went their separate ways. Shortly after that, Lawrence left the hotel with Alistair and Genevieve.”
“He could have changed his mind. Gone home with his parents, and then snuck out to confront Paul, and things got out of hand. You saw him outside the shop the next day, right?”
“Yes, I did. He was there, on the street at any rate, after Paul died and the police were called. Lawrence might have been returning to the scene of the crime, but I consider it more likely he wanted to go to the shop with the intention of once again discussing the letter. Maybe he hoped to talk Paul out of his blackmail attempt, maybe try to haggle the price down. Bear in mind, as we saw earlier, Lawrence is a party boy. He likely doesn’t often get out of bed before noon. It’s possible he followed Paul that night, but I consider it unlikely. He went home with his parents, remember. If someone killed Paul because of the letter, why didn’t they then look for it? The shop was not searched, not even, as far as the police or I could tell, minimally.”
“We talked about this before,” Ryan said. “They panicked.”
“I don’t buy it. If this person intended to force Paul to hand over the letter, they would have been prepared for some resistance, and prepared to then take the necessary steps. It was late at night. A business district. No one around. No one due to come into the shop for hours yet. They had plenty of time to search. But they did not. They walked away. Turning out the lights and not bothering to lock the door behind them, I might add.”
“You believe Paul wasn’t killed for the letter?”
“He was killed for the letter, but not by anyone in the Denhaugh family. Two other people were mentioned in that letter. The teacher and the unnamed boy who’d also cheated. Of interest to me is that the door to the alley showed no signs of having been tampered with. Meaning, it was either left unlocked when Paul got in, which is possible considering he had a lot on his mind, or he let his attacker in, also possible, meaning it was someone he knew whom he did not believe meant him harm. Or, the third option, that person had a key.”
I stopped talking as we approached Gloucester Road station. We descended the stairs and while we waited for the next train, I told them what I knew for sure and what I believed.
The rest of the journey to Embankment station passed in silence.
A “Closed Until Further Notice” sign hung in the window at Trafalgar Fine Books, and the door was locked. I could see Tamara and Faye inside. Faye was flipping casually through the paperbacks on the back shelves, selecting one, flipping the pages, putting it back, and then taking out another. Tamara paced the room. I knocked lightly on the door. Both women started, and Tamara hurried to let us in. She locked the door behind us.
“Thanks for coming on such short notice,” I said to them.
“You’re late.” Faye slid the book in her hands back into place. “You said ten, and it’s half ten now.”
“Tube delay,” I lied.
Jayne and I walked into the shop, but Ryan remained by the door. Tamara looked between us. “What happened to you lot? Were you in an accident?”
“You might say that,” I said. “Is there any news about what’s happening with the shop?”
“The police let Paul’s dad in yesterday so he could have a look around and see what’s what. I don’t think he knows what to do with it all.”
“Are the police finished here?” Ryan asked.
Tamara nodded.
“Can you tell us what this is about?” Faye said. “I have a job interview this afternoon.”
“You don’t expect the shop to reopen?”
“No point in trying to save it, and Mr. Erikson knows that. It’s deep in debt and hasn’t turned anything more than pennies in profit for years. I’ve offered to help him sort things out when he’s ready, but that job won’t last for long.”
“What about you, Tamara?” I asked. “Are you also going to give Mr. Erikson a hand with inventory?”
“No. He doesn’t need two of us if there’s no customers coming in.” She gave me a small smile. “Losing my job here wasn’t my fault, so my grandma’s going to give me a loan to help me get through this year. Enough time, I hope, to finally finish my dissertation, get my degree, and be on my way. Whatever on the way means for someone with a PhD in English lit.”
“Works out well all around then,” I said. “Faye, you’ll now have the time and the privacy to search for the letter.”
Faye’s head jerked up. She gave me a sharp look and then allowed a blank expression to settle over her face. “What letter? I don’t know anything about any letter.”
Ryan remained by the front door, creating a solid obstacle to anyone who might want to make a break for it. Jayne had one hip resting against the sales counter.
“You’re wasting your time flicking through those books,” I said. “The letter’s been found. I found it, and only because I got to it ahead of you. It was precisely where you expected it to be. Between the pages of a book. Not a rare or valuable book, just a used paperback stuffed among all the others on the shelves hoping to be sold.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about. I have places to be.” Faye headed for the door. Ryan didn’t move.
“Get out of my way,” she said.
He focused his lovely eyes, the color of the ocean on a sunny day, on her and said nothing.
Faye swung around. “Tell your hired muscle to get out of my way, or I’ll have the both of you charged with unlawful confinement.”
“Feel free to call the police at any time,” I said. “DI Patel would have given you her number. Use it.”
Faye stared at me.
“Your son, Greg, is the unnamed boy mentioned in the letter sent by a teacher at one of England’s most prestigious private schools to Alistair Denhaugh. You don’t want the letter for blackmail potential against Alistair, but rather to get rid of it before it can be used against Greg.”
“I saw that letter,” Tamara said. “You told me it was a matter of national security. Now you’re saying it was about Faye’s son?”
“It is both,” I said. “It was an easy job finding out where Greg went to school. Lots of pictures on the internet. Photos of sports teams, all the rest, all of it available for anyone to see. Greg and Lawrence were friends at school. Greg was the other boy mentioned in the blackmail letter Alistair received from Richard Starecross, their teacher. Greg was not the initial subject of the blackmail; that was Lawrence Denhaugh. But obviously Greg would be compromised if it came to light.”
“That boy’s name wasn’t mentioned. It could have been anyone,” Tamara said. “What led you to Greg?”
“The first time I was here, moments before we discovered Paul’s body in the office, I noticed Faye shaking out a book before she rang the sale through. At the time it seemed like an odd thing to do, but I assumed she was checking for dead bugs or the like.”
“I’ll admit this shop’s getting run down,” Tamara said, “but it’s not infested. I do clean it now and again, you know.”
“Precisely. Only when I thought it over did I realize the stock isn’t in that bad of a condition. You are in the business of selling books. People aren’t going to return to any store in which they bought a book with a dead insect or rats’ teeth marks or droppings inside. You would have looked for those things when the used books arrived here initially. If she wasn’t checking for that, what was Faye looking for? Obviously something that could be slipped between the pages of a book. Nothing bulker than a single thin piece of paper.”
“Faye?” Tamara said. “Is that true?”
Faye said nothing, but the expression on her face told me I was right. In the early hours of this morning, not only had I found out that Greg Forgate had been school friends with Lawrence Denhaugh and they’d been roommates and had many of the same classes and teachers, but Greg was now rapidly climbing the ladder of the law world. It was rumored he had political ambitions, and his party of choice was looking for a safe seat for him to run in the next election. He was young, presentable but not excessively handsome, charming, successful, from solid working-class roots. Exactly the sort of fresh face the staid old political party needed.
The slightest whisper of cheating would be the end of their interest in him.
“Did you ask Paul for the letter, Faye?” I asked quietly. “Did he refuse to hand it over?”
She nodded. Her face had gone very pale.
“How did you know he had it?”
“He told me,” she said.
“He told you? He tried to blackmail you? What did he think he’d get?”
“Not blackmail me, no. He didn’t know about Greg. We went to the pub after the shop closed last Friday.”
“I remember that,” Tamara said. “He invited me too, but I had work to do on my paper. That was unusual; he didn’t normally associate with the staff outside of the shop at all.”
“It’s never been easy for me, putting my Greg through school,” Faye continued. “First that fancy school and then uni, even with all the scholarships he got. I don’t often get the chance to go out of an evening. I had more to drink than I’m used to that night, so I ended up telling Paul I was looking for another job. I didn’t see much of a future in this shop, and I didn’t want to wait until I was out on the street.” She took a deep breath. “He told me not to worry about it. Things were about to get a whole lot better. He had this letter, a letter that would compromise a very important titled individual. He’d been holding on to it for a while, waiting for the right moment to approach the person he had in mind. They’d pay, he told me, and pay big for the letter.”
“You thought that was okay?”
“What do I care about some rich mucky-muck with his fancy title and his reputation and his important job? I’ve worked hard all my life and don’t have much to show for it, do I? This job might not be the best, but it’s a lot better than many. But then—”
“You realized who else was mentioned in the letter.”
“Soon as Paul told me he had compromising material on Alistair Denhaugh, I knew. Greg was friends, if you can call it that, with Lawrence Denhaugh in school. For all that the boy was the son of the Earl of Ramshaw, I didn’t like him. Lazy, shiftless, stupid. He was a bad influence on my lad, and I knew it all along. Greg was just happy to be invited over half-terms to a big estate in Yorkshire. They never invited me, I can tell you.” The bitterness leaked out of her.
She was right about Lawrence, although I believe Genevieve would have been happy to invite her son’s friend’s mother, if Lawrence had asked her to. Greg himself likely didn’t want to remind the aristocratic family about his shop clerk single mother. The first time she mentioned him, Faye told me Greg was so busy these days he rarely visited her. I suspected he’d left her and his working-class roots far behind long ago.
“Paul said the name. Denhaugh. And I knew. My Greg came to me when it happened. He told me he was going to be expelled for cheating. When I said maybe they’d give him another chance, he said he’d had another chance. And he’d been caught cheating again. It was that Lawrence who talked him into it. Greg didn’t need to cheat, but Lawrence needed Greg to cheat for him. If Lawrence had been expelled, what of it? He’d go to another good school. But my Greg, no matter that he was head and shoulders above the rest of the students in his school, he’d lose his chance for a good education. I was beside myself with worry, but nothing happened. Greg was not expelled. He finished the year top of his class and got a good place in uni and then law school.”
“Did you ask him why there were no consequences?”
“I did not. We never mentioned it again. I assumed Lawrence’s family had taken care of the matter. Then, that night at the pub, Paul told me about this letter he’d found that would save the shop. Alistair Denhaugh had paid off a teacher at his son’s school not to report an incident of his son and another boy cheating.”
“Did Paul know the other boy was your son?” Ryan asked.
“No. He had no idea. But I knew. Who else would have been foolish enough to cheat to help the likes of Lawrence Denhaugh?”
“Faye,” I said, “why did you want the letter? Paul was trying to blackmail Lawrence, not Greg.”
“Lawrence Denhaugh wasn’t going to pay any money to save himself,” Faye said. “He’s never amounted to anything worth saving. As for his father, he’s retired now. He’s got nothing to lose either.”
I glanced at Jayne. She widened her eyes. Alistair had come out of retirement to help with the Australian freighter business. Not only Alistair, but the U.K. itself possibly had a great deal to lose if the letter had been made public. Alistair’s involvement in the situation had been briefly mentioned in the papers. Paul must have seen the story and realized the time was right to use his blackmail material. Faye had told me she paid little attention to the news. Faye, poor desperate Faye, didn’t know Lawrence’s father was back in the game. Meaning, he was highly blackmailable.
“Once Paul realized he had no leverage against the Denhaughs,” Faye said, “he’d be looking for who else was mentioned in the letter. The teacher, the other boy. Easy enough to find out who they were.” She pointed at me. “You did.”
“I did.”
No one said anything for a long time. Poor Faye, I thought again. Paul would never have been able to figure out that her son was the other boy. The idea of searching for Lawrence’s unnamed school friend likely didn’t even occur to him, and even if it did, he hadn’t had the investigative smarts to try to find out who the unnamed student was, much less the patience to dig deep enough. First roadblock encountered and he would have given up rather than work out a way to get around it. Even his attempt at blackmailing Lawrence wasn’t all that clever. He had an old letter in which Alistair once offered to pay off his son’s teacher. Small potatoes, really, in the wider scheme of things, for a peer with Alistair’s long, distinguished career and background. Pippa had also been wide of the mark here, and I was looking forward to telling her that. No one in any unfriendly government would have paid a penny for it.
“Paul told you about the letter on Friday,” I said. “He told you he was going to use it as leverage to get money to save the shop. The next night, Saturday, you came here intending to get the letter. You knew Paul was sleeping here. Did you ask him to give it to you? Did he refuse?”
“No.” Faye’s voice was voice low and calm. “I wasn’t going to waste my time asking. He’d never give it to me, and he’d guess fast enough why I wanted it. I opened the door with my key. Found him sleeping it off in the chair behind his desk. He’d been drinking and that made him slow and stupid. I made sure he wouldn’t be able to use that letter to ruin my Greg.”
Jayne sucked in a breath. Tamara dropped into a chair. Ryan took a step closer to Faye.
“After making sure, as you put it, why didn’t you search for the letter?” I asked Faye.
“At the pub he told me he hid it in a book. I did a quick search of some of his personal things in the office, but I didn’t find it. I didn’t want to hang around any longer than I had to at that time of night, and I was afraid of leaving traces of me behind. Even though I work here, and I go where I want. When I want. I watch all the police shows on telly. I knew no matter how much care I took, if I searched the shop for the letter that night, I’d leave some evidence behind. Rather let the police concentrate on those men who’d come in to talk to Paul. He was in debt, and the police would find out soon enough. Let them think he’d been killed because he couldn’t pay up. I knew the shop would be closed following Paul’s death, but I’d hold on to my key. I’d have time later to have a proper search. I would have found it too. If you hadn’t found it first.”
“The book might have been sold,” I said. Although the shop had been open for less than an hour that morning, before the police shut it down, it was still possible.
“I was prepared to take that chance. If anyone found it tucked between the pages of a secondhand book they bought, they’d more likely than not throw it out. Or even bring it back. That happens sometimes. Remember the wedding photo, Tamara?”
“Photo?” Tamara blinked in momentary confusion at the abrupt change of subject. “Oh, yes, I do. That old wedding picture. Someone bought a stack of books from us a couple of months ago. They found a wartime wedding picture in one and brought it back. It’s still around somewhere; no one has claimed it. We don’t keep track of who sold us what in the way of used books.”
“Enough talk,” Faye said politely. “If you don’t mind, I’ll be on my way now.”
“I can’t let you leave.” Ryan took out his phone. “I’m calling the police. They’ll want to talk to you.”
“Why?”
“Why? Because you told us you killed a man, that’s why.”
Faye laughed lightly. Her smile was bright and her eyes twinkled with amusement. “You didn’t believe that silly story, did you? You Americans are so naive.” She turned to me. “As for you, Gemma Doyle, interfering in matters that have nothing to do with you. Bad habit, that. Don’t count on Tamara being a witness. She’s as fanciful as anyone I’ve ever met. Still chasing after that useless degree when she should be settling down and starting a family.”
“Hey,” Tamara said.
Faye turned again so she was facing Ryan, guarding the door. Her feet were apart, her arms relaxed at her sides. “You will let me pass. If you try to stop me, I’ll resist, loudly. I’ll scream my head off, and that will not look good for you in court.” She pointed to the windows, through which we could see people passing by. A few even stopped to glance at the display of books. “You have the look of a copper about you, and I’m confident your employers wouldn’t like to hear you’ve been arrested for assaulting an older woman.”
“I still have the letter,” I said.
She spoke without bothering to look at me. “Are you going to blackmail me? You’re not the type.”
“You don’t know what type I am, but I don’t need to use it myself. I’ll give it to DI Patel.”
“The Metropolitan Police don’t engage in blackmail either.”
“Gemma?” Ryan said.
I nodded at Ryan and waved my hand. We were three, four counting Tamara, against one. But Faye was correct. If we tried to physically restrain her, we could find ourselves in a lot of trouble. Ryan, in particular. He nodded in return, understanding what I was saying, and he reluctantly stepped to one side.
“Thank you.” Faye brushed past him.
The chimes over the door tinkled as she let herself out.