Diggy was signing forms at the front desk of the Wilshire Community Police Station when Jessica was brought out from the cells. This morning’s Fibonacci golden spiral shirt was a vibrant blue and covered in pictures of tiny men in top hats curling their villainous moustaches. The female officer behind the counter was examining it closely. Jessica imagined that having to stand at the counter enduring Diggy’s ultimate encounter with true love might be more than she could bear, so she caught his arm and turned him away from the woman’s gaze.
‘I have a question,’ he said, his finger raised.
‘What?’
‘Where do you get three gallons of human piss at short notice?’
‘Was it really three gallons?’
‘According to the bottles that remained at the scene, assuming each was full or close to.’
‘Hobos,’ Jessica said.
‘Ah.’ Diggy nodded. ‘That was my guess. A colleague at the lab said they must have been yours, but I did not concur. You seem sensible about hydration, and it smelled like whoever provided those samples was distinctly otherwise.’
‘You smelled the car?’
‘Everybody did. It stank up both floors of the parking lot. Some people went down to look when Wallert came into the office shouting and making a commotion about what had happened, but I deemed a viewing unnecessary.’
Jessica smiled. Her face felt stiff from the dread of the past few hours sitting in a holding cell.
‘He’ll have to dispose of the whole vehicle,’ Diggy said as they walked to the doors of the station.
‘I know you’re just trying to make me feel better about the footage of my arrest.’ The day was stingingly bright. Two officers were already unloading a van full of gang members scooped up from the streets into the side entrance. ‘Is it across the department yet?’
‘I was forwarded it by email.’ He had his head down, watching the road pass beneath his feet. ‘So was my colleague. So you can assume if it’s reached the forensics office . . .’
She nodded.
‘Jessica,’ Diggy said as they slid into his immaculate car together. ‘Erotic practices that involve BDSM are surprisingly common, and in the current socio-sexual climate—’
‘Don’t.’ She held a hand up.
‘Okay.’
They drove for a while in silence. Jessica smelled her armpit, grimaced. The jailhouse had stunk of the bodies of sweating, sobering women, herself included.
‘Tell me where you are on the Harbour investigation,’ she said.
Diggy straightened in his seat. A pair of young actors was crossing the street before them at the traffic lights, their noses buried in scripts, gesticulating wildly to each other. Jessica looked at her phone and saw that there were five missed calls from Captain Whitton and eight from female colleagues she had known across her career. One of the women, she knew, worked out in Glendora. The video was spreading like a wildfire from cop to cop, embers carried across the country, heading east.
‘The bush in question outside the Orlov house is a Baby Bear manzanita, or a species of Arctostaphylos, for the connoisseur. That much I worked out for myself. Then I consulted a botanist. Not just any botanist – the botanist. Dr Ramona Bulle. President of the Botanical Society of America. She’s taken the inquiry seriously. Extremely seriously. It appears to me as though she’s spent every waking moment on the case study since I presented it to her. I’m receiving reports on the hour.’ As if on cue, Jessica heard Diggy’s phone ping. ‘She’s currently analysing vehicle smog patterns in the area at the time to try to determine their effect on the growth of our particular species.’
‘Jesus,’ Jessica said.
‘Yeah.’ Diggy glanced at her. ‘There are scientists and then there are obsessives. Frankenstein types who fall down into deep investigative wells and go mad.’
‘Can you tell anything from what she’s provided so far?’
Diggy paused. ‘I hate to draw conclusions based on incomplete—’
‘Diggy.’
‘It could have grown that high.’ He looked at her. ‘Yes. I’m calling it. The bush could indeed have grown high enough in three weeks to cover up the view of the first-floor laundry window.’
Jessica remained quiet.
‘So it’s possible you were wrong about the bush. And you were indeed wrong about the cheese sandwich,’ Diggy said. ‘My mentor got back to me. It’s definitely a male bite mark. But Jessica, these things are—’
‘I get it. They’re just pieces of a puzzle.’
‘Should we get breakfast?’
‘No, I’m going to freshen up, get changed and start looking for Kristi Zea. I want to hear the story again from her mouth.’ Jessica sighed. ‘But first, just drop me at the Bluestone house. I want to make sure Wallert calling the Wilshire cops on me wasn’t act one in a longer, grander performance.’
They drove through Brentwood, silent, watching teams of gardeners unloading equipment from their trucks onto immaculate lawns, dog walkers in bright vans carrying precious furry bundles. Jessica sat up in her seat when she spied the private security car two driveways down from the Beauvoir house. There was a man in the front seat using his radio, watching the porch with binoculars. Three ladies were there, waiting. Jessica recognised Ada Maverick leaning against the front window, tapping cigarette ash into a pot plant. Blair Harbour was sitting on the steps, nursing a battered and bloodied face. Jessica didn’t know the third woman, who was pacing the porch, talking to herself.
‘What the . . .’ Diggy let the car roll to a stop outside the house. ‘Who are . . . Is that . . .?’
‘Thanks for the ride, Diggs,’ Jessica said as she opened the door.
‘Is that Harbour?’
Jessica shut the car door on Diggy and walked towards the house.