“I don’t bloody know.” Rosie stabbed at a cherry tomato, sending it spiralling across the table. “I haven’t got a bloody clue. One minute we’re planning a day of crap films and popcorn, and the next she’s slamming the damn door on me.”
Kash carefully set the tomato back onto a lettuce leaf. He must have known there was more to come, because he stayed quiet, letting her continue.
Rosie dropped her fork onto her plate. She’d ordered the first thing on the menu, but she’d hardly touched her pasta, and the dressing on the side salad was turning her stomach. “I even bought the films and left them on her kitchen table. I’m so fucking stupid,” she said, burying her face in her napkin. “But it felt like we were just getting something started.”
He pulled at her hand, untangling the cloth and wrapping his fingers around hers. “Why don’t you go and see her?” he asked.
“I can’t,” she whispered. “She sent me away.”
“Don’t you think you deserve to know why?” He made it sound so reasonable, as if Jem was the one at fault, but he hadn’t seen how devastated she’d looked standing in the rain on the driveway.
“I don’t want to push her,” Rosie said. “I don’t want to make things worse.”
He squeezed her hand. “Worse than this?”
She shook her head, her throat prickly with grief. “I miss her, Kash. I really fell for her. Fluffy was smitten as well, and he’s a capricious little demon.”
“I could tell,” Kash said. “Not about the damn dragon, but I could tell with you. Things didn’t bother you like they usually do: late finishes, that scrote grabbing your arse, Smiffy smearing Bovril all over the kitchen. Even Steph couldn’t get a rise out of you.”
She frowned. “I whacked that scrote with my baton.”
“Yeah, but you didn’t break anything, and you got him a brew once he’d apologised.” Kash stole a piece of her garlic bread. “Bottom line is: Jem’s good for you, and you’d be an idiot to just walk away from this mess.”
“I am an idiot, Kash. You know that better than anyone.” She tried to laugh it off, but she knew he was right.
He picked up the fork she’d abandoned and pushed it back into her hand. “Eat your lunch and get a decent night’s sleep.”
“Then what?”
He crunched into the bread, smearing grease and garlic all over his chin. “Then pull on your big-girl knickers and phone her.”
* * *
The voice mail Steph had left for Rosie was curt and succinct. “I need to go over your interview and statement. Call me.”
Rosie slapped her keys onto the kitchen counter. Her lunch with Kash had killed a couple of hours, but if Steph was working the Sunday on overtime, she would be dragging the shift out till the death, and she would expect Rosie to heed her request. The girls’ positive identification of Kyle Parker had made a more detailed debrief inevitable, and, as usual, Steph’s timing was impeccable.
Rosie looked at her messages again. The slightest word from Jem would usurp Steph in the running order, but there was nothing beside a text from her mam, so she curled under the blanket on the sofa to return Steph’s call.
Steph was still aloof when she answered, clearly irritated that Rosie hadn’t jumped to it and rearranged her weekend.
“Did you have your phone switched off?” she said. “I’ve tried calling you umpteen times.”
“It was on.” Rosie didn’t attempt an explanation. She’d checked her mobile whenever it had buzzed, and let it go to voice mail on seeing Steph’s name.
“Are you still with Jem?”
“No, I’m at home.” Rosie somehow managed to keep her voice level. The last thing she wanted was Steph smelling blood in the water. “I’ll meet you at Clayton in half an hour.”
Her eyes strayed unbidden to the phone’s screen as she hung up: no messages, no missed calls. She debated texting Steph to cancel their meeting and then drawing the curtains and locking the front door. She could put her jammies on and drown her sorrows in something strong enough to let her sleep; it wasn’t as if a hangover would make her feel any worse. Instead, she retrieved her keys and walked out into the rain.
The Clayton car park was unusually busy for a Sunday, suggesting plenty of staff were taking advantage of the open season on overtime. Unable to face a mob of concerned colleagues, Rosie nosed into a space in the far corner and waited out the shift changeover. She would undoubtedly run into people who knew her, but at least their numbers would be fewer. Turning up in plain clothes got her past the locker room unscathed, and she was halfway along the main corridor when Smiffy came out of the kitchen and almost collided with her. His delighted yelp brought out most of his van, their brews and butties in hand.
“Good to see you, love,” he said, his customary gruffness tempered by genuine warmth. He squeezed her biceps, the closest he would ever come to giving anyone a hug, and pressed a KitKat into her hand. “You look peaky, PC Jones. Get this down your neck.”
“I will. Thanks, Smiffy.” She leaned against a motivational poster featuring a line of shiny-faced bobbies all ready to go out and do their best. Most of them sported Biro fangs and moustaches. “Are you helping investigate the fire?” she asked. Smiffy ran her shift pattern, so it was a fair assumption, given that he was here on his day off.
“Aye. We’ve been on the house-to-house all weekend, and we’re fingertip-searching this afternoon. It’s taken a while to shore up the foundations and make the building safe.”
“Did anyone see anything that night?” She would rather get an update from him than attempt to wheedle one from Steph. She never knew what Steph might want in exchange.
He took a swig of his cup-a-soup, crunching a crouton as he considered. “Not much. A vague description of a stocky white man running from the rear of the house. He had either”—Smiffy began to check the options off on his fingers—“a cap pulled low, a woolly hat on, or a hood up, and he might’ve had a beard or possibly a scarf. It was dark and already smoky by then, and our best witness was smacked off his tits. The house next door but one, allegedly home to a law-abiding family of excellent repute, has CCTV fixed to every other brick, and it caught a dark SUV driving away at speed. No make, model, or plate visible.” He blew on his soup, sending steam twirling toward the ceiling. “Sorry it’s not better news, love.”
“It’s not your fault, mate. Cheers, though.”
She walked toward the Major Crimes office with all the enthusiasm of a condemned woman, clutching her KitKat as a lacklustre final meal. Steph had propped the door open, and she met Rosie on the threshold, barring the way as if Rosie hadn’t earned the right to access the inner sanctum.
“I’ve booked Interview Three,” Steph said. The small room, especially designed to host victim or relative interviews, was cosy and welcoming, and, more to the point as far as Rosie was concerned, came with its own brewing facilities.
She put the kettle on as Steph arranged her paperwork and opened a laptop. No one had ever fathomed how to turn the radiator off, and it was blasting out heat. Already sweaty with apprehension, Rosie slung her coat over the closest chair and opened the window wide. The scent of kebab spices and chippy drifted in, so reminiscent of that night in the hospital with Jem that she stabbed her teabag with a spoon, wretched all over again.
“When are you resuming work?” Steph asked, gesturing at the bandage around Rosie’s forearm.
Rosie set the mugs beside the laptop. Its screen was locked and password-protected. “I never called in sick,” she said. She had planned to, before everything had gone to shit with Jem. She sat a full sofa cushion away from Steph. “I’ll be in as usual tomorrow.”
Steph tasted her coffee and got up to add more milk. “Forgotten how I like it already?” she said. A pout curled her bottom lip, but she ran a hand across the nape of Rosie’s neck before she sat next to her. “You scared me the other night. I don’t know what I’d do if anything happened to you.” The close confines gave her voice an uncomfortable intimacy, and she shifted until they were thigh to thigh.
Rosie hadn’t come here for a tête-à-tête. She leaned forward, sorting through the paperwork and re-establishing the gap between Steph’s body and her own. Ignoring Steph’s indignant snatch of breath, she focused on the transcribed pages in her hand. “Do you want to start with the interview?”
“Okay, fine, I get it,” Steph said. “Have it your own way.”
Rosie leafed through the papers, searching for a particular quote. Ava had said, “There was a lad with her, all decked out in gear.” Rosie could see Ava’s grin, her teeth stained bright blue from the M&Ms.
“Are you speaking to the runaways dossing around the canal?” she asked. “This couple, Bill and Nance, they’re using those mills as a hunting ground and taking kids with them to act as lures.”
“We tried,” Steph said, “but we’ve only managed to catch a handful. Two, maybe three at best. They’ve either disappeared of their own volition or they’ve been cleared out.”
Rosie clasped her mug to ease the ache from her fingers. She’d gone from too hot to freezing cold in a matter of minutes. “My money would be on the latter,” she said. “These people are probably responsible for Kyle Parker’s death, directly or indirectly, and they didn’t bat an eyelid at attempting to murder us. God, they came so fucking close to killing Jem.” She paused, unable to continue, and swallowed a mouthful of tea that burned a line straight to her stomach. The pain helped to sharpen her focus. “Smiffy said you got a dark SUV on CCTV. Could the girls have been taken from the mill in the same car?”
“It’s possible. I’ve got a couple of lads from B-shift sifting through footage from local cameras, but it’s like looking for a needle in a haystack without a reg plate to pinpoint.” Steph toyed with the laptop, awakening its log-on screen but not entering any details. “We did get something on CCTV, though.”
Rosie looked at her, intrigued but on guard. “What?”
Steph’s eyes glinted in the low light. She was obviously pleased to have stirred Rosie’s interest. “Footage of Kyle Parker on the night he died,” she said.
“Christ. Where from?”
“A petrol station on the main road, approximately two miles from Ellery Lane. Time stamp puts it about ninety minutes before his body was found.”
“Is he on his own?”
“Nope.” Steph swirled her index finger on the laptop’s mouse, bringing the screen to life again. “I don’t have the authority to share this with you, Roz. It’s for Major Crime eyes only.”
Rosie frowned. “Then why mention it?”
Steph’s smile reminded her of a predator toying with its prey. “Because I’ve missed seeing that spark in you. The one that makes you sit up and pay attention.”
“Pay you attention,” Rosie said, the light beginning to dawn.
Steph shrugged. “Dinner at mine, and you can watch the tape to your heart’s content.”
Rosie was so gobsmacked she actually laughed. “No,” she said. “Thanks, but no.”
The laptop slammed closed as Steph hit the back of its screen. “What? Why not? Have you got a hot date with Jemima?”
“No, I haven’t. I just don’t want one with you.”
Steph turned so sharply that she sent a thick waft of scent into Rosie’s face. Rosie had loved that particular fragrance once, but now it just made her queasy.
“I don’t get it,” Steph said. “I don’t get what you see in her. How has she managed to turn you into her fucking lapdog?”
Rosie picked up her coat and slid her bad arm into its sleeve, her actions calm and deliberate and a direct contrast to Steph’s foot-stamping tantrum. “I’m going home,” she said. She stood too abruptly and had to grab the sofa to steady herself. “Was this the reason you brought me here? To bribe me into having dinner with you?”
“Would you have agreed to see me if I’d just asked nicely?” Steph snapped. She came to stand directly in front of Rosie. Although they were matched in height, the spite radiating off her made her seem taller.
Rosie let her coat fall, one shoulder in, the other out. She didn’t have the energy for any of this. “What do you think?” she said.
“I think you and Jem deserve each other.”
Rosie nodded, not insulted in the slightest. “I really hope so.”
Steph arched an eyebrow, clearly wrong-footed. “Don’t come crawling to me when it all goes to shit, Roz.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it.” Rosie busied herself sorting out her coat. Her bad arm was stiff and clumsy, making the zip a challenge. “Let my sarge know when you’ve sorted out the permissions on the CCTV.”
“When did you grow a fucking backbone?” Steph asked, incredulous.
“Thursday,” Rosie said. She didn’t react as Steph stepped toward her, but Steph merely returned to the sofa and logged on to the laptop. She moved a video file into the centre of the screen and then walked to the door.
“I’m not going to apologise,” she said.
That was the least of Rosie’s concerns. “I’m not going to ask you to.”
“Lock up when you’re done,” Steph said, and shut the door behind her.
For a couple of minutes, Rosie stayed where she was, unsure what had just happened and almost certain that watching the video footage would bring Steph back into the room, flushed with triumph and ready to collect her dues.
“Fuck it,” Rosie whispered, as yet another minute passed and the corridor beyond the door remained deserted. She resumed her seat and opened the video file, then pushed the table farther away to put some distance between herself and whatever the CCTV might have captured.
For the first forty seconds, she watched a static shot of the shop’s front counter as a disembodied hand arranged special-offer protein bars and restocked a turning display of vaping liquids. At forty-seven seconds, a middle-aged man approached. Balding, with a taut beer belly and a smart-casual dress sense, he was average height and average in general, the sort of bloke no one would bat an eyelid at in the street. He’d pulled up the collar of his jacket against the rain, and his wedding ring caught the light as he placed three bars of chocolate on the counter and pointed to whatever he wanted the cashier to fetch for him. As a packet of cigarettes and a litre bottle of vodka were placed beside the chocolate, the man slipped his debit card into the reader and turned to address someone behind him.
Even though Rosie had prepared herself for seeing Kyle on the tape, his appearance was still unsettling. He slouched by the counter, twirling the vape display and pointedly ignoring anything the man said to him. His Superdry T-shirt and skinny jeans accentuated his slight build, the designer outfit at odds with his greasy hair and grimy face, as if someone had increased his clothing budget but hadn’t attended to his personal hygiene. He swiped the chocolate and the cigarettes, chewing one of the bars open-mouthed and shrugging off the hand the man laid on his shoulder. Seconds later, he flicked the wrapper to the floor and stalked out of shot. Evidently flustered, the man grabbed the vodka, with one eye on Kyle and the other on the card reader. He didn’t wait for his receipt. The paper fluttered to the counter, and Rosie jumped as a blast of static marked the end of the recording.
Too intrigued to worry about Steph barging in, she made another brew and rewatched the file several times. She jotted notes in bullet-point form, shaping theories and raising questions she had no one to discuss with. She closed the laptop when her eyes started to blur and the twinges in her arm grew into something with sharp needles for teeth. She felt dirty, as if the footage and all it implied had tainted her. They would find the man; the CCTV would provide excellent screen captures, and a public appeal featuring his image was bound to be successful. He probably had a family, perhaps a son of Kyle’s age who would have to go to school and explain to his mates exactly why his dad had been arrested. Within ninety minutes of eating that chocolate, Kyle had been dead: drugged and drunk, with his brain in bits. Rosie could still feel the flex of his ribs beneath the heel of her hand and see the utter hopelessness in Jem’s eyes.
She took her mug to the sink, running the water until it steamed and then scrubbing her hands before she started on the pots. The water left her fingers red and swollen, and it didn’t make her feel any cleaner.