Miller mimed a theatrical yawn.

  ‘Only sometimes your judgement’s as rubbish as your putting.’

  They said nothing for a while, watching a couple being walked by a pair of French bulldogs near the playground. A man rolled slowly past the bench on a skateboard. Miller desperately wanted to shout ‘Grow up’, but the man looked a bit useful, so Miller kept his opinion to himself.

  ‘Grow up,’ Imran shouted.

  Miller enjoyed being reminded just why he and Imran got on so well.

  ‘There might be something happening with Alex,’ he said.

  Imran turned to look at him. This was the only case he was keen to hear about. Alex had been Imran’s friend too. He had been one of those carrying her coffin into the church.

  ‘Might also be nothing, but you never know.’ Miller told him about Chesshead (with whom Imran was familiar) and his promise of help. The mysterious ‘arrangements’.

  ‘Let me know what comes of it, yeah?’

  Miller promised that he would and looked away just in time to see the man fall off his skateboard at the bottom of the hill. He couldn’t help but admire the man’s attempt to style it out, like a gymnast who’s cocked up on the asymmetric bars but strikes a pose anyway.

  ‘Why do people hang bags of dogshit in trees?’ Imran asked.

  Miller looked up, half expecting to see one dangling above him. Imran’s complaint, though it was one he had heard several times before, had come somewhat out of the blue. ‘I don’t know . . . because they can?’

  ‘Because they’re selfish morons.’

  ‘Oh, right, it was a rhetorical question.’

  ‘Do you know how many bins specifically for the disposal of canine faeces there are in this park?’

  ‘No, but I’m longing to find out.’

  ‘Twelve.’ Imran held up eight fingers and two thumbs. Then two more fingers. ‘Twelve, and I know that because not only did I install most of them bins, I’m the mug who empties them. I’m also the idiot who has to clamber up stepladders on a daily basis because certain people have chosen not to use those bins, but rather to leave their poxy poo-bags suspended from branches like they’re . . . decorations or something.’

  ‘Maybe it’s some kind of statement about the commercialisation of Christmas.’

  ‘If it was up to me, I’d hang them from the bloody trees.’

  ‘That might be going a bit far.’

  Imran grunted, but his expression made it clear he didn’t think the summary execution of the offending dog owners should necessarily be off the table. ‘Your lot should do something about it.’

  ‘What, some kind of dedicated arboreal dog-shit squad?’

  ‘Yeah, or just a copper with a big stick.’

  It was at this point that Miller remembered that he did have something to do, having neglected to follow up on the vehicle he had seen outside his house the night before. He got up and stepped away, called the office and asked Andrea Fuller to run the partial number plate through the system.

  He walked back across to the bench and gave Imran a thumbs-up.

  ‘I’ve put a call in to the Chief Constable,’ he said.

  FORTY-THREE

  Using some leftover vegetables, two cold sausages and a packet of microwavable rice, Miller knocked up what he liked to call ‘a can’t-be-arsed paella’. He fed Fred and Ginger before sitting down with his own meal, so that they could all eat together. With one ear on the radio and watching the rats make short work of what had been put in front of them, he thought about what Xiu had said in the coffee shop.

  You don’t have to do that . . .

  His new partner clearly saw right through him and Miller couldn’t decide if he liked it or not. It was . . . unnerving. Seeing as she’d already given Xiu a resounding seal of approval, it would be helpful to get Alex’s take on things, but for whatever reason she wasn’t ‘around’ right then to share her thoughts on the matter.

  Busy being dead, Miller thought, which was certainly a decent excuse.

  It didn’t seem altogether fair though, considering that she was only ever ‘around’ inside his own head, so maybe their face-to-face conversations were entirely dependent on what else was clattering about in there. On having sufficient headspace. He could usually imagine what Alex might say in any given situation (because she had never been shy about telling him) but seeing her seemed rather more . . . arbitrary.

  It was as if, even though she was dead and he was imagining her, Alex was somehow the one who decided when she was going to show up.

  Like she was still in charge.

  It was just after eight o’clock, and Miller was washing up, when he heard the rattle of the letterbox. He opened the door, and beyond the security light he could see a figure on a bike pedalling furiously away. The hoodie-wearing cyclist could have been male or female, fourteen or forty. Miller closed the door and bent to pick up the large brown envelope with his name on that was sitting on the doormat. He carried it through to the living room, sat down and tore it open.

  Five minutes later, he was on the phone to Chesshead.

  ‘So, what am I looking at, Gary . . . ?’

  He knew what he was looking at, obviously. Two large black and white photographs of Alex on some unidentifiable semi-dark street, deep in conversation with an equally unidentifiable man who could have come straight from the ‘Shadowy Figures’ department at Central Casting.

  What Miller wanted to know was where and when and who.

  ‘I can’t really talk, Mr Miller.’

  ‘Where did you get these?’

  ‘I’ve had them for a while.’

  ‘You’re not answering my question, Gary.’

  ‘Sorry, Mr Miller, but—’

  ‘Who took these bloody photographs?’

  ‘I did,’ Pope said. ‘Someone asked me to take them . . .’

  Miller stared down at the photographs. One thing he was sure about was that they had not been taken on the night of Alex’s murder. She was not wearing the same clothes. He knew he was almost certainly looking at a snapshot of an ordinary work-related encounter. A Serious and Organised officer working undercover and gathering intelligence from a suspect or perhaps an informant. A woman doing her job. If that was the case, though, why did he feel so uneasy and why had Gary Pope been asked to take the pictures in the first place?

  Why did Chesshead think these photos could help?

  He knew that Alex would not have been able to answer his questions, but Miller glanced around just in case, hoping desperately to see her watching him from the doorway or staring out of the window.

  There was only an absence.

  ‘Who asked you to take these?’ he asked.

  There was silence for a few seconds, what sounded very much like pub noise in the background. ‘Come on, Mr Miller . . . that’s as much as I can tell you.’

  ‘Was it Ralph Massey?’

  ‘I think I’ve done my bit,’ Pope said. ‘Shouldn’t even have done this much, probably.’

  ‘So, you’ve no idea who the man in the photos is?’

  This time there was nearly half a minute of breathing and noise before Pope said, ‘Look, I took those pictures about a month before your wife was killed, OK? Now, I really need to go . . .’

  Though Miller wasn’t altogether sure what he was thanking Pope for, he did it anyway. He reminded him that he needed to present himself at the smaller of the town’s two stations in good time to make his train back to London.

  ‘Don’t you worry about that, Mr Miller. Sooner I’m out of here, the better.’

  ‘Call me tomorrow.’ Miller felt confident that Pope would be rather more forthcoming when he was somewhere he felt safer.

  ‘I’ll do my best,’ Pope said.

  Once Chesshead had hung up, Miller could do little but sit and study the two photographs, in the vain hope that he had missed some crucial detail which might suddenly reveal itself. When the heating turned itself off and the room began to feel cold, he grabbed the duvet from his bed and wrapped it around himself. He made some tea. After that, there was just the burble of the radio in the background and the squeak of the wheel as Fred and Ginger worked off their dinner.

  Miller jumped slightly when his mobile began to ring.

  ‘Blimey. I thought you’d be tucked up in bed with a hot milky drink by now.’

  ‘No,’ Xiu said. ‘I’m not.’

  ‘OK.’ Miller pulled his feet up on to the sofa and lay back. ‘If you’re calling to remind me about our hot date at the phone shop tomorrow, I’ve put a Post-it note on my fridge.’ He waited for a reaction, but there wasn’t one. ‘You all right, Posh?’

  ‘I wanted to say thank you, that’s all. For today.’

  ‘It was only a couple of cakes,’ Miller said. ‘Yes, they were ridiculously expensive, but I’m an exceedingly generous man. Also, I’m going to claim them on expenses.’

  ‘Not the cakes.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Thank you for being honest. For trusting me. What you told me about that night at the ballroom, your wife . . .’

  ‘Right.’ Now Miller felt slightly more unnerved than he had done before, but also oddly comforted. ‘You’re welcome.’

  Xiu said nothing. Miller was on the verge of asking if she was still there when she finally spoke again. Very quickly.

  ‘Once or twice a week, I get dressed up and go to this Heavy Metal night in the room above the King’s Arms. The big pub on Thornton Road, near the roundabout? It’s very loud and very crowded and I drink and dance until I find someone I like the look of. By that time I’ve usually drunk enough to like the look of anyone in there who isn’t absolutely hideous, but anyway . . . as soon as I’ve found someone who’ll do, I take them home with me.’ She paused. ‘For sex.’

  It was Miller’s turn to say nothing for a while.

  ‘You’re shocked, aren’t you?’ Xiu asked.

  ‘Too bloody right I am,’ Miller said. ‘Heavy metal?’

  FORTY-FOUR

  Staring across at the man who was half on, half off and half asleep on her sofa, Michelle might well have asked herself what she’d done to deserve this. But the answer was pretty obvious, so she didn’t bother. He’d been several sheets to the wind when he’d shown up at her door an hour earlier, and, after the two glasses of wine he’d insisted on, he was now on the verge of passing out. That might well have been the best outcome, all things considered, but right then she simply wanted him out of her house.

  She walked across, stood over him and raised her voice.

  ‘Justin.’ She put a hand on his shoulder and shook it. ‘You need to go home . . . I’m calling you a cab, all right?’

  He opened his eyes and smiled up at her. ‘Is there any more wine?’

  ‘No there isn’t,’ she said. ‘Please, Justin . . . I need to go to bed.’

  The smile widened and became wolfish. ‘Now we’re talking . . .’

  Her day hadn’t been half bad up to then. Wayne and Jacqui had finally decided she didn’t need babysitting any more and gone home. Michelle had immediately driven round to her mum’s place to pick up her kids and, once she’d dealt with the awkward questions about where Daddy was (‘dealt with’ as in ‘lied’ because she didn’t know what else to do), they’d had a brilliant few hours together. Teatime had been predictably chaotic and getting them bathed and ready for bed had all but wiped her out, but it had been the first time Michelle had felt genuinely happy since Adrian had died.

  No, the first time she had felt happy in months.

  She had just got the kids settled and opened a bottle when the doorbell had rung and Uncle Justin had bowled in.

  ‘Come on, Justin. For God’s sake . . . you need to get up.’ She grabbed his hand and tugged; then, before she realised her mistake, he’d pulled her down on to the sofa next to him.

  ‘That’s better,’ he said. ‘Cosier.’

  ‘What do you think you’re doing?’ Michelle stared at her brother-in-law, hard. ‘Seriously? You think this is a good idea?’

  ‘Well, you seemed to think it was a pretty great idea last time.’

  ‘There wasn’t a last time,’ Michelle said. ‘Because there isn’t going to be a next time.’ She stared at his red, ridiculous face and reminded herself just how much of an idiot she’d been. ‘It was one time, Justin.’

  One night when she was a lot drunker than Justin was now. One night when Adrian was away and up to no good. One night when cutting up a shirt or smashing one of his toy trains had not been enough and a rather more basic way of getting her own back had presented itself.

  Three months before, on the very same sofa.

  ‘My baby brother’s let himself go a bit,’ he’d said, then. ‘And I know you’ve always fancied me.’

  She hadn’t. She didn’t.

  ‘Adrian’s not around any more,’ Justin said, now. ‘So, it’s not a problem.’

  ‘Not for you, maybe, because you’re clearly even more of a psycho than I thought you were.’ Michelle snatched her hand away and got to her feet. ‘Sorry to spoil your sad little party, but I have no interest whatsoever in swapping one Cutler for another, least of all when the one I was married to is lying in a steel drawer.’ She picked up her mobile from the table. ‘Now, here’s a thought . . . why don’t I call your old man and ask if he’ll come and pick you up? You can tell him exactly why you came over on your way home, see if he thinks it’s a problem.’

  Justin seemed to sober up very quickly. Michelle watched as he hauled himself off the sofa and began to swear at her. She took a step away and waited patiently until he’d finished.

  ‘It’s your choice,’ she said. ‘I can call a cab company or, if you want to save yourself a few quid, I could just as easily give Wayne a quick bell. So, what’s it to be, Justin?’ Her finger hovered over the keypad. ‘Taxi or Dad?’

  ‘It’s pretty standard in murder cases, I’m afraid.’ Fiona Mackie leaned back against the worktop in Pippa Shepherd’s kitchen. ‘These things drag on and it’s always horrible for the families, because how are you supposed to make plans or move on? I am doing my best, and I promise to keep you informed, but as of right this minute they still can’t tell me when they plan to release Barry’s body.’

  Pippa nodded, but she couldn’t remember why she was being told this or how the conversation had started or even if she’d asked Mackie a specific question. Because she hadn’t been sleeping much and she was tired, but mostly because her mind was elsewhere.

  She was thinking about that flash drive.

  The police would know what was on there by now, what Barry had wanted kept secret, and she was trying not to worry too much about why she hadn’t been told. Maybe it was just the way they did things, or at least the way that strange detective Miller did things. Pippa knew he’d already found out she’d been lying when they’d spoken on the street two days before. Her boss had told her all about the bloke who’d rung to order pizza and then asked questions about her working hours, and she could only presume that Miller hadn’t confronted her about it because he was biding his time. Or more likely because he’d already worked out that it wasn’t important.

  Which it wasn’t. Not really . . .

  ‘Sometimes there are . . . stipulations,’ Mackie said. ‘I don’t know what Barry’s wishes were or how you were planning to do things, but even when they do release the body, they may insist on burial instead of cremation. Just in case there’s a trial and the defence ask for a second post-mortem. I know, it’s horrible to have that option taken away, and I really can’t see it happening in this instance, but just so as you’re prepared.’

  Pippa said thank you and that it was all useful information. ‘Have you heard anything about the actual case? About any progress, I mean?’

  ‘If there was anything I could tell you, I would.’ Mackie could see that Pippa was upset and stepped across to comfort her. ‘It’s awful being kept in the dark, I know. I will tell you one thing, though. We are doing everything we can to catch whoever killed Barry. I can promise you that much.’

  Pippa nodded and stared into the blackness beyond her kitchen window. The FLO’s arm felt good around her shoulder, though it wasn’t going to stop her shaking. She was grateful too for the reassurance, but right then, though there were a good many things she was desperate to know, the identity of her husband’s killer wasn’t top of the list.

  The middle-aged man (shaggy mullet, too much jewellery) flicked over his king to resign the game and sat back, scowling. ‘Made me look like a right pillock.’

  ‘It wasn’t very hard.’ Gary Pope leaned across the table to shake his opponent’s hand. ‘I’ll have another Glenlivet, ta very much . . .’

  As the man stood up and stalked away to the bar, Pope began to reset the board. He’d meant every word he’d said to Miller; he bloody loved chess. He loved playing it, loved the fact that he’d finally found something he was good at that wasn’t illegal, and he especially loved the fact that, in the three hours he’d been taking on all-comers in the corner of the pub, he hadn’t paid for a single drink. It was an arrangement with diminishing returns, though, Pope knew that. The more he won, the more he drank and the more he drank, the more likely he was to get sloppy and start losing.

  All the same, free booze was free booze.

  Another game or two couldn’t hurt.

  He moved the last pawn into position and checked his watch. He’d need to be on his way pretty sharpish after that if he was going to meet that copper and make the nine o’clock train. Much as he’d enjoyed himself, Pope wouldn’t be sorry to be heading out of town again. He guessed that most of the people he was trying to avoid would know he was here, so lying low had felt like the sensible thing to do once he’d got the business with Miller out of the way. It was a shame, because there were people he would have liked to see – not least of all his mum – but he wasn’t going to take chances. If he popped round to see an old mate, he could get spotted by someone who might tell someone else and suddenly things wouldn’t be looking too clever. It was like he told Miller: he had to think ahead, same as when he was playing chess.