The Scandal

Book 3: Stone and Oliver

by Mari Hannah

Genres: Thrillers; Crime Fiction; Suspense

Synopsis

The brilliant third novel in the Stone and Oliver series by award-winning author, Mari Hannah, writer of The Lost and The Insider.

When an young man is found stabbed to death in a side street in Newcastle city centre in the run up to Christmas, it looks like a botched robbery to DCI David Stone. But when DS Frankie Oliver arrives at the crime scene, she gets more than she bargained for.

She IDs the victim as Herald court reporter, thirty-two-year old Chris Adams she's known since they were kids. With no eyewitnesses, the MIT are stumped. They discover that when Adams went out, never to return, he was working on a scoop that would make his name. But what was the story he was investigating? And who was trying to cover it up?

As detectives battle to solve the case, they uncover a link to a missing woman that turns the investigation on its head. The exposé has put more than Adams' life in danger. And it's not over yet.

(p) Orion Publishing Group 2019

Release date: May 7, 2019

Publisher: Orion Publishing Group

Print pages: 432

Sample

 

Prologue

Some fear is real, some imagined. Nancy fled the building, flinching as the door swung shut behind her with a solid thump. The feeling that she was under surveillance – even as she drove through the staff car park – was like a knife plunged deep into her back. She’d left her resignation on her desk with little explanation. Circumstances beyond her control wouldn’t cut it. Not a hope in hell. She’d been too vocal for her own good. Too vociferous in her defence of the defenceless. Hers was a just cause, one that had put her in danger more than once. This was not and never had been about her welfare.

In one way, the assault had clarified matters, a backhander so violent it had thrown her clear across the room, clattering across the floor, propelling her into a solid wooden chest. No witnesses; they were too clever for that. That slap, delivered with such venom, was counterproductive. A signal – if one were needed – that she couldn’t change things from the inside. There was no other way . . .

She had to go.

It had taken months to make the decision. Using what she knew had ramifications. It would blow the lid off a situation that was out of control. To do it right meant meticulous planning, evidence collection and recording: photographic as well as the notes she’d scribbled frantically in her journal: names, dates and times. In the meantime, she’d sold up without telling a soul, moving to a place where no one knew her in order to distance herself from those seeking to silence her. Handing in her notice with immediate effect was only the beginning.

She’d have to be careful now.

As she drove teary-eyed from the estate, the faces of those she cared for scrolled before her eyes like movie credits: Bill, Edna, Molly, George and countless others who’d gone before. Unloved in a lot of cases. The forgotten ones, she called them: isolated, indecisive, plain weak. When they found out that she’d gone without saying goodbye, they’d feel abandoned. Telling them was out of the question. Taking them into her confidence was never an option. A slip of the tongue would tip off the very people Nancy was anxious to expose, leaving those under her care and protection vulnerable – or worse, robbing her of the ability to blow the whistle.

She sighed.

Her colleagues didn’t want to know. One by one, they had turned away, preserving their jobs, maintaining the status quo. Who could blame them? For years, they had been operating in a culture of fear. She wondered if they had been paid for their silence. Blood money.

How could they?

Nancy did blame them. Gutless, every one of them.

A single drop of warm liquid fell from her eye, dribbled down her cheek, hot and salty as it crept into her mouth. There would be no tears from the victims. Some had passed away already, unable to cry or complain. The rest would have forgotten her by morning. And yet she could hear them weeping, baffled by a sudden and inexplicable change in circumstances, waiting, wondering if she was ever coming back. That gut-wrenching thought was more than Nancy could bear.

If only it were possible to consign her own observations to oblivion. It wasn’t. She felt guilty then. There was nothing worse than memory loss, but right now she’d give anything to be able to wipe her own hard drive. A despicable thought. Cowardly. It lingered in the back of her mind as she passed through the iron gates and out on to the open road, the decision to go gnawing at her conscience. She worried that her actions would leave those she might never see again caught in a trap with no way out. At least not in the short-term . . .

Tears stung her eyes: the short-term was all they had left.

What Nancy did next would determine their fate and that of countless others; it was a responsibility that she alone seemed prepared to shoulder. Yet these were no isolated cases. There had been many prosecutions over the years, the accused lifted by police and put before a court of law, some sent to jail. And still it went on. Her actions weren’t an exercise in conscience cleansing. At every turn, she’d spoken up. On each occasion, she’d been told to shut the fuck up or face the consequences . . . And the consequence had just rounded the bend in her rear-view mirror.

Oh God!

He’d found the letter sooner than she’d anticipated. She imagined him skulking around her office, opening drawers, his dirty fingers all over her stuff. Curious to know what was inside an envelope addressed to her boss, he’d have broken his neck to get over there, a sneer developing as he was sent after her . . . Nancy didn’t want to think what his instructions had been.

‘Deal with it!’ most probably.

And deal with it he would.

Nancy’s stomach took a dive, the stress of what he had in mind bringing on arrhythmia, a condition she’d endured since her early twenties, a skipped heartbeat that seemed to last forever, followed by a thunderous shake of the vital organ struggling to right itself beneath her ribs, like a car battery spurred into life by jump leads. She’d never outrun the Land Rover on this remote stretch of road, though she’d do her damnedest to escape the man in the car behind . . .

Or die trying.

Up ahead, a beam of light across the road. A lucky break . . . An articulated lorry on its way out of a stone quarry, slow-moving with a heavy load. Braking, she flashed him out. The vehicle moved forward, a lumbering beast, its cab moving one way, the trailer seeming to disconnect as the driver turned the wheel. Nancy waited . . . the Land Rover gaining ground.

She had one shot.

Just one.

Flooring the accelerator, she took her chance, pulling out, squeezing her Fiat Panda through the narrow gap between the lorry cab and trees lining the opposite carriageway. Blinded by headlights, Nancy pulled hard on the wheel, swerving to avoid oncoming traffic, missing the lead vehicle by a whisper, a long line of cars preventing the four-by-four from overtaking. An angry, elongated blast of a horn from behind.

Nancy stared wide-eyed into the rear-view mirror.

The lorry slowed in response to the maniac behind, frustrating the driver of the tailing vehicle. The Land Rover countered, poking its nose out to enable him to get a better view, disappearing as quickly, repeating the process over and over again in an attempt to get by. Nancy drew her eyes away, struggling to concentrate. More horns. Flashing headlights. Road rage might save her skin.

A clear image of the man chasing her arrived in her head: evil eyes like dark pools of hostility burned into her memory; callous hands gripping the wheel; foul mouth screaming abuse. He was not someone you messed with. Nancy glanced at the speedo; it was climbing – seventy, seventy-five, eighty – increasing the distance between them. She prayed that there would be no break in the oncoming traffic. If she could make it to Devil’s Bend, she could take the back roads, switch off her headlights and call for help. It wouldn’t be swift to arrive. This was rural Northumberland. No cops. Only robbers. She had more chance of dating Idris Elba than seeing a police car at this time of night.

The sadistic pig in hot pursuit would show no pity, Nancy knew that. Inflicting pain was his thing; thinking about it, doing it, was like an aphrodisiac to him. Carrying out someone’s dirty work handed him the power and kept his employer’s hands clean; the meaner he was, the better he liked it. Distracted by that scary reality, Nancy miscalculated the angle of the bend. She took the corner too fast, tipping her vehicle on to two wheels momentarily.

She opened her mouth to scream but no sound came out.

The Fiat hung in the air, seemingly in slow motion, before righting itself, crashing to earth with a thud on a dark dirt road, glancing off a tree, shaking the chassis like a toy. She almost lost control of the steering wheel as the car bumped over uneven ground, rattling the interior and her along with it.

Taking her foot off the brake, she killed the lights, her eyes stuck fast to the darkness where her wing mirror used to be, hoping that the lorry – and, crucially, the four-by-four – would coast by without seeing her. As it did, she blew out a breath, turned her lights back on and drove further into the wood.

Cutting the engine, she wept, white noise filling her head, fists clenched so tightly her nails dug into the palms of her hands. She was struggling to get breath into her lungs as she squinted into the forest, the trees like malevolent figures standing guard. An owl hooted, irritated by the disturbance. Shivering in the dark, Nancy fumbled her phone from her pocket, losing it in the footwell as it slipped from a shaky hand. A fingertip-search failed to locate it.

She tried again.

Nothing.

‘Come on!’

Another car flew by on the road behind, a streak of light, like a comet in the Northumberland sky. Turning the light on to find the phone wasn’t an option. It would act like a beacon in the pitch-dark forest, pinpointing her exact location in the event he doubled back. Stay calm. It has to be here somewhere. She tried again with her left hand, then her right, walking her fingers across rubber matting caked in dried mud. Her little finger nudged a solid object. The device had bounced, lodging itself on its edge under the door sill. Finally! Using her thumb to activate the screen illuminated the car. A waste of time. What the fuck? No signal.

Nancy panicked.

If she had to wait till morning with the engine off, she’d freeze to death. Tonight, minus five was forecast. The road lit up behind her: headlights that sent a shiver down her spine. The beams didn’t flicker or change as she stared at them. They were stationary . . .

Weren’t they?

Nancy held her breath . . . one, two, three seconds . . . four. Switching off her phone, she scanned the surrounding vegetation, imagination in overdrive. Had he parked his vehicle? Was he heading out on foot, stalking her with intent to do her harm? No . . . The lights were on the move, inching closer and closer to the junction where she’d left the road. Out of the car now, she legged it. Fifty yards, no more. Ducking down, she waited, praying that the open door of the Fiat would give the impression that she was long gone.

From her position, she had a good view.

The approaching vehicle slowed, turning in, illuminating the dense and eerie forest, her car along with it. Momentarily, Nancy froze, her face pressed against the rough bark of the tree she was clinging to, senses on high alert. She shut her eyes, the better to concentrate. Geoff always did that when she read to him.

Blinded by headlights, she couldn’t see the shape of the car clearly and prayed that this was not the one she was hiding from, that it was someone else, a couple of lovers perhaps, a clandestine rendezvous. In seconds, she realised she was wrong. There was no disputing the clunk of the door of a high-end motor.

The Land Rover.

Opening her eyes, Nancy shuffling sideways. A dark, menacing shadow passed across the headlights of the four-by-four. A twig snapped behind her. Dry-heaving, she swung round to find the eyes of a stag staring back at her, ears pricked up, aware of the danger.

That made two of them.

As it bounded off into the forest, Nancy turned back. The figure was on the move, a torch in his hand, its beam sweeping left and right, left and right, like a searchlight looking for survivors in a deep and dangerous sea, except for Nancy there was no lifeboat crew to pull her to safety. The flashlight was now trained on her empty Fiat, then suddenly it changed direction.

Move, MOVE!

Nancy prayed that nature would provide enough cover. She crouched low, scrambling across rough terrain on her hands and knees, over the stumps of felled trees, snagging clothing, brambles lacerating her skin as she moved through the brush. In her rush to stand upright, her wedding ring caught on a branch as she propelled herself forward, dislocating her finger. The pain was excruciating, stopping her dead in her tracks.

The thought of Geoff – gone six years – gave her strength. In spite of the crushing grief of losing him, she’d kept her side of the bargain to carry on. He was a good man, a kind man. Irreplaceable. A voice, weak and croaky, arrived in her head. ‘Without me around to hold you back, you can do anything you want.’ He’d winked at her. ‘You could go to law school, finish your degree, or take up the voluntary work you’re always banging on about. Fight the good fight, Nancy. It’s what you’ve always dreamed of. Whatever you choose, you’ll be brilliant at it. Give it your all . . . Not for me or the kids . . . Do it for yourself.’

That conversation – the hospital ward in which it had taken place – was a memory so vivid, she could almost feel his bony hand attempting to squeeze hers. There was no strength in it. He was tired. Ready to say goodbye. She wasn’t. Somehow, she’d managed a smile, a lump forming in her throat, their plans in ruins, the idea of losing him breaking her heart.

‘Promise me you won’t dwell on what you can’t have,’ he’d said.

‘I promise.’

‘We’ve had a ball, haven’t we?’

‘You bet.’

‘No tears?’

God, how she’d wanted to bawl. A shake of the head was all she managed in reply.

Geoff winked at her. ‘I’ll be with you every step of the way, Nancy.’

‘I know.’

Two days later, he was gone.

He’d known that, even as a kid, if she’d witnessed injustice, she felt compelled to confront it. Right now, she could be forgiven for thinking she’d picked a fight she couldn’t win. A sob left her throat as she stared ahead through pools of water, propelling herself further into the forest, inch by painful inch, aware that with every step forward, the only exit was behind her. She’d have to find a place to hide, a crawl space in the undergrowth. Later, when the coast was clear, she’d double back to the main road, flag down a car and get a ride. The only alternative was to make for high ground where she might find a signal.

Might.

With superhuman effort and Geoff’s encouragement urging her on, she hauled herself upright, prepared to do whatever was necessary to get out of there and finish what she’d started. Each time the flashlight reached her, she took cover, turning her body sideways to make herself invisible, setting off only when it moved away. She sprinted, arms like pistons, darting left and right. Better a moving target than a stationary one. The gunshot was a warning to stand still. In this part of ‘the Shire’ no one would hear, let alone question it: a poacher, gamekeeper, deerstalker – someone in for the kill on a lonely woodland track. Given her present predicament, the description was apt. The man with the firearm was a hunter, Nancy his prey.

 

1

One year later . . .

Slow-moving rush hour traffic. The biker cautiously weaved his way through a three-lane snarl-up on the city bypass, the north–west radial route. At this rate, it would be a while before Chris Adams reached his destination. He had stuff on his mind, not least of which was the possibility that frustrated drivers would forget to ‘think bike’ and change lanes unexpectedly in their rush to get home, wiping him out in the process. A momentary lapse in concentration had proved fatal to many who’d chosen two wheels over four. As a mode of transport, motorcycles were thrilling, but highly dangerous if caught in the blind spot of other road users.

Bringing his Suzuki to a stop, he dropped his right leg, resting his foot on the slippery tarmac. Rainbows of diesel glistened on the wet road, dark patches of death reminding him of the pal he’d lost a year ago, who’d hit an oil spill on a bend and spun out of control. Then there was the one that kept him awake nights, invading his dreams, an even closer friend, devoted wife and mother of two, a highly skilled rider who’d died when her bike hit a pothole, throwing her and her machine into the path of an oncoming car. Riding directly behind her, Chris had witnessed the fatality.

She was dead before she reached hospital.

After that, his mother had begged him to abandon his machine until the spring. Maybe she was right. Chris considered this as a gap in traffic opened up, allowing him to take a slip road off the central motorway and double back into town, but there was nothing like the thrill of two wheels, the exhilaration of an open road where he was free, not dogged by work-related preoccupation with criminal activity and the inevitable misery for victims that came with it. Much of his life had been pedestrian. Speed concentrated the mind – made him come alive – with only one consideration: survival.

He opened the throttle, a quick head check before moving off, keen to return to his office, wishing he had something that might put a smile on the miserable face of the man he worked for.

He didn’t.

His day had been much like any other. A stuffy courtroom, a mixed list of prosecutions. Nothing sensational. No meaty cases that might catch the public imagination. Not even a serious faux pas by an ageing member of the judiciary like last Friday; an inappropriate remark to a female barrister from a High Court judge during a rape case that caused a sharp intake of breath from those assembled in the courtroom, followed by a demand from the victim to retry the defendant before a different judge and a swift complaint to the Lord Chief Justice by the Crown Prosecutor. The story had made the nationals and drawn outrage from feminists on social media who were demanding an immediate resignation.

They wouldn’t get it.

Chris had spent the best part of two years on the press bench listening to people argue over criminal prosecutions: judges, lawyers, police, probation officers and other expert witnesses, an endless list of professionals with insight into the criminal mind and culture. Many in the dock were sad, disaffected and underprivileged, those who’d fought to survive a lifetime of abuse or neglect. Some had come full circle, making the leap from abused to abuser. And so it went on . . .

Depressing.

In the main, Chris was there to report on those at the other end of the spectrum, the public interest cases involving hardened criminals for whom violence had become a way of life, those who peddled drugs, raped or murdered, or had taken the view that the laws of the land didn’t apply. If a repeat offender committed a heinous crime, all the better. There was nothing like blame to whip up a frenzy and sell newsprint, hard copy or digital. Those who failed to control the urge to inflict pain on release – physical, sexual and financial – were top of his target list.

Chris used to believe in justice and rehabilitation. That’s what drew him to the job, but lately he’d become disillusioned. The criminal justice system was a game, the courtroom a theatre where the best legal minds in the country battled for supremacy to audiences who focused on the spectacle.

Where was the will to see due process prevail?

There were the usual voyeurs in court today, those who came, week in, week out to gawp at offenders in the dock or witness the grief etched on the faces of eyewitnesses during cross-examination, the gory details of murder and manslaughter providing free entertainment. There was no doubt in Chris’s mind that some in the public gallery were switched wrong. The majority viewed criminal trials as real-life versions of the courtroom dramas they had seen on screen. They’d have bought popcorn if it was available.

 

As he passed by, he glanced at the iconic 24-carat gold Rolex clock outside the Northern Goldsmith’s. He was late. Much later than he thought. Dropping a gear, he turned down a back alley, parking up to the rear of a large office block. Pulling his motorcycle on to its stand, Chris removed his helmet and ear-plugs, ran a hand through his hair in an effort to make himself halfway presentable. Securing his bike with an alarmed disc lock – a gift from his mother on his birthday – he stowed his skid lid and gloves in the pannier and rushed inside, legging it up the stairs two at a time, pushing open the door to an open-plan office.

Reporters caught up in the usual frenetic activity of the newsroom ignored him as he moved swiftly towards a door marked Mark Fox: Editor-in-Chief – the sign picked out in bold black letters, polished every day by the office cleaner. Chris could see the great man himself through the blind of the internal window that allowed him to keep a close eye on his staff. A stickler for punctuality, Fox had a face like a slapped arse. He was sitting at the head of a large table impatiently tapping his pen, while the four men and two women who made up the editorial team looked on.

They had started without him.

Taking a deep breath, the court reporter knocked on the door.

A bark came from within. ‘Come!’

Turning the handle, Chris entered, sweat sticking to the shirt he was wearing beneath his Belstaff jacket. If an atmosphere in a room could be described as a colour, this one would be gun-metal grey. The editorial meeting obviously hadn’t gone well. Heads were down. Fox’s expression was stern, his default position.

No change there then.

What Chris had to say wouldn’t make it any better. As he moved into the room, Fox relaxed into his chair and made a meal of showing his irritation.

‘Nice of you to join us,’ he said.

‘Sorry to keep you waiting. Traffic was a bastard.’

‘Take a seat.’ It was an order, not a request.

Taking off his jacket, Chris pulled a pen and a crumpled notepad from the pocket of his jeans. Flipping it open was a mistake; the page was covered in doodles and very little else. Blushing, he glanced around the room, noticing that everyone assembled had homed in on his untidy scrawl. Trish, the female features editor who’d taken him under her wing when he joined the paper, sent him an unspoken message to get on with his input. This late on a Friday afternoon, she couldn’t wait to get out of there. Chris felt sorry for her. She’d been there fifteen years. The provincial newspaper was now in trouble, according to those in the know. Heads would roll before long.

His probably.

He’d been looking over his shoulder for weeks, hanging on to his job by his fingernails, feeling undervalued and under pressure. Some journalists were seeking work elsewhere. Pay was frozen. Fox was in denial. If he was looking for a punchbag to vent his anger on, Chris would do nicely.

‘Do you have anything of interest to contribute this week,’ Fox said, ‘or have we been sitting here twiddling our thumbs for nothing?’

‘Guilty verdict on the Canning Street burglaries,’ Chris began. ‘Foregone conclusion, given that the cops found the defendant asleep on the premises . . .’ A chuckle made its way round the room. Fox was the only one with a straight face. The guy needed to lighten up. ‘His defence was laughable,’ Chris continued. ‘Claimed he was so drunk, he’d wandered into the wrong house, hence the “Not Guilty” plea. The judge took one look at his form – a list of breaking and entering convictions as long as the Tyne – and sent him down for twelve.’

Fox glared at him. ‘I wish you wouldn’t talk in shorthand.’

‘Twelve months,’ Chris confirmed.

‘And Armstrong?’ The editor was referring to a man due to stand trial for Section 18 Wounding. His victim – a young woman he was having a relationship with – had suffered a serious skull fracture that very nearly ended her life. Too frightened to press charges following a lengthy spell in hospital, she’d become hostile in interview, refusing to point the finger at the man responsible. A concerned neighbour who’d witnessed the attack from her bedroom window made an official complaint and gave the police an in, a chance to put a violent man away without compromising the girlfriend.

‘He walked,’ Chris said. ‘The prosecution accepted a plea to ABH.’

‘What?’ Fox was appalled.

‘Actual bodily harm, boss.’ As the piss-take landed in his boss’s lap, Chris didn’t make eye contact with anyone else in the room. If the editor-in-chief wanted longhand, then that’s exactly what he’d get.

‘I know what it is, you idiot—’

Chris cut off the stream of abuse he suspected was coming his way. ‘The judge swallowed the sob story peddled by his barrister. The usual bollocks: unfortunate upbringing; in with the wrong crowd; spent time in care, unloved and unsupported by family.’

‘Sounds familiar,’ Fox said.

The subtext of his comment stung.

Biting his lip, Chris swallowed down his anger. ‘Armstrong put his hands up to slapping the IP – I mean Injured Party. The case hinged on his intent to do her serious harm. She’d fallen backwards, hitting her head on a ceramic garden pot, an undeserved misfortune that made him sound like a halo short of a saint.’ Adams struggled to keep the edge from his voice. ‘Oh, and you should know he’s turning his life around. The couple are expecting a baby. Medics found that out when she was laid up in hospital. Armstrong also has a job interview – the first for a decade. Pound to a penny it’ll have vanished before he swaggered from the building with his entourage.’

‘What did he get?’ Fox queried.

‘Conditional discharge.’

‘You’re kidding,’ three colleagues said in unison.

‘Nope. There were ructions in the courtroom.’

‘Hardly surprising,’ Trish said. ‘Everyone knows the guy’s a thug.’

Fox glanced at his watch, then at Chris. ‘If there’s nothing in it for us, couldn’t you have phoned it in?’ There was no pleasing him.

‘Not if you wanted all the results, Mark. I was covering more than one court.’

The informality displeased the man at the head of the table. ‘What about the murder trial in court four?’

‘Jury failed to reach a verdict. They’ve been sent home for the weekend.’

‘That sounds like an idea.’ Fox looked around. ‘Are we done?’

The editorial team were nodding, the first display of genuine enthusiasm since Chris walked in to the room.

 

2

The job asked too much sometimes. There were moments when Detective Sergeant Frankie Oliver felt she might go into meltdown, that one more call-out would tip her over the edge; times when the need to ignore her mobile phone competed with a compulsion to answer. Tonight, the sound of the device vibrating on the table evoked a sense of dread so immediate and profound that it caused the hairs on her bare arms to lift. She knew instantly that it was a duty call – even before she checked the home screen. Like every other force in the country, Northumbria Police expected, no, demanded, the attention of those who’d taken the oath to Queen and Country.

Who wanted a private life anyhow?

With half an eye on her host, Frankie picked up the phone, jabbing at the button that would connect her to her SIO, Detective Chief Inspector David Stone. He cut straight to the chase, no pleasantries or apology for the interruption to her evening.

‘We’re on,’ he said.

The word ‘dead’ was a given or he wouldn’t have troubled her. Swearing under her breath, Frankie threw an apologetic glance at her host. As Stone’s second-in-command on the Murder Investigation Team, Frankie’s presence was mandatory. Her private life took a back seat where the job was concerned. She listened carefully as he gave a brief summary – another crime scene, another pointless death – a stabbing this time. No weapon had been found. No ID on the body either. As was often the case, details were sketchy. In the early stage of an investigation, many victims were nameless, empty vessels. It was up to detectives in any Major Incident Team to fill in the blanks; to get to know the deceased post-mortem; to identify the IP and inhabit their lives in order to understand their deaths. Murder bound victim to investigator, a seal impossible to break.

David was still talking . . .

‘The victim is of mixed race, early thirties or thereabouts. He was found in Northumberland Place, Newcastle. Breathing, only just . . . and not for long. Pronounced dead at the scene by an off-duty paramedic who happened to be passing and noticed him lying in the alleyway. He called it in at 22.05.’

Frankie glanced at her watch. It was only half past. David lived in a rural area forty-five minutes from the city centre, thirty if he was really pushing it. She said, ‘What did you do, fly there?’

‘I was already in town.’

‘You have a life? That’s news to me.’

He laughed.

He’d left his Northumberland home to join the Metropolitan Police fifteen years earlier, making a life in London, losing touch with old friends. Since he’d returned to his roots a few months ago, he’d been working round the clock, too busy to remake their acquaintance. There were few people he associated with outside of work and he hadn’t mentioned any arrangements during the day. It had her wondering if he’d met someone and if that someone was a woman. He sidestepped the question she was dying to ask . . .

‘The pathologist will meet us there.’

‘Us?’

Frankie’s eyes flew across the room to where her sister-in-law – Inspector Andrea McGovern, a Traffic cop she’d known since training school – was splayed out on the sofa, shoes off, a remote control in one hand, a glass of red in the other, waiting patiently for her to get off the phone.

‘Guv, it’s movie night. Andrea and I have popcorn and everything!’

‘Nice try, Frank