Massey refused to rise to the bait. One of his numbers was called out and he flicked it shut. ‘Besides which, I own the place, so whatever I spend in here ends up in my pocket anyway. I win, I win. I lose . . . I win.’

  Miller nodded like he was impressed. ‘You can never have enough pink plastic suitcases.’ He looked around, keen to get into the conversation he was there for, but not wanting to push it. If he knew one thing about Ralph Massey, aside from his propensity for shiny trousers and casual violence, it was that he could be capricious. He did not want to appear over-eager, only for Massey to change his mind about their arrangement at the last minute because he wasn’t in the right mood.

  He stared at the young woman who was calling out the numbers as they appeared on a monitor in front of her. She spoke into her cheap microphone in a rapid yet dreary monotone that made it sound as if she was unutterably bored.

  ‘Twelve . . . thirty-five . . . forty-six . . . ’ She sighed. ‘Seven . . .

  twenty-three . . . ’

  Miller understood that in the interests of making money they needed to get through games as quickly as possible, but all the same she wasn’t putting on much of a show.

  ‘I know you’re only paying that poor girl minimum wage.’ He nodded towards the young woman. ‘But don’t you think there could be a little more . . . theatre? Jazz it up a bit?’

  Massey shook his head. ‘Jazz it up?’

  ‘Well, not literally. I’m not talking about scat singing and tuneless saxophones, but come on, Ralph, you’re an ex-performer yourself, so you know what I mean. What happened to all that normal bingo stuff? Two fat horses . . . sixty-six. Key of the door, number twelve, whatever.’

  Massey turned back to his numbers. He was waiting for just one, his finger hovering expectantly over the plastic slider, only for the angry woman with the chips to beat him to it.

  ‘House!’

  Massey watched the caller hand the woman a ticket and glared at both of them in turn. The caller shrugged like there was nothing she could do, but Massey obviously thought there ought to have been. He took a deep breath, cleared his board and focused as the next game was announced. ‘You said on the phone that there was news.’

  ‘Yes, there is definitely news,’ Miller said.

  ‘I’m all ears.’

  ‘We’re on.’

  ‘On, as in . . . ?’

  ‘As in time finally being up for our mutual friend.’

  ‘Fourteen . . . ’ droned the caller.

  Massey hissed out a victorious ‘Yes’, flipped his slider and glanced at Miller. ‘And that’s a definite, is it? You’re not making promises you can’t keep, are you, Detective Miller?’

  ‘Tomorrow,’ Miller said. ‘Wayne Cutler’s last day as a free man.’

  ‘Now, that is exciting.’

  ‘There’s no way he can slide out from under this one.’

  ‘You’re sure? Because he is awfully slippery.’

  ‘We have awfully powerful testimony,’ Miller said.

  Massey covered another number and rapidly clapped his hands together, seemingly as delighted at his steady progress towards one of the prizes as he was at Miller’s news. ‘You’ve made an old drag artiste very happy and I thank you for it.’

  Miller wasn’t prepared to wait any longer. ‘So, let’s hear it then. What is it you know about what happened to Alex?’

  ‘What?’ Massey stared.

  Miller stared back.

  ‘I’m not sure I know what you mean—’

  Miller smacked a hand across Massey’s console and leaned in. ‘Do not mess me about, Ralph, because I swear—’

  ‘I’m joking!’ Massey shook his head. ‘Honestly, some people have no sense of humour. I’m just trying to build the tension a bit.’ He saw the look on Miller’s face and sighed. ‘Fine. So, here it is. You could do a drumroll, if you wanted.’

  ‘Tell me,’ Miller hissed.

  Massey shrugged, then spoke nice and quietly. ‘Your wife was murdered by a fellow police officer,’ he said. ‘By one of yours, and . . . that’s it.’ He held up a hand to head off Miller’s next question. ‘There’s no point asking me for a name, because I haven’t got one and that’s the God’s honest truth, but I do have a fair idea what happened and why.’

  Miller could not find the words, still trying to process what he’d just been told. He nodded for Massey to go on, then listened as the man who would soon be the most powerful underworld figure in town explained exactly why Alex had been killed.

  Who had said what and to who.

  Where money had been hidden.

  What Miller had been watching on that video.

  ‘And that’s just about all she wrote,’ Massey said. ‘Now, I’m one ticket away from that fabulous lava lamp, so I’d very much like to get back to my game.’

  Miller stood up and drifted slowly towards the door, his mind still turning faster than any machine in the place. He was vaguely aware of the woman shouting ‘House’ again somewhere behind him and of Massey standing up and shouting, any pretence of sophistication gone. ‘Right, that’s your lot, love. You’re barred.’

  ‘You can’t do that.’

  ‘I’m a man who can do whatever he bloody well likes, darling. Now, on your way before I stick them chips where the sun don’t shine.’

  SIXTY-TWO

  Miller was buzzing, but painfully distracted; wired and desperate to do something, yet unable to decide precisely what he should be doing that didn’t involve smashing the nearest available object or just shouting out of the window. He put two slices of bread into the toaster and promptly forgot about them. He opened the fridge then stared into it for a while, not really sure what he’d opened it for.

  ‘Butter, maybe?’

  He closed the door and turned to see Alex at the kitchen table. ‘Yeah, sounds feasible.’

  ‘Oh, I meant to say, well done on the hospital job. A very nice result . . . not for Mr Driscoll, obviously, but that’s not going to keep anyone awake at night.’ She sighed and leaned forward to run her hands across the tabletop. ‘I’ve been trying to think of a few more welding jokes, but it is quite . . . niche.’

  Miller did not want to talk about Dudley Driscoll. He sat down opposite Alex and told her what he did want to talk about.

  ‘Massey made good on his promise, then?’

  ‘Strangely, I always thought he would.’

  ‘His one good deed for the year,’ Alex said. ‘Maybe the twisted old stick insect’s dying, which wouldn’t be the worst news I’ve heard lately.’

  ‘He’s got ulterior motives.’

  ‘Well, come on then.’ She sat back and folded her arms. ‘I mean obviously I know, but our strange little chinwags are bound by certain conventions, so spit it out.’

  ‘You were killed by a copper.’

  Alex shook her head. ‘Right, and you’re surprised, are you?’

  ‘Yeah, a bit,’ Miller said. ‘Though I do get why I shouldn’t be.’ The Lancashire Constabulary was not yet in quite the same parlous state as the Met, but the notion that police officers were paragons of virtue, or could even be trusted to do what was in their basic job description and uphold law and order, had certainly taken a kicking. Trust in coppers was at an all-time low, thanks to those serving officers all over the country who had recently been convicted of a shocking range of criminal offences.

  Murder, rape, GBH, ABH, drug smuggling . . . Miller was just waiting for one to get sent down for genocide and that would pretty much be the full set.

  ‘It’s why you were watching this copper in particular.’

  ‘Yeah, he’s a very bad lad,’ Alex said. ‘If I’d known quite how bad, I might have been a bit more careful. I probably got a bit cocky.’

  ‘Don’t even try and suggest it was your fault.’

  ‘OK, then I won’t.’ She smiled at Miller and leaned over to touch his hand. ‘That’s a relief.’

  ‘So . . . ’ Miller stood and began pacing around the kitchen, as he outlined the details of Alex’s murder and finally got to tell her some of the things she didn’t know. ‘You won’t be amazed to hear that both Massey and Cutler were keeping tabs on you, because they knew you were keeping tabs on them. The copper in question, the one who eventually . . . you know . . . was in Cutler’s pocket, obviously.’

  Alex nodded. ‘We found out he’d been taking money off Wayne Cutler for a couple of years. Feeding him information and warning him if any of our colleagues were getting too close.’

  It was exactly what Massey had told him. ‘So you let it be known that you might be tempted to have a bit of what he was having. That you could be turned.’

  Alex nodded again and gave Miller her best Darth Vader impression. ‘To the Dark Side, Luke.’

  ‘Right, so . . . you accept the odd bit of money and feed this bloke some bogus intelligence while you’re gathering enough evidence to put him away. Once he trusts you, he goes to Cutler and lets him know he might have found another officer happy to join the payroll. Good news all round, right? Because what self-respecting gangster wouldn’t want another bent copper on the payroll? But Cutler’s been watching you, so he breaks the bad news and tells this copper exactly who his new recruit really is.’

  Alex smiled a little sadly and pointed at herself. ‘Ta-daaaa!’

  ‘That’s when our bent copper decides there’s only one way to keep himself safe.’ Miller faltered a little as the memories of the last time he’d seen Alex alive began to crowd in. Vivid and unbearable. ‘He was the one who called you that night . . . ’

  She smiled, but now she was having to make as much effort as Miller was. ‘Yeah, and we’d have won that sodding competition if it wasn’t for him. My tango was flawless.’

  ‘I’m not arguing,’ Miller said.

  ‘You wouldn’t dare.’

  ‘But don’t you think this is a bit more important?’

  ‘I’m dead, Miller. There isn’t much that’s hugely important.’ She looked across at him, still smiling even though the tears had started. ‘But yes, obviously . . . ’

  ‘He arranges to meet you somewhere, only this time he’s got a gun, and . . . ’ Miller bit back a sob. ‘You can chip in here, you know?’

  ‘Is there any point?’

  ‘I suppose not. It’s not like anything you can add is going to be admissible in court, is it?’ He laughed, then sobbed, then laughed again. He clutched at the lapels of an imaginary robe and declaimed in the voice of a posh defence barrister, ‘Call Alexandra Miller!’

  Alex laughed right along, wiping a sleeve across her face before she joined in. It was the kind of silly skit they’d acted out in this very room together many times, making one another laugh over a bottle of wine at the end of a horrible day. She was a good mimic, so her grumpy and officious judge was spot on. ‘Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t “Alexandra Miller” the name of the victim in this case?’

  Miller’s prosecution barrister took his cue. ‘Absolutely, m’lud. I think m’learned friend is losing his marbles!’

  Their laughter died slowly away. Miller leaned back against the worktop and looked at her. Perhaps it was just the tears making her eyes shine, but he couldn’t remember ever seeing her look so beautiful.

  ‘So, why didn’t Massey tell you any of this before?’ Alex asked. ‘If it was all about getting ammunition to nail Cutler that he could then pass on to you, surely he had enough.’

  ‘He obviously didn’t think so,’ Miller said. ‘There was no guarantee that Cutler couldn’t make it all disappear, and besides, there’s no way this copper would have given any evidence against him. It certainly wouldn’t have made any difference to his sentence, not if he was going down for murdering a fellow police officer. On top of which, if he did spill his guts, any time spent in prison would be a lot less . . . comfortable. It’s tough enough for coppers inside as it is, but with friends of Wayne Cutler in there with him, he’d have been shanked in the showers before you could say “vulnerable prisoners wing”.’

  ‘I can’t help wishing that’s what had happened,’ Alex said. ‘If only because I never got to dance my tango.’

  ‘So, Massey let the ammunition build up and waited until he was sure Cutler was going down anyway. I reckon he knew Chesshead would give me those photos, which is the reason that copper killed the poor sod, and when they weren’t enough, he sent me the video.’ Miller pushed himself away from the worktop. ‘Talking of which . . . ’

  ‘Really? Again?’

  Miller marched into the living room, sat down in front of his laptop and called the video up. He looked across to see Alex watching TV, flicking idly through the channels.

  ‘That’ll be the one hundred and thirty-seventh time you’ve watched the stupid thing,’ she said. ‘I’ve counted.’

  ‘Yeah, but now I know something I didn’t know before,’ Miller said.

  ‘Ooh, First Dates is on . . . ’

  He pressed play and leaned close to the screen. Alex, the man in the shadows, the envelope stuffed with what he now knew to be cash. When it had finished, he went back to the beginning and played it again.

  And again.

  That niggle was even stronger now. Something the bent copper was doing while he was waiting for Alex to count the money. Something weird with his hands . . .

  ‘It’s the one where that builder keeps winking while he’s telling the woman all about his big drill. Remember, Miller?’

  ‘Yes!’

  ‘Right, and she calls her mate when she’s in the toilet and tells her what a plonker he is.’

  ‘No, the’ – Miller pointed frantically at the laptop – ‘the bloke in the video, for crying out loud. The one who killed you.’

  Alex was still transfixed by the cheeky builder. ‘Oh yeah?’

  ‘I know who he is.’

  Miller let the video play through one more time to be sure, and by the end of it, he was. Now he knew exactly what had been bothering him about the man’s hands, or more specifically what the man was doing with them.

  He knew because he’d only recently watched him doing it.

  He sat back and stared across at Alex. ‘Seriously, though? It’s him?’

  She didn’t take her eyes off the TV screen. ‘Well, d’uh!’

  SIXTY-THREE

  ‘Big day,’ Miller said.

  Xiu nodded. ‘They don’t come much bigger.’

  They were leaving the station after the pre-operational briefing, during which Tim Sullivan had said much the same thing. Despite having spent most of the time imagining the DI as his plums were fed slowly into a mangle – much like the one his Auntie Bridget still used – for once Miller could not disagree with him.

  ‘Have you thought about how many murder cases we could close today?’ Xiu asked.

  ‘At least half a dozen,’ Miller said.

  ‘Maybe more.’

  ‘All being well.’

  They were walking across the car park towards one of the three vehicles that would be involved in the operation, and clearly Xiu could not help but notice the spring in Miller’s step. ‘You’re very chipper today,’ she said. ‘Considering what’s at stake.’

  ‘What can I tell you? I’m a man who rises to the occasion.’

  Xiu did not look convinced. ‘You don’t look even a bit nervous. I was half expecting that irritating humming business again.’

  ‘Well, the first thing is we won’t be sitting in the back of a van all bloody day.’

  ‘Right. And?’ Xiu waited. ‘What’s the second thing?’

  ‘Sorry, I forgot to say . . . I know who murdered Alex.’

  Xiu stopped. Two steps later, Miller did the same and walked cheerfully backwards to join her.

  ‘What? How? No, no, who . . . ?’

  They were in something of a hurry, so Miller provided the answers to all her questions as succinctly as possible, then threw in the answer to one she hadn’t asked. He wasn’t even convinced that she was ever going to ask, but he’d been meaning to tell her for a while. ‘Oh, and Finn is Alex’s daughter, by the way.’

  Xiu just stared.

  ‘It’s a long story.’

  Eventually Xiu managed to get some words out. ‘OK, well, we can circle back to that, but . . . what about the other thing? The officer who killed your wife, I mean?’

  ‘Yeah, it’s a shocker, isn’t it?’

  ‘A shocker? For God’s sake, Miller . . . when are you going to talk to Forgeham?’

  ‘Well, not today,’ Miller said. ‘Obviously we’re going to be a bit tied up anyway, but more importantly, I need to go in there with solid evidence. I want this bloke bang to rights.’

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  ‘Banger than bang to rights. The big bang of bang to rights.’

  ‘You thought about how you’re going to get it?’

  ‘Thought about it and taken steps.’ Miller nodded, smiling. ‘You may rest assured that steps have most definitely been taken. I’ve got two possible streams of evidence, one from a source who’s mad keen to help me and is already on the case. The other one, maybe not so much . . . but let’s see what today brings, shall we?’ He pointed towards the car and they began moving again.

  Xiu was still shaking her head and muttering. Several times she opened her mouth to say something, then appeared to change her mind. She raised her arms, then let them drop again, as if completely banjaxed by the turn the day had taken, though she did seem to have calmed herself down a little by the time they got to the car.

  ‘I already knew about Finn,’ she said as they were getting in. ‘Just so you know.’

  ‘No flies on you, are there, Posh?’