‘Finally! So, come on then, what’s this story I won’t believe?’

  ‘OK, so . . . oh, before I tell you, let’s just say I can understand why you left the Met.’

  ‘Well, I’m not sure you can—’

  ‘The north London DI I had the misfortune to be dealing with on the phone this morning was a massive pain in the arse. Seriously grumpy, like he was doing me a favour just talking to me, you know—?’

  ‘Are you going to tell me, or—?’

  ‘—mind you, he did eventually manage to track Chesshead down for me, and he’s promised to pick him up and deliver him, so I might just find it in my heart to forgive and forget.’

  ‘Just . . . don’t bother, OK?’ Xiu looked away and folded her arms. ‘I’m not sure I even want to know your stupid story now.’

  Miller grinned and let her sulk for a few seconds, before he leaned across the table and told her.

  THIRTY

  If anyone deserved a plaque on the wall of most local police stations, or a Lancashire Prison System loyalty card, it was Gary David Pope. He’d been a well-known face – or more usually a photofit – on the criminal scene for as long as any serving officer could remember, and while he never really did anything that would merit serious jail time, and drink or drugs were almost always involved, there was rarely a crime committed anywhere within a twenty-mile radius that Gary didn’t have some connection to. It was like ‘Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon’, only with stolen cars and cocaine.

  Gary Pope wasn’t the worst criminal Miller had ever encountered, not by a long chalk, but he was probably the most consistent.

  He was a seriously committed wrong ’un.

  About ten years earlier, on the day he turned thirty, Gary – who for some reason still lived at home – became involved in a family argument over a slice of birthday cake and was subsequently arrested for biting half his father’s ear off. Despite the suspect’s insistence that his slice had been notably smaller than everyone else’s and that it was really good cake, he was charged and bailed to appear, after which his stupid/forgiving parents declined to pursue the matter and Gary failed to appear anywhere again for the best part of six months.

  ‘He just disappeared?’

  ‘Yeah, but he showed up again eventually,’ Miller said. ‘And that’s the point. Oh, and it was really good cake, by the way. I nicked a bit at the crime scene.’

  Nobody clapped eyes on Gary Pope again until he turned up one night at an ex-girlfriend’s, bleeding profusely from a number of wounds to the top of his head. He was predictably upset. She, quite rightly, phoned the police who arrived to discover that person or persons unknown had carefully carved a series of deep and almost perfectly straight lines across the top of Gary’s head; from the front of his skull to the back and from ear to ear, like the squares on a chessboard.

  ‘Right,’ Xiu said. ‘Got it.’

  ‘I never said it was an imaginative nickname, but it’s accurate.’

  The investigation into this serious assault was somewhat hampered by the fact that the victim could not remember where it had happened, or indeed why, and had no idea whatsoever who was responsible. The copious amounts of drink and drugs that were – unsurprisingly – involved had combined with the trauma of the assault itself to wipe his memory completely. The amnesia was not the strangest thing, however, because using CCTV cameras the police were subsequently able to establish that, following the assault, Gary had walked at least four miles to his ex-girlfriend’s place, pouring with blood and even stopping to chat with alarmed passers-by.

  ‘Chatting about what?’

  ‘God knows,’ Miller said. ‘ “Why am I bleeding” . . . ?’

  Since no one knew quite what to do with the victim of a serious assault who couldn’t remember anything about it, it was decided – once he’d been released from hospital – to remand Gary Pope to prison, for his own safety as much as anything else. With him now locked up and the investigation going nowhere, it was only down to the initiative of one smart-thinking officer that the crime was eventually solved. Having decided to check back through all the daily crime reports around the time of the incident, the officer came across a statement from a cleaner who had arrived at a council block to discover the floor and walls of one flat splattered with blood. Said blood was quickly matched to Gary Pope – now rechristened ‘Chesshead’ by all those on the case – and a search began for the individual named on the tenancy agreement. The toe-rag in question was a low-rent drug dealer known to his customers as ‘Lidl’, because he sold drugs that were almost but not quite the same as other drugs and a fraction of the price.

  ‘That’s quite clever,’ Xiu said.

  ‘It’s funny.’

  ‘If you say so.’

  Police now had a prime suspect. The fact that they couldn’t immediately locate him was finally explained when it emerged that Lidl had himself been arrested the week before for flogging iffy ketamine. Arrested, charged and – it was clear Miller was getting to the good bit – remanded . . .

  Miller was grinning and Xiu shook her head.

  ‘Don’t tell me . . . remanded to the same prison as Gary Pope.’

  ‘Even better,’ Miller said. ‘The same cell . . .’

  Had this been a meeting of minds between renowned scientists and not a pair of dodgy scrotes in a 12x8 cell staring at each other, the encounter might have been called a eureka moment. As it was, Lidl strolled into his new accommodation like Charlie Big-Potatoes, took one horror-struck look at his new cellmate and said, ‘You won’t tell anyone, will you?’

  That was when it all came flooding back to Gary Pope. Hearing his attacker’s voice, he instantly remembered everything: the row over a drug deal, the big knife Lidl had produced from behind a cushion and how much it had hurt. He was never able to recall exactly why Lidl had chosen to carve his head up quite as mathematically as he had, but to all intents and purposes Gary Pope’s memory was back, justice was done and order (of a sort) had been restored.

  ‘So, what happened next?’ Xiu asked.

  ‘I told you it was a good story, didn’t I?’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘Well, Lidl got sent down for attempted murder and, because Lidl was one of Wayne Cutler’s boys, Chesshead immediately pledged his allegiance to Ralph Massey.’ Miller reached for his jacket. ‘I mean, I don’t think it was formal or there was any kind of initiation ceremony . . . he just turned up at the ballroom and asked if there were any jobs going.’

  ‘Welcomed into the fold, I’m guessing,’ Xiu said.

  ‘Oh yes, with open arms. Massey was always going to be interested in someone who hated the Cutlers as much as he did.’

  ‘So, you think Chesshead had something to do with what happened at the hotel?’

  ‘I seriously doubt it,’ Miller said. ‘He was in London for a start.’

  ‘Well, we don’t know that. Because we don’t know when he went to London, do we? He could have left straight after Cutler and Shepherd were killed.’

  ‘Well, I suppose he could . . . but Chesshead usually threatened violence rather than actually committing it, so an execution-style killing isn’t really his kind of thing anyway. I think he might know whose kind of thing it is, though. He tends to know what’s going on.’

  ‘I thought that girl was your eyes and ears. Finn?’

  Miller smiled. ‘Finn doesn’t miss much, but it’s mostly street stuff. She doesn’t really know the ins and outs of the gang world. Chesshead knows all the lovely people involved. Who’s a bit miffed and threatening to get busy on someone’s kneecaps with a Black and Decker.’ He stood up and pulled his jacket on. ‘Actually, I kind of like Gary. He’s not really a bad lad.’

  ‘He bit off his dad’s ear.’

  ‘Only half of it.’

  Xiu stood up too. ‘I can’t wait to be introduced.’

  ‘I’m sure you’ll get on.’

  ‘It’s not like I’ll have any trouble recognising him.’

  ‘Don’t bank on it,’ Miller said. ‘For obvious reasons, he does have an extensive collection of hats.’

  They walked towards the door of the pub, but Xiu stopped before Miller could open it. ‘Listen, I wanted to say . . . you getting involved in the investigation of your wife’s murder isn’t the best idea you’ve ever had.’

  ‘You don’t know how bad some of my other ideas have been.’

  ‘I’m serious,’ Xiu said.

  ‘I’m not “getting involved”.’

  ‘Of course you are.’

  ‘All right then, I am. See what I mean? You’re a natural winkler.’

  ‘You need to be careful, that’s all I’m saying. Because you not going anywhere near your wife’s case is very much rule number one. You could find yourself in serious trouble and you might even end up jeopardising any future trial.’

  ‘Hang on . . .’ Miller hurried over to the bar to collect the promised takeaway, then returned to the door and opened it. ‘What can I say, Posh? I’m a glutton for punishment.’ He used Xiu’s complimentary baguette to wave the landlady goodbye and grinned when she waved back. ‘I wouldn’t have my lunch in here, otherwise.’

  THIRTY-ONE

  Pippa had downed two glasses of wine in fairly short order, but she was yet to stop shaking. It was not a Family Liaison Officer’s job to interfere at such moments and it was obvious that the woman was seriously upset, so Fiona Mackie had merely sat there watching Pippa drink, making the necessary soothing noises and waiting for her to calm down a little. Or at least enough to give Fiona the chance to leave the room for a minute or two and call it in.

  The wife of one victim being stalked and harassed by the family of another was not an insignificant development.

  ‘Thanks for passing that on,’ Sullivan had said. ‘It might be significant.’

  Fiona could see why Declan Miller thought he was an idiot.

  She came back into the living room to find Pippa sitting exactly where she’d left her, on the edge of the sofa. She still hadn’t taken her coat off and the wineglass had been topped up.

  ‘I’ve let the team know,’ Fiona said.

  Pippa nodded and drank.

  ‘Obviously, this should not have happened, and we want to be sure it won’t happen again. So, I was thinking it might be best if maybe you don’t leave the house again for a while.’ She saw Pippa shaking her head, ready to object. ‘Or at least not unaccompanied, if you do really want to go out. Maybe an officer could walk with you . . . at a distance.’

  ‘I see.’ Pippa turned suddenly, sloshing wine into her lap. ‘So, I get harassed by some . . . gangster and now I’m the one who has to suffer.’

  ‘Well, that might be putting it a bit strongly,’ Fiona said. ‘I’m just suggesting that someone would be keeping an eye on you.’

  ‘I don’t want someone keeping an eye on me.’

  ‘I know it’s not ideal, but—’

  ‘It’s not bloody fair. It’s . . . infringing my civil liberties.’ It might just have been her highly emotional state that had made the words tricky to say, but it was starting to sound like the alcohol was playing its part, too. ‘It’s not fair, because I’m the victim.’

  ‘Nobody’s disputing that,’ Fiona said.

  ‘Shouldn’t he be the one who’s being watched by the police?’

  ‘Yes, and I’m sure he will be.’

  ‘Good . . .’

  ‘We won’t let anything happen to you.’

  Pippa stared, alarmed. ‘You’re saying something might happen to me?’

  ‘No, of course not.’ Fiona was aware that her effort at reassurance had been poorly phrased. ‘Nothing is going to happen to you. I just want to do whatever’s necessary to keep things as normal as possible.’

  ‘Normal?’

  Fiona cursed herself again, knowing she’d had better days at work. ‘All I’m trying to say is that grieving is hard at the best of times, you know? It knocks you for six all by itself, so it’s important to keep everything else on an even keel. Does that make sense?’ She waited. ‘Pippa . . . ?’

  ‘He was scary.’ Pippa looked up at her, pale suddenly and helpless as a child.

  ‘I know he was,’ Fiona said gently. ‘They all are.’

  ‘And the more he pretended that he wasn’t, the scarier he actually was, you know? Same as when he was saying he wasn’t trying to upset me, when that’s exactly what he was doing. Asking me all about Barry being at the hotel that night . . . insinuating things. Nasty things . . .’

  Fiona watched Pippa start to cry again, and moved across to sit next to her. ‘Maybe you should go and lie down for a bit.’

  Pippa shook her head.

  ‘Or I could go and make you something to eat?’

  ‘Why would I want to eat?’ She said it like Fiona had suggested that she turn cartwheels or settle down to watch something funny on TV.

  Fiona decided to try something a little more basic. ‘OK, well, let’s start with getting your coat off, shall we . . . ?’

  She reached over to prise the wineglass from Pippa’s hand, then eased her up and helped her out of her coat. She set the glass on a table and stepped out into the hall to hang the coat up. When she came back into the room, Pippa was staring at the wall, clenching and unclenching her fists.

  ‘I’m just so . . . bloody angry all the time.’

  ‘Course you are,’ Fiona said, ‘and that’s perfectly natural. It’s one of the stages—’

  ‘It’s not natural. It’s the opposite of that, because it’s turning me into something I’m not. I can stand here and kid myself I’m angry at that thug and his stupid dog, and yes I am, but that’s not why I’m like . . . this.’

  ‘OK, let’s not call it natural then, but it is very common for people suffering from grief to be angry. Angry at the situation they suddenly find themselves in. Angry at everyone around them and their silly attempts to make them feel better. Angry at God, even.’

  ‘I’m not angry at God,’ Pippa said.

  ‘Well . . . whoever.’

  ‘I’m angry at Barry.’ She turned to look at Fiona and quickly shook her head. ‘Not because of what he might have been up to at that hotel . . . that doesn’t matter any more. I’m angry at him . . . I’m completely bloody furious at him for leaving me. It just seems so incredibly . . . selfish, and obviously I know that him being murdered wasn’t actually selfish at all, so then I end up being angry at myself. Hating myself for feeling like that.’ She was gritting her teeth, her fists now permanently clenched. ‘I just want to scream so much.’

  ‘In which case you should scream,’ Fiona said.

  ‘It seems so stupid, though.’

  ‘It’s always best to let the anger out.’

  ‘I want to smash things.’

  ‘Well, if you think it will help.’

  ‘It’ll definitely help.’

  ‘Then that’s exactly what you should do—’

  Pippa did not need any further encouragement. She marched across to the bookshelves above the television, picked up the china seahorse then stepped back and hurled it against the wall. She stared down at the debris on the carpet.

  ‘Feeling better?’ Fiona asked.

  Pippa nodded, breathing heavily. She pointed. ‘What’s that?’

  Fiona walked across and they both stared down at the small metal object near the skirting board, so out of place among the colourful fragments of china.

  A flash drive.

  When Pippa bent to pick it up, Fiona moved quickly forward to take her arm. ‘I think it’s probably best if you don’t touch it.’

  ‘Right . . .’

  Moving in opposite directions, Fiona reached for her phone as Pippa groped for her wineglass.

  THIRTY-TWO

  When calling upon a member of the public, for whatever reason, only a police officer with a phenomenal lack of self-awareness would expect a warm welcome. Nobody was ever thrilled to see you, that was a given. A copper (or even worse, two of them) on your doorstep was more or less guaranteed to put a crimp in anyone’s day, but Scarlett Ribbons stared at Miller and Xiu as though they were a pair of leprous Jehovah’s Witnesses who were demanding money with menaces while simultaneously urinating in her front garden.

  ‘Oh, God . . . can you please be quick?’

  Sighing theatrically, she spun on a seriously high heel and walked back into her flat. Miller stepped inside and followed her down the hall. ‘Is that what you say to your clients?’

  ‘No, but I’m thinking it.’ She turned and sighed again, her arms stretched out in frustration. She was wearing extravagant glittery earrings and a matching necklace that Miller guessed had been less expensive than they looked. Blackpool Bling. ‘Seriously, I’m trying to get dressed for work.’

  Xiu closed the front door behind her. ‘We’ll try not to keep you, Selina.’

  That stopped the woman in her tracks, for a moment or two at least.

  Pauline – who had once been Selina and was now Scarlett – walked, rather more slowly than before, into her living room and dropped into a deep leather armchair. Miller entered the room a few seconds later and leaned against a wall, waiting for Xiu. The room was scrupulously neat and tidy, with a pair of furry slippers placed side by side near the door and a stack of interior design magazines on a low table, next to a collection of ceramic coasters. Miller was a little disappointed, having hoped there might be an interesting selection of whips and spiky rubber truncheons on display, or at the very least a couple of nipple-clamps to fiddle with.

  ‘Nice place,’ he said.

  ‘Nicer than you expected, you mean.’

  ‘Different.’

  Xiu arrived and sat down on the sofa.