‘I heard about Chesshead,’ Cutler said.

  ‘Oh, you heard?’

  ‘People talk, don’t they? News travels.’

  ‘So what, is there some kind of . . . gangland WhatsApp group or something? Do you send each other cute little messages and pics? “Here’s what happened to the thieving little shitehawk who tried to stiff me on that coke deal? LOLZ!” I presume there are baseball bat and knuckle-duster emojis . . .’

  Cutler actually seemed to find Miller’s routine quite funny. ‘Look, I knew that because of the history, you’d be knocking on my door eventually. I know you were busy enough before what happened last night, so I thought I’d save you the trouble.’

  ‘I’m touched.’ Miller turned to Xiu. ‘Are you touched?’ He wiped away a non-existent tear. ‘I think I might actually be filling up.’

  ‘Take the mickey all you like,’ Cutler said. ‘I just wanted you to know that Chesshead came to see me last night.’

  ‘He came to see you?’ Xiu asked.

  ‘Trust me, I was as surprised as you are.’

  ‘I seriously doubt that,’ Miller said. ‘So, what time was this?’

  ‘I don’t know . . . around nine-thirty.’

  ‘And what time did he leave?’ Miller was trying to work out what the hell Chesshead had been up to, if, having been delivered to the Majestic Ballroom by Massey’s twin goons, he had then voluntarily trotted along to visit Cutler. How many moves ahead had he been thinking? ‘I presume he did leave, as opposed to . . . for instance . . . being bundled into the back of one of your cars and driven to an alleyway behind the football ground.’

  ‘He was here about an hour, so ten-ish. It’s easy enough to check.’

  ‘Let me guess.’ Miller nodded up to the security camera above the garage door; one of three he’d seen since arriving at Cutler’s gates. ‘It’s all on film, right? Handy, that.’

  ‘Why did he want to see you?’ Xiu asked.

  Cutler looked like he was thinking about it.

  ‘It’s a reasonable question,’ Miller said. ‘I mean, mice don’t tend to chuck themselves on to traps, do they?’

  ‘He said he wanted to set things straight. He knew I’d been looking for him.’

  ‘Because of what happened to Adrian?’

  ‘Yeah. I knew he hadn’t actually done it, but he might have had a hand in the arrangements, mightn’t he? Or known who had. He wanted to let me know in person he’d had nothing to do with it.’

  ‘Did you believe him?’

  ‘I did, actually,’ Cutler said. ‘I’m pretty good at reading people.’

  ‘Really?’ Miller looked at him, doubtful that Cutler could read anything much beyond a pop-up book. ‘Can you read me, Wayne?’

  ‘Well . . .’

  ‘Am I thinking, “Fair enough, thanks so much for bringing this information to our attention, all very helpful et cetera, et cetera”? Or am I thinking, “What the hell, I might just bring in a forensic unit to be on the safe side and let them spend the rest of the day crawling all over your fancy garage”?’

  ‘Hold on—’

  ‘I refer the dishonourable gentleman to my previous comments about cars and bundling and alleyways behind football grounds.’ Miller smiled. ‘So, what do you reckon?’

  Cutler shrugged and rolled his eyes at Xiu, as if in sympathy. ‘Do what you like, Miller.’

  Miller caught the look from Xiu, who was ready to move on. He almost certainly wouldn’t be bringing in a forensic unit and he’d actually been thinking that he should get his moped checked over because it was making that funny whiny noise again and that he quite fancied pasta for dinner. He wasn’t done with Cutler yet, though. ‘Did Pope say where he was going when he left?’ He used his fingers to put ‘left’ in quote marks.

  ‘He’d missed a train, hadn’t he? Told me he was going to see his mum and probably stay the night there. Maybe you should be talking to her, because I don’t think they were exactly close.’

  ‘We will be,’ Xiu said.

  Cutler took a step away. ‘Right, I’ve got stuff to do . . .’

  Miller said nothing for just long enough to let Cutler think they were finished, then shouted after him. ‘Oh, while I’ve got you . . .’ He waited for Cutler to come back. ‘Why were you harassing Pippa Shepherd the other day?’

  ‘I wasn’t harassing anybody,’ Cutler said. ‘I just ran into her while I was walking the dog, so I stopped to say hello.’

  ‘You asked her what she’d told the police.’

  ‘Well, I’m still quite keen to find out why my son was killed, and I’m not getting any answers from you, am I? That’s not what it was about, though. I just wanted to talk about it to someone who was going through the same thing as me. Someone who’s grieving.’

  ‘Right,’ Miller said. ‘Whatever. You need to stay away from her.’

  ‘That’s why they have bereavement support groups, because it helps.’ Cutler took a few more steps back towards his garage, then turned. ‘You should try it yourself.’

  Miller could not ever imagine a day when he’d take advice from the likes of Wayne Cutler, but immediately found himself thinking about Howard, Mary, Gloria and the others.

  ‘I’ve got one of my own,’ he said.

  As the gates slid back to allow the car out again, Miller glanced up at yet another security camera. He leaned out of the window to give it a wave. ‘A bit odd how Massey and Cutler are both so keen to distance themselves from Chesshead’s murder.’

  Xiu glanced over at him. ‘Is it, though?’

  ‘Super keen.’

  ‘Isn’t that what you’d expect them to do?’

  ‘Not when you’re as cocky as those two. Normally they don’t give a monkey’s if we think they’re guilty or not. It’s all about whether we can prove it.’

  ‘Do you think there’s anything to prove?’

  Miller groped for the handle to tilt his seat back. ‘Obviously it’s still possible that either of them could have had Chesshead killed after he left Cutler’s, but I’m not convinced. Even if that’s the case, I don’t think it’s got a lot to do with the murders at the Sands.’ He slid down in his seat and closed his eyes, as though he was trying to catch forty winks. ‘Whoever killed Chesshead, it wasn’t because of that.’

  ‘So . . . something else.’

  Miller grunted, knowing exactly which something Xiu was cautiously suggesting. He’d told her about the photographs Pope had sent him on the journey to Cutler’s place. She hadn’t said very much then and didn’t say anything more now for several minutes.

  Miller wasn’t asleep, but wondered if Xiu thought he was.

  ‘Briefing’s in an hour,’ she said, eventually. ‘Enough time to go and ask Pope’s mother a few questions.’

  ‘I’ve got a question,’ Miller said. ‘First there’s the whole heavy metal slash casual nookie business, and now it transpires that you’re some kind of tragic classic car nerd.’

  ‘I prefer “expert”,’ Xiu said.

  ‘Which is exactly what a nerd would say. So . . . any other dirty secrets I should know about, Posh?’

  ‘No . . .’

  ‘Promise?’

  Miller opened his eyes in time to catch Xiu reddening.

  FORTY-EIGHT

  Tim Sullivan was on fire.

  Not in the way Miller would have liked, obviously, but he had to admit that the DI was certainly ‘giving good briefing’. Another murder could do that, could raise a person’s game, even if said person didn’t have much game to begin with. Sullivan talked about the crime scene forensics like he was about to reveal who had really killed JFK, but in the end there wasn’t a fat lot to get excited about. Whoever had been responsible for killing Gary Pope had not only been careful in their choice of location but had left nothing behind in the way of helpful physical evidence. The forensic team had taken plenty of stuff away, he said, and tests were, of course, ongoing—

  ‘So, nothing with a name and address on?’ Miller asked.

  ‘There’s a boot-print that looks quite promising,’ Sullivan said.

  ‘Bloody inconsiderate, if you ask me.’

  It was Miller’s first and only contribution to the initial stage of the briefing. Xiu had volunteered to talk the team through the interviews she and Miller had conducted with Ralph Massey (he had seen the victim and would happily supply footage of him leaving alive and well), Wayne Cutler (ditto) and Veronica Pope (she hadn’t seen her son the previous evening and didn’t appear hugely bothered about the fact that she was never going to see him again). So, knowing that he was unlikely to hear anything he didn’t already know, Miller tuned out for a while.

  He still nodded occasionally and managed to look interested. He even scribbled a few notes when Sullivan talked about the likely time of death before running through the postmortem notes in unnecessary detail.

  Gunshot to the head?? NO WAY!!

  This ability to appear engaged while actually being – mentally and emotionally – entirely absent, was one that Miller also put to good use in a variety of social situations. It came in very handy at boring dinner parties (they were always boring) or if anybody was describing a dream they’d had. It was a veritable godsend if someone was talking about cryptocurrency or wild swimming, but zoning out on such occasions usually meant he was compiling a list of things he needed from the supermarket or running through dance steps in his head.

  Mundane stuff, harmless stuff.

  He wasn’t thinking about a growing tally of gunshot victims or about lethal chess games. He wasn’t telling himself not to panic about a series of mysterious photographs that posed a great many more questions than they answered.

  Who’s the bloke in the pictures, Alex . . .?

  It had to have been Ralph Massey who had asked Chesshead to take the photographs. He was working for Massey at the time, so it couldn’t really be anyone else. If Massey knew that Alex was investigating him (and it wasn’t like she’d made any secret of the fact) then it made sense that he would want her followed and to have her movements recorded. If anyone believed in knowing their enemy it was Massey, and Alex was certainly that.

  Would anyone on your team know? Should I show the photos to Dominic Baxter?

  But if that’s all the photos were, why had Chesshead been so reluctant to talk about them? Why had he arranged for someone to deliver them rather than handing them over to Miller himself, and why (rightfully, as it had turned out) had he been so scared?

  If I show them to anyone, it should probably be Lindsey Forgeham . . .

  Miller tuned in again very suddenly when he heard Sullivan say, ‘So, until we have evidence that suggests otherwise, we’re working on the assumption that Gary Pope’s murder is connected to the murders at the Sands Hotel. Everyone agreed?’

  Without needing to look, Miller knew that Xiu was staring, waiting for him to speak up. Having had time to consider the matter, he had already made it very clear – to Xiu at least – that he did not agree, on top of which she knew that he was in possession of evidence that might do exactly what Sullivan was talking about. If she wanted to say something, there was nothing Miller could do to stop her. He wouldn’t try to stop her.

  Miller said nothing.

  Xiu said nothing.

  ‘Right then . . . Carys.’ Sullivan nodded at the Digital Forensics team leader. ‘Where are we on Cutler’s brother?’

  ‘So, he was very happy to cooperate and unsurprisingly he was keen to hand over a phone that places him miles away from the hotel on the night of the murders.’ Morgan shrugged. ‘Doesn’t prove a great deal, though, as we’re not thinking Justin was the one who actually pulled the trigger. The financials we’ve been able to examine so far suggest that he’s doing pretty well for himself, so there’s no obvious motive there.’

  ‘If it was the brother, it’s more of a personal thing,’ Clough said. ‘Sibling rivalry can get very nasty.’

  ‘I just used to pull the head off my brother’s Action Man,’ Miller said. ‘Besides which, the jealous brother, the pissed-off wife, the business rival . . . none of them explain Barry Shepherd.’

  ‘Well, we just need to keep working the case until we can explain it,’ Sullivan said. ‘Keep working harder.’ He turned to Xiu. ‘Sara, you and DS Miller go back and talk to Gary Pope’s mother again. Find out if anyone else came to see her yesterday, asking about her son’s whereabouts. Unless you think she’s too distraught to talk to us again so soon.’

  Miller was annoyed that he hadn’t asked that question himself and amazed that Sullivan had actually made a sensible suggestion. ‘I’ve seen people more distraught at missing a bus,’ he said. ‘I think we’re good.’

  ‘What about that phone shop?’ Xiu asked. ‘We haven’t checked their CCTV yet.’

  ‘Tony and Andrea can do that,’ Sullivan said.

  Clough and Fuller nodded.

  ‘I want you two to keep working the Pope murder.’ Sullivan looked at Miller. ‘I’m sure that’s what DS Miller would prefer anyway. After all, he was the one who used his initiative and brought Gary Pope into the picture to begin with.’ He began to gather up his notes, pleased with himself. ‘I know he feels a certain . . . responsibility.’

  In the incident room, Miller walked a little sheepishly across to Xiu’s desk. She spoke without looking up.

  ‘Don’t put me in that position again.’

  ‘You sound like a stroppy contortionist.’ Miller knew she wouldn’t react, so didn’t bother waiting. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘You should have said something about the photographs.’

  ‘Said what?’

  Now, Xiu looked up at him. ‘Oh, I don’t know . . . that they were sent to you by our murder victim? That they may well be the reason he was murdered?’

  ‘We don’t know that.’

  ‘Which is precisely the reason why we need to find out.’ Xiu’s voice was raised. ‘We, as in the team you’re supposed to be a part of.’

  Miller knew that actually shushing his partner was likely to end badly for him, but he glanced around to make sure that nobody was eavesdropping, which was when he became aware of the gathering near the door.

  Sullivan and Akers were deep in conversation with DCI Lindsey Forgeham and another of her officers. The youngish one who had tried to prevent Miller from barging into his boss’s office two days earlier.

  Xiu was saying something about integrity being compromised, but Miller wasn’t really listening. She was saying something else about him not walking away when he began doing precisely that.

  The group by the door were huddled and muttering, but moved quickly apart when Sullivan noticed Miller coming across.

  ‘Call me paranoid,’ Miller said. ‘Actually don’t bother, because I know you’re talking about me.’

  ‘Forget what I said at the briefing,’ Sullivan said.

  ‘I usually do.’

  ‘Declan.’ Akers raised a hand.

  ‘Forget what I said about you talking to Pope’s mother.’

  Forgeham took half a step in Miller’s direction. ‘The Gary Pope case is now ours.’

  Miller looked to Akers. ‘But it’s part of our investigation into the murders at the Sands Hotel. DI Sullivan made that very clear.’

  Akers said nothing.

  ‘I do understand that and obviously there will still be liaison,’ Forgeham said. ‘I’m not saying that other members of DI Sullivan’s team aren’t free to pursue leads on the Pope murder where it relates to the other two. You, however, are not.’

  ‘Because I got in your face the other day?’ Miller scoffed and shook his head. ‘Because I came into your office without knocking?’

  ‘Because it’s protocol.’

  ‘A word you should probably look up,’ the youngish officer said.

  ‘There’s been a significant development,’ Forgeham said. ‘And I’m telling you this as a courtesy.’

  Miller bowed. ‘God bless you, ma’am.’

  ‘Declan,’ Akers said again.

  Forgeham’s expression was icy, businesslike. ‘We’re expecting the full ballistics report by the end of the day, but from what we know so far, we’re almost certain that Gary Pope was shot with the same gun that was used to murder your wife.’

  STEP THREE

  SHADOW POSITION

  FORTY-NINE

  Miller was in no mood to dance, but he arrived in time to provide piano accompaniment for a last chaotic rumba before joining the group as they wandered over to the Bull’s Head. He was in the mood for a pint or two and to talk through developments with his ad hoc advisory team. With a leg of lamb waiting in their slow cooker, Gloria and Ransford had gone straight home, so Miller sat with Howard, Mary, Nathan and Ruth at a small table in the corner.

  Miller got the first round in: beers for himself, Howard and Nathan; gin for Mary and wine for Ruth. As well as the obligatory pork scratchings, there were two sorts of nuts and three different flavours of crisp on the table, because no two members of the team shared a snack of choice.

  And because there was a lot to talk about.

  ‘It’s good news,’ Howard said.

  ‘Being taken off the case?’ Miller was already half a pint and half a pack of scratchings to the good. ‘You think so?’

  ‘Well, it’s hardly the first time, is it?’

  Miller would have liked to argue, but couldn’t.

  ‘Howard’s right,’ Mary said. ‘It’s progress on the investigation into Alex’s murder and that’s the most important thing.’

  ‘It’s a break in the case.’ Nathan sounded enthusiastic. He nodded to Ruth. ‘That’s what they call it.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Ruth said.

  ‘I get what you’re saying, obviously,’ Miller said. ‘But it’s a break I can’t follow up. It would be frustrating enough anyway, because I do feel partly responsible for what happened to Chesshead.’