20 IRINA

Partridge Bark

Claire (Tank’s Mum)

Really sorry to hear about your neighbour’s dog @Louise – I did a bit of poking around. It seems that there were three other dogs whose owners contacted the paper about possible dog poisonings.

Indy (Banjo’s Mum)

How many dogs were poisoned?

Claire (Tank’s Mum)

Including this latest one, four, although not all at Partridge. Earliest one was last autumn.

Louise (Klaus’s Mum)

Do we think they’re connected?

Claire (Tank’s Mum)

To each other? IDK. Maybe.

Irina rolled her eyes. That wasn’t what Louise was asking; she wanted to know if the poisonings were connected to the bloody murder. She knew this would happen. Lou was bored; her company was doing well and she was taking a step back. She needed a new crusade, and Irina was afraid this would be it: Lou would become obsessed, not just with solving Phil’s murder, but now every crime in the neighbourhood. This was East London. There was a lot of it. Some were opportunistic, others were incidental. Some were about race or religion or which group of pals you had. This wasn’t a crime novel, though. Not everything was connected.

Irina wanted to tell Lou to get a life, but she couldn’t be bothered. She’d worked hard to keep her life simple, uncluttered. She had no interest in becoming a modern-day Miss Marple. Not for a dead man she barely knew. And anyway, Andy had asked her to steer clear of it.

Andy. The silver lining to an otherwise bad day.

As far as she could tell, he was a decent sort of guy. Went to Leeds University, got a good degree. Did IT for a year or so before chucking that job in and joining the Met Police. He must really love it, Irina thought. Because that move had to have hit his wallet pretty badly.

She’d found more photographs of him online, some by himself, but mostly with friends and a few lady friends. Irina would have been more concerned if there hadn’t been any of the latter – she didn’t want to deal with someone else’s mummy issues, or worse, someone who wasn’t keen on commitment.

Keep it light. See where things go. That was the plan. Something with no demands; no expectations.

She sighed and pinged him a message, relaying Louise’s concerns about the poisonings, more because she didn’t want to catch grief from Lou than for any excuse to contact him.

His response was immediate:

DC Andrew Thompson

Irina, whatever you and your friends are doing, stop it now. A man is dead. Your meddling will either get you in trouble with whoever murdered Phil, or muddy our investigation.

Irina blinked, not sure what he was thinking when she was only trying to help. ‘Meddling?’ she said aloud. ‘I don’t meddle.’

She wrote a reply, but deleted it before hitting Send. Same with the second and third.

On some level, he was probably right. She was no crusader, with a bloody horse and flaming sword. She knew that people who asked too many questions often ended up in as much trouble as the people they tried to help.

But Irina didn’t like being told what to do. Especially by someone she’d only just met.

Even more so, when every fibre of her being told her that what she was being told not to do was in fact the right thing to do.

God damn Louise Mallory for getting her into this. ‘Meddle this,’ Irina muttered to herself, tapping out a message.

Partridge Bark

One man dead, three dogs (that we know of) poisoned. The police want us off the case.

This is our neighbourhood and our park. Phil Creasy was our friend. I do not want Hamish or any of our pups to be poisoned. I think it’s time we work together.

Meg (Tyrion’s Mum)

What do you have in mind?

We are the ones that people see but don’t SEE.

I say we set up patrols. We check in, more than usual, with anything out of the ordinary. I don’t care if it’s a branch where you don’t expect it. Anything that looks off, we put it in the chat.

I can set up a different group if people don’t want to be involved, or don’t want this here.

Meg (Tyrion’s Mum)

I’m in.

Yaz (Hercules’s Mum)

Not sure what got into you (ahem) to precipitate this crime-fighting spree, but Ejiro, Herc and I are in.

As Is

Soph and I are in – Loki’s always happy for more walks with friends.

Louise (Klaus’s Mum)

Thanks @Irina. Klaus and I are in.

The messages cascaded through, one after another. Feeling satisfied, Irina opened her laptop, brought up a browser window and began her own investigations.