‘Do you feel better?’ Juliet looked up from the paperwork spread across her desk as I walked into our office.
‘No.’ I slumped into my chair and rested my face in my hands. ‘There has to be something.’
I’d repeated this refrain since we’d walked out of the interview room. Juliet sent me on a walk around the block after I’d insisted we talk through all the evidence a fourth time.
There was nothing. Dunlow sat in his cell, smug and untouchable. He’d basically told us he’d murdered Melanie and we had no way of bringing him to justice. Jordan being cleared of any involvement in the fire at the estate was a small boon, but it hadn’t removed him as a suspect in Melanie’s murder. I needed everyone else gone if I wasn’t going to take a blind shot at Dunlow.
‘The DNA results will be in tomorrow morning.’ Juliet’s nails clacked on her keyboard. ‘There’s nothing we can do until we get those so I suggest we go home, get as much sleep as we can, and come back here bright and early tomorrow morning.’
I looked up, shame blistering through my chest. ‘You can say it, you know.’
Juliet clicked her mouse, her eyes on her computer screen. ‘Say what?’
‘That I acted rashly.’ I bunched my hands into fists. ‘I messed up the case by bringing Dunlow in too soon.’
Juliet looked over our desks at me. ‘I would have if you hadn’t.’
Her words allowed a tiny lightening of the misery that had been dragging me down since Dunlow mocked us so brazenly. ‘Really?’
‘He’s an arrogant shit.’ Juliet clicked her mouse then stood up. ‘He deserved to have a bit of dirt thrown at him.’
Juliet wouldn’t lie to make me feel better. I grabbed my coat and followed her out of the office. The main work area was quiet, but Paul’s office was lit, his head bowed over a stack of paper.
I felt better, knowing I hadn’t brought Dunlow in too quickly, but I couldn’t shake the restlessness. Juliet fiddled with her phone, completely unaffected.
‘Doesn’t it bother you?’ I asked, as we walked into the lift. ‘We know Dunlow did it, he knows we know, and there’s nothing we can do it about it. Doesn’t it make you mad?’
Juliet lowered her phone. ‘What will drive you mad is if you can’t let moments like this go. We can’t win every time.’
I looked down at my feet. I didn’t want to hang onto old cases, but this one was different. To know who the murderer was and have no way to pin him down was agony.
Until the DNA results came in, I wouldn’t lose faith. Dunlow was smug, but he couldn’t be a hundred per cent sure of what they would bring to light.
He had to make a mistake some time. I hoped he already had.