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Olivia opened her mouth, ready to argue, but one finger wag from Ally and her mouth snapped shut. “I’m Detective Sergeant Ally Coulson.” She ventured deeper into the building, waving at the workers. “If you feel the need to wolf-whistle me, ask first, and I’ll ask if I can slap you around the face in reply.”
Olivia side-eyed Josh and Chad. “I like your sergeant.”
Chad nodded. “She’s a character.”
“Here.” Ally pointed at Josh and then at the ground beside her. “Now.”
Josh went to her, leaving Chad with Olivia.
Olivia stared at Josh’s behind, biting her lip. “Is he single?”
“Does being smitten with a video game character count as single?”
Olivia hummed. “It counts.”
She pulled out her hairband and shook out her wavy strands and went after them, clip-clopping over the concrete in her high heels.
Josh double-took and Ally had to reach up and close his mouth. She said something to him, then pushed him towards the front door. Josh stumbled back outside in a daze.
“Christ,” Ally muttered, coming closer to Chad. “I leave him for thirty minutes and he’s practically masturbating in public.”
“Where have you sent him?”
“To get us lunch. There’s a chippy around the corner.” She paused and looked around the gutted-out building. “Bye bye, Clarksons.”
“Never heard of it.” Chad replied.
“Supermarket. The ground floor was all fridges and freezers, guess they were too heavy to be above us.” She gestured to the back of the room. “You had your ice cream at this end, and your frozen veg at the other. I bought my first cookbook from here.”
“No wonder it’s closing.”
She shook her head. “People need to bounce up and down to awful music more than fishfingers apparently.”
“Things move on.”
“I’d say. Eighty percent of these shops are new from a year ago.”
“What about the art one?”
Ally snorted. “Owned by Jeffery Adams? That’s the exception. It’s been here forever.”
Chad picked at his jacket sleeve until Ally stopped him.
“What is it?”
“Had a pretty uncomfortable conversation with him earlier.”
“Jeffery? What did he say?”
“Said I should’ve taken the money from the Canster Times, and disappeared.”
“Not everyone is going to like you.”
“I know.” Chad sighed. “If it was you … if you’d been paid off by the Canster Times would you have disappeared into the sunset?”
“No. All the money in the world could not satisfy me like catching a killer does. I would’ve gone back to work, just like you did, but not everyone is going to understand that.” Ally pulled him along by the hand. “But I do. We’re more alike than you know.”
“I think that’s what terrifies me.” Chad snorted. He wrinkled up his nose, before blurting out, “Have you been in the basement of his shop?”
