I look at Parnell. ‘Maybe we shouldn’t have been so Secret Squirrel with Bailey. The word “gun” might have shifted something.’
Steele sighs. ‘So, anything else to share, re Bailey, apart from her fashion taste?’
Parnell pulls a chair out – a chair befitting of a thirteen-stone man, not a child with a mouth full of milk teeth. ‘She stands by everything,’ he explains. ‘What she saw, when she saw it. We got some details that weren’t in her original statement, why she was in Clapham that day, background stuff, context. It’s new but it doesn’t tell us anything.’
‘Be nice if Masters had been standing at the door with a 9mm automatic and it’d just slipped her mind, wouldn’t it?’
‘Be nice to get Dyer’s take on Bailey,’ I say.
‘Her take? That sounds suspiciously like suspicion, Kinsella.’
What the hell. She’ll drag it out of me sooner or later. ‘Look, maybe it’s me. I just find it odd that we spring all this on her at a second’s notice, we tell her there’s discrepancies, that we need to check our facts again, and she doesn’t question herself at all. Not one little bit.’
Parnell shrugs. ‘She saw what she saw. Nothing to question.’
‘Yeah, absolutely, and that’s very probably the case. But I still think it’d be human nature to doubt yourself slightly, especially after all this time. Most people would have a moment’s uncertainty, that’s all I’m saying.’
Steele checks her watch. ‘Well, look, I can tell you exactly where you’ll find Dyer if you want to get her “take”. I’m supposed to be meeting her in the H&F in half an hour.’ The Harp & Fiddle, just over Waterloo Bridge, is the most un-Dyer place I can possibly imagine. The most un-Steele place too, for that matter. The wine list consists of crap white or crap red, and you’d be wise to get a tetanus shot if you’re desperate enough to use the loo. ‘Bloody Olly Cairns. Always did have dreadful taste in pubs. And wives. And music. Do me a favour and pop down and make my excuses. You can grill Dyer, Cat, and I can get my head around this new grading matrix.’
Our annual appraisal system. A batch of numbers that tell us if we’re on Steele’s Naughty or Nice list. As if she’s shy of letting us know on a daily basis.
‘Won’t we be gatecrashing?’ asks Parnell.
‘No more than I would. Olly and Tess were always a lot tighter than me and Olly. And anyway, it’s not just a social thing, it’s a courtesy meet. Blake wants us “pooling knowledge”. He thinks we’d be “remiss” not to use her fine brain.’ Her tone is dry as dust. ‘She speaks fluent French. He gets a hard-on for that sort of thing.’
‘So do I.’ I turn to Parnell. ‘Voulez-vous allez à la – what’s French for pub?’
‘Le pub.’
‘I almost married a Frenchman in my early twenties.’ Steele’s prone to these kind of statements. You’re never quite sure if they’re the truth or a wind-up. ‘No, seriously,’ she says, laughing at our faces. ‘Church booked, dress picked, all sorted. I would have been DCI Dupont, which I’m sure you agree has a certain ring to it.’
Parnell looks sceptical. ‘And what happened?’
‘It’s a grubby little story, really. He saw my chief bridesmaid. I saw him for what he was. Anyway, my point is I speak good, if not fluent, French too, so I’m going to ask you both now to foutre le camp.’
‘What does that mean?’ I ask, knowing for sure it won’t mean anything pleasant.
She smiles. ‘Known on these shores as “bugger off out of here”. But give Olly my best, OK?’
*
From good French to bad pubs.
It’s years since I’ve been in the Harp & Fiddle, and in these turbulent times it’s comforting to see that some things never change. Because you don’t come to the H&F for the ambiance, or the Instagram likes, or the fifty different flavours of organically made gin. You come for a drink, plain and simple. You come to experience a pub run with such apathy that an artificial Christmas tree sags in the corner all year round, the angel sitting on top, completely crooked. Like she dropped in for a pint and stayed for a session.
And yet, on a glorious Wednesday evening, in a city rich with parks and pools and a million other alternatives, the H&F’s rickety bar stools are full. A shoal of old men watching the racing at Sandown, and losing by the sounds of it. Tourists looking bewildered. The usual sadsacks using ‘a swift half’ as a delaying tactic to avoid going home.
And polished, pinstriped DCI Tess Dyer.
‘Sorry, not my choice,’ she says by way of greeting. She’s sitting on a banquette in the far corner of the bar, the table in front carved with graffiti, including something not altogether courteous about the Metropolitan Police. ‘Bloody Olly! He and the landlord go way back. Best pint of Guinness inside the M25, apparently.’
As requested, we make Steele’s excuses. Dyer tuts, grins, declares it Steele’s loss, then moves along the banquette, ripping a £20 from her purse. ‘Do the honours, would you, Lu? Mine’s a Gin ’n’ Slim and whatever you’re both having.’ Parnell saunters off, knowing precisely what I’ll have. ‘Interesting turn of events,’ she says, her eyes on mine as I sit down. ‘I’m still processing it, to be honest.’
‘I reckon we all are, ma’am.’ This is awkward. I can’t think what else to say. It was good to get the landscape from Steele, of course – Dyer’s husband, his illness, the diabolical pressure she was under and what that could have meant– but it doesn’t make for a cosy tête-à-tête in the nook of the Harp & Fiddle. I look over to Parnell, willing him back to the table, but he’s joshing with the barman, and if it’s about football, he could be some time. ‘So, um, how was your day?’
How was your day? She’s a superintendent-in-waiting, not your best mate or your boyfriend.
‘I’ve had better,’ she says, not seeming to mind the question. Maybe she’s grateful to be asked? It can get lonely at the top, or even at middle management. ‘I had to call the parents, warn them it was going to be back in the news. Well, I called Steffi and Ling’s parents, and Sean and Linda . . .’
‘Bryony Trent’s folks?’
‘No, Sean and Linda Denby – Holly’s foster parents. She was with them the longest. Nearly two years, which is good going for a teenage placement. They aren’t the easiest.’
‘Oh, right. I think one of our guys is working through those . . .’
‘I had to make contact, Cat. It was the right thing to do – they knew me, not one of your guys.’
Fair enough. ‘So why did Holly leave the Denbys? They weren’t her last set of foster parents.’
‘I can’t remember the details, but she’d been acting out, being disruptive, and they had other children to think of. It’s common enough. They stayed in contact with her, though. Hadn’t actually seen her for a few years before she disappeared, but they’d exchange birthday cards, the odd call now and again. They were the only ones who did.’