He heard muttering as he closed the bathroom door. Ten minutes, one pair of jeans, and a reasonably clean T-shirt later and he was sitting sipping coffee thick enough to stand a spoon in.

  “So what brings you out here in the middle of the night? And without doughnuts. If this was an American cop drama, you’d have doughnuts.”

  Andy gave him, his you’re-not-as-funny-as-you-think, look.

  “I have the background check. Thought you’d want to look at it. And.” He paused. Even through Jack’s sleep haze he could see Andy’s manner was grave. “I have the results on the brownie.”

  Adrenalin rushed through Jack, making him sit up straight at the breakfast bar. This was more like it. Hard evidence. After a day spent listening to Davy talk about lighting with Ken Doll and PMT with her best friend, he needed a pick me up. He reached for the folder.

  “You won’t find anything in it,” Andy told him. “Her background is clean.”

  Jack flicked through the pages. It didn’t make sense. He was sure there’d be something.

  “No record,” Andy said. “No dodgy associates. She’s been fired from a lot of jobs, but other than that, there’s nothing.”

  “Maybe she had a drug habit that got in the way of work?”

  “From what we found out it isn’t a drug habit, but an attitude habit. The last boss said she decked a customer for grabbing her backside. Apparently she’s got a thing for good manners.”

  Against his will, Jack grinned. It was fleeting. Confusion had robbed him of his sense of humour.

  “What else did you find?”

  “She’s the daughter of a church pastor, her mother is a school teacher and her best friend is an accountant. She’s as clean as they come.”

  Jack stared at the folder, while he processed the information.

  “What about the brownie?”

  Andy shook his head slowly.

  “Just brownie. Apparently it had chili in it, but that was it. Nothing else out of the ordinary.”

  “No dope?”

  “No dope.”

  The room began to close in on him. Jack walked to the window and stared out over the Brighton rooftops towards the sea.

  “But the kid said they were magic brownies. He said he was getting paid in brownies.”

  “Yeah,” Andy said. “It’s nuts, but it isn’t illegal.”

  Jack turned towards his friend and felt sick as soon as he saw his face. He knew what Andy was thinking, that he’d done it again – found a crime where there wasn’t one.

  “Maybe we overreacted,” Andy said. “The stuff we heard could have meant anything. You know how weird things get when they’re taken out of context.”

  Andy was being generous using ‘we’.

  “I get that,” Jack told him. “But this is different. I know she’s hiding something.”

  Andy held his hands up. It was exactly the same gesture he used when he was trying to talk some lunatic down off a ledge. Great. Now he was the lunatic and his friend was trying to disarm him. Suddenly, he had clarity. People had been tiptoeing around him for months. They thought he was primed to blow.

  “She could be hiding anything,” Andy said. “Maybe she painted the lounge bright pink, or knocked down a wall without telling you. It doesn’t need to be illegal for her to be worried you’d find out.”

  Jack shook his head.

  “She said she needed to get rid of equipment. She’s got people working for her.”

  Andy looked around for an explanation.

  “Well, maybe she’s running a gym without permission. Or a day spa – she looks like the spa type. It could be anything. Sure she doesn’t want you to see what she’s up to, you’re her landlord.”

  Unfortunately, everything Andy said made perfect sense.

  “Look,” Andy said as he rubbed a hand over his face. “This sort of thing is why you need to see the counsellor. You’re burnt out. You put two and two together and get five. You jump to conclusions and see trouble when there’s only odd behaviour. You need to get help, man.”

  Jack turned away from his friend to look back out over the town. The rows of terraced housing were invisible to him. Could he have gotten it all wrong? Were his instincts that far off the mark? And if he was wrong on this, did that mean he was wrong about the Chief too? He could feel the blood drain from his face. If he was going to faint then he wanted to be alone. He walked over to the breakfast bar. Every step made him feel self-conscious. He wondered if Andy could read his mind.

  “I appreciate you taking the time to bring this stuff over.”

  He wasn’t ready to admit that he’d been wrong about Davina. The words stuck in his throat like a stray chicken bone.

  “No problem.” Andy headed for the door. Obviously, this wasn’t a conversation he wanted to have either. “Listen,” he said as he opened the door. “Don’t let this get to you. Don’t let any of it get to you. We all make mistakes. We all get tired and our judgement gets screwed. It’s no big deal.”

  Jack nodded, but it was a big deal. He couldn’t trust himself anymore. He didn’t know what was real and what wasn’t. He was losing his mind. It might already have gone.

  “Here.” He held up the folder.

  “Keep it,” Andy said.

  Jack turned away from his friend’s pitying look. He heard the door click shut behind Andy, but he didn’t move. He couldn’t move. This was it. Confirmation of everything everyone had been telling him – his instincts were off. They told him that he was seeing things where there was nothing. They told him that the Chief Superintendent was one of the good guys, not a likeable guy, but on the right side anyway. They told him he was losing the plot. And he didn’t listen. It never even occurred to him that they were right. He’d been convinced he was onto something. He’d dug up rumours. Picked at every tiny lead. He’d wound up everyone he talked to and had begun to piece together a picture of a dirty cop.

  He sat down heavily. But it had all been in his head.

  His hand fell on the manila folder.

  Just like Davina’s drug empire.

  Jack sat in the chair facing the court-appointed shrink and wondered why the guy didn’t have a couch in his office. Weren’t these guys supposed to have couches? Weren’t you supposed to stare at the ceiling and talk about your father issues?

  “So, Jack, what brings you back? Last time we spoke you told me you couldn’t have burn out when you weren’t working. How did that go for you?”

  The guy was so laid back Jack wasn’t sure if he was poking fun at him or not.

  “It went great. I’m over the burn out.”

  The little man rubbed the grey stubble on his chin. It looked like he was trying to mask a smile.

  “So what’s the problem now?” the doc said in a calm reassuring voice that made Jack want to punch him.

  “I think I’m going insane.”

  “I don’t follow.”

  He let out a long breath.

  “Losing the plot. Saying bye bye to reality. Taking up residence in La-La Land.”

  “I see.” The head-shrinker crossed his legs.

  The man was wearing brown corduroy trousers – he was the one who needed help. If Jack wasn’t so worried about himself he’d have pointed that out.

  “And what makes you think this?”

  “Well.” Jack ran a hand over his head, briefly wondering if that was the reason his hair always stood on end. “It’s like this. I keep seeing crimes where, I’m told, there aren’t any. The thing is, every cell in my body knows I’m right.”

  “I can see why you’re worried.”

  “Yeah, I’ve dealt with enough nutters to know that they convince themselves of things all the time.”

  “I wouldn’t have put it quite like that.” The little guy was smiling at him again.

  “So how do I fix this?”

  “Why don’t you tell me about the latest mistake first?”

  That made Jack clench his teeth. He KNEW it wasn’t a mistake. Hence the reason he was sitting in the shrink’s office baring his soul.

  “I inherited this house. There’s a woman living in it. She won’t let me in. There are people, some of them kids, coming and going at all hours. I know she’s up to something. I thought it was drugs, on account of the fact she’s paying teenage boys with homemade brownies. But it’s not. There’s no evidence for any of this.”

  “This woman, she has a record, a worrying personality, what?”

  Jack grinned.

  “Oh, she’s as nutty as they come. But kind and cute with it. Sexy, but really naive too, if you know what I mean. She’s just nice. Yeah. Nice.”

  The little guy gave Jack another superior, knowing smirk.

  “So,” he said, “she’s not the criminal type?”

  “There isn’t a criminal type,” Jack told the idiot. “But she strikes me as someone who fell into trouble rather than deliberately hunting it down.” He looked around for the right way to explain it. It wasn’t written on the office wall. “She’s kind of hard to figure out. I have no idea what she’s talking about half the time.”

  The guy thought about it for a minute. Jack wanted to scream – hurry up, fix me already.

  “And you didn’t consider any other scenario?”

  “She has the house lit up like a football field. The only time I’ve seen lights like that are in DIY hydroponic set ups.”

  “Let’s think for a moment,” the little man said. “What other reasons might she need extra lighting?”

  This guy was useless. Jack clenched his fists – he’d known this was a bad idea.

  “What does she do for work?”

  “She’s a runner at a local TV station and she teaches an evening class.”

  “In what?”

  Jack didn’t know. It hadn’t seemed important to find out. He shrugged.

  “Maybe she needs the extra lighting because she’s decorating and won’t let you in because it isn’t in her agreement?” the doctor suggested.

  “No one needs that much light.”

  “Why don’t you just ask her about the lights?”

  Jack shifted in his chair. It was too low for his long legs; it was built for Shorty the doctor.

  “I do ask her about stuff. She’s always cagey. Sometimes she’s downright weird. Like she’s a different person. She’s hiding something. It’s hard to get a straight answer out of her.”

  “Ah, you think she’s putting on an act for you.” The tiny doc nodded wisely, impressed with his own insight.

  Everything within Jack stilled. Act. He remembered something he’d read in Davina’s file. All those acting jobs. Then there were the lights and a guy from her day job. He could have smacked himself on the head it was so obvious. He wasn’t going insane after all. He shot to his feet.

  “Okay, we’re done. I don’t need you anymore. Turns out I’m not losing my mind. It was a false alarm.”

  “Wait a minute,” blustered the little man. “We’re not finished here, we have a great deal of work to do and we haven’t even scratched the surface.”

  “Nope.” Jack grinned down at him. “We’re done. I know what she’s up to. I’m being played. She is hiding something. It just isn’t what I thought it was.”

  He ran for the door.

  “Wait,” the guy called. “I’m worried about your mental state.”

  “And I’m worried about yours,” Jack told him. “Ditch the brown cord trousers, Doc, and stop smirking when you think your patients aren’t looking. Nobody likes a smart arse.”

  He slammed the door behind him and raced down the steps down to the foyer. It took all his self-control not to laugh out loud. The day was looking up. Not only did he know what Davina was hiding, but she wasn’t a criminal anymore – and that made her fair game.

  As he unlocked the car, his mood was lighter than it had been in months. Now he just needed to check his theory – he didn’t want another mix up on his hands. Especially not now he knew there was nothing wrong with him. He got behind the wheel and pointed the car in the direction of Millie’s old house.

  It was dark by the time he got there, so he parked in his usual hideout behind an overgrown bush. He really needed to step up his efforts on the garden. All this overgrown shrubbery was getting in the way of his snooping. First thing in the morning, he’d go buy himself some decent gardening equipment and get stuck into the place. At least something good had come out of all this enforced free time – he was picking up a new skill. It turned out he really got a kick out of gardening.

  At the back of ten, Ken Doll drove past him, fixing his hair in the rearview mirror as he went. Jack scoffed into the darkness. As far as he was concerned this metrosexual lark was a dark path to becoming a transvestite. If he ever became interested in skin products or hair gel, he hoped someone would take him out back and shoot him – before he started eyeing up women’s shoes in a size thirteen.

  The last to leave were the kids on the scooters, armed with Tupperware as usual. Jack wandered out of the bushes and watched them huddle together. He had to admit, a grown man lurking in the shrubbery wasn’t a good look.

  “Hey,” the tallest of the three said. “It’s the guy who gave me ten pounds for a brownie. Do you want to buy more?”

  “No,” Jack shook his head. “I’m police and this is my house. I’ve been worrying about what my tenant is getting up to and I want to ask you boys a few questions.”

  Two of them looked scared, the one who sold him the brownie looked suspicious.

  “Let’s see some ID then,” the suspicious one said.

  Jack showed them his driver’s licence.

  “Where’s the police badge?” the kid said.

  “I don’t carry it when I’m off duty. This isn’t a police matter. But you’re welcome to call Brighton Police and ask them about me.”

  The three kids stared at him.

  “We’re not doing anything wrong,” one of them said. He had a really whiny voice.

  “I know. I just want to know if Davina is trashing my house. I can’t legally go in for another week or so.”

  “Aren’t you the guy from the garden?” The shortest boy pointed at him.

  “I’ve been trying to get the place in shape. It’s a big job.”

  “You could use some help,” the suspicious one said. “If you want to hire a crew on the weekends we’ll do it for a good price. Won’t we, boys?”

  They nodded.

  “I mow lawns all the time,” the short one said.

  “Yeah,” the whiny one said, “and I know more about weeding than you do.”

  “You need us,” the suspicious one said.

  Jack shook his head to clear it. They were way off track.

  “So about Davina. What’s she up to? Anything illegal?”

  “No!” They rushed over themselves to speak. “Davina is great. She’s an awesome cook and really funny.”

  “And we’re learning loads. I want to study filmmaking at college now. I didn’t know anything about it before we started working on this movie, but it is really cool.”

  “Yeah, way better than animation. I thought I wanted to do that,” said the short one.

  “He’s wicked at art,” the whiny one said.

  “But now,” said the short one, “I definitely want to be a film director.”

  Jack folded his arms and smiled encouragingly. He should have talked to the Three Stooges in the first place; it would have saved him a lot of grief.

  “So you guys are making a movie?”

  “Yeah, we need to get it finished fast before the landlord inspects the place,” said the short one. The suspicious one elbowed him in the ribs. “Oh,” the short one said when he realised who Jack was.

  “It’s okay.” Jack held up his hands. “I don’t care about making the movie. I just don’t want anything illegal going on.”

  “That’s right,” the short one said. “Marianne said you were helping out with the boyfriend part.”

  It took Jack a minute to follow the conversation and then it clicked. The kiss on the porch. He was in a movie. A wry smile curled his lips. Unbelievable. He wondered what else he’d been roped into and didn’t know about.

  “You don’t have to worry,” the whiny one said. “Davina wouldn’t do anything against the law. She’s really cool.”

  “Well, there’s the equipment,” the short one said.

  The suspicious one elbowed him again. The short one turned to him, seriously grumpy.

  “If you don’t stop that I’m going to kick your head in.”

  “Boys,” Jack said in his cop voice, before they turned on each other. “What about the equipment?”

  “It’s nothing,” the short one said as he continued to scowl at his friend. “Davina borrowed it from work and it has to go back before they notice.”

  Jack smothered a laugh. This was getting better and better.

  “Is that it?” the suspicious one said.

  “No,” Jack said. “Hand over the brownies or I’ll tell your parents you were bunking school on Friday.”

  They protested loudly but in the end he got one of the containers of brownies. He left them arguing about who should and shouldn’t have told him what as he returned to his car. Once inside he settled back, popped the Tupperware lid, and helped himself to a drug-free brownie. It was delicious. Some might even say magic.

  In the darkness he grinned widely, then erupted into laughter. So Davy had a house full of stolen goods after all. Like he cared about film equipment. He didn’t even know what it was. He thought people made movies on their iPhones these days. Still, this was priceless. The crazy woman was using his house to make a film and had even manipulated him into acting in it. The encounter at the front door played live in his head. Not that there had been much acting on his part. He sighed happily as he reached for another cake. Davina Davenport had been leading him a merry dance since she whacked him on the back of the head. It seemed that she was having all the fun – at his expense. Well, he’d put a stop to that. Starting tomorrow he was going to have some fun with Davina.

  He could hardly wait.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  7 DAYS TO MAKE A MOVIE...