‘Hand what over, though, Lu? It’s the same as linking Fellows to Holly. It’s all circumstantial at the moment. We can see the picture forming, but without proof, we’re not ready to move.’ She runs a hand down her face. ‘Anyway – and this is super-confidential – but the DPS itself is about to be investigated over claims of serious corruption and malpractice. It’s going to hit the news next week.’
‘Oh, brilliant, it gets better.’ Parnell does a slow hand-clap. ‘Anti-Corruption being investigated over corruption. Makes you proud to wear the badge, eh?’
‘Well, maybe now you understand why I’m not keen to hand it over until we’ve got something watertight.’
I try an idea out for size. ‘We pull Serena Bailey’s phone records, see who she’s been calling this week. If we’re right about all this, there’s going to have been some frantic conversations.’
‘If Dyer’s corrupt, she’ll be communicating with Fellows, Bailey, whoever, on an unregistered phone,’ Parnell says. ‘She’s not stupid.’
‘Then we get her in here,’ I say. ‘Feign some meeting or other, and then me and Serena’s phone records take ourselves off to the Tavern, and I call every single number Serena’s called since this case became live again. If we’re stupidly lucky, she’ll answer. But even if you just hear a phone ringing, we’ve pretty much got her.’
Steele’s shaking her head. ‘Chances are she’d have it on silent. And anyway, it’s not enough. I want something concrete.’
And I want my mum choosing curtains for my Manhattan loft apartment.
‘Would she even come here?’ Parnell wonders. ‘I mean, she must realise by now that we know about Masters’ bank records. Either Cairns – or Bailey, if we’re right about this – are bound to have told her.’
‘So what next?’ I snap, impatient. ‘Short of waterboarding her, what can we do?’
‘We set a trap.’ Steele has that air again, that air of knowing she’s got the winning ticket. ‘I call Dyer and tell her we’re preparing to make an arrest and I wanted to give her the heads-up – feels like the right thing to do, professional courtesy and all that . . .’
Parnell and I look suitably ‘huh?’
‘I say we’ve got proof Serena Bailey lied about seeing Holly on Valentine Street and we’re going to charge her with Perverting the Course of Justice. But more than that, we suspect Holly was blackmailing Serena . . .’ She’s totally making this up as she goes along, but one thing’s for sure, by the time she’s dialling Dyer’s number, it’ll sound as solid a theory as evolution. ‘Maybe they met through the escorting scene, Holly threatened to report Serena to her school, her career goes up in flames so Serena had to stop her . . .’
‘Boss, this is batshit.’ And I love it. And I know exactly where it’s heading.
‘It is batshit,’ she says. ‘And if Dyer had time to stop and think, she’d reach the very same conclusion. But we don’t give her time. We tell her Serena’s arrest is imminent, a few hours off. And then we wait for her reaction. My guess is she’ll go straight to Serena’s school to tip her off, and to warn her to stick to her story.’
‘She’ll call her, surely?’ says Parnell.
‘She’ll probably try,’ I say. ‘But the chances of Serena answering are slim. School teachers don’t wander around looking at their phones all day.’
‘Exactly. In all likelihood, Dyer will have to make a move. She’ll have to try to get to Serena before we do. And when she does, you pair will be right on top of her. See how she explains that one.’
‘Boss, it might sound like I’m sucking up, but you really are a fucking genius.’
Sometimes there really isn’t anything else to say.
28
‘We’re cut from the same cloth, Cat, you and me.’
I think about Dyer’s words as we sit in Parnell’s car, a little way down from the entrance to St Joseph of Cupertino’s. It’s a good time for thinking. The school is calm, as schools usually are outside the hullabaloo of break-times, and Parnell’s quite happy to quietly gnaw his nails as he scrolls through his phone mindlessly.
Cut from the same cloth.
What did I do to make Dyer think this? Could she see it in me? Smell it off me? Can one fraud always recognise another?
And am I any better, when you shine the spotlight on me? Without Dad’s protection last year, without him offering himself up in place of me, I could have found myself in a similar position, hand-in-glove with Frank Hickey. A little info on a rival here. A little stack of fifties in my pocket there. I’d have torn the money up, of course, given it to a beggar, used it to clean my toilet, but I still might have done what was needed to protect myself. I still might have set fire to the last remaining scraps of my integrity if it meant Steele and Parnell and Aiden never finding out the truth about me.
See, everyone has a price. I truly believe that.
Except the price isn’t always money. It’s just a damn sight simpler when it is.
‘How long now?’ I ask, just to make a noise, to shoo away the demons.
‘Nearly an hour, I’d say. Enough time for me to play three games of Sudoku and read the entire Sky Sports website.’
‘Some lookout you are.’
‘You’ve got better eyesight than me.’
We’ve been parked here for nearly an hour, waiting, hoping, that Steele’s trap will pay off and either Serena Bailey will bolt out or Tessa Dyer will storm in. So far, nothing. The whole street’s dead, in fact. Just the odd passing pensioner and a few council workers, slowly cooking in the heat while painting zigzags on the road.
‘Anyway, you’re quiet,’ says Parnell, lifting his head from his phone. ‘What are you thinking about?’
‘Oh, you know, life, love and everything.’
‘What’s the “everything”?’
‘Nothing groundbreaking. When did I last get that mole checked? What am I going to have for dinner?’ I point to one of the council workers; an Adonis in a hi-vis, a Levi’s advert-on-legs. ‘Whether he’s got a girlfriend?’
How the people you love most are the easiest to lie to.
Parnell frowns. ‘You get that bloody mole checked, do you hear me?’ He’s fiddling with his phone again, ready to dish out Dr P advice. ‘Ah, here it is – you’ve got to remember the ABCDs. Asymmetry. Border. Colour. Diameter.’ He looks up, squinting over at the workmen. ‘And as for Mr Stud-Muffin over there, he’d be nothing be trouble, mark my words. Stick with Aiden. Take the easy road.’
Easy. Imagine.
‘Do you know what else I was thinking about?’ This part is true, in a roundabout way. ‘Dyer offered me a job. Well, at least I think she did.’
He twists to face me, wide-eyed but with no judgement. ‘And would you have taken it?’
‘I think I need a change of some sort. Whether that would have been it, who knows?’ I shrug it off, wishing I hadn’t brought it up. ‘Oh, I dunno, Sarge. Maybe I should get a new hairstyle, or start wearing red lipstick, or buy a flashy new suit. That’s an easier way to make yourself feel like a different person, isn’t it?’