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He raises his eyebrow but hands it to her; she takes a long drag before passing it back.
“You ever known anything like this before?” he asks her.
She shakes her head. “Thankfully, no. You?”
He blows out a cloud of smoke. “Some with the drug squad. A few with SO10,” he says, giving her the cigarette again.
She knows what he’s referring to. SO10: the old covert operations unit within the Met Police. One of Noah’s early postings.
She goes to hand the cigarette back to him, but he waves it away.
“Finish it,” Deakin says.
He leans back against the pebbledash wall of the apartments, closing his eyes for a second. They stand together in silence, and Cara realizes how much she appreciates him being here with her. In these moments, when something truly horrible like this happens, nobody outside the police force could ever understand.
On his first day in Major Crimes, Noah had arrived with a severe grade-one haircut, tight shirt, skinny jeans, and a battered pair of blue All Stars on his feet. He had the build of a greyhound on speed, and the metabolism to match. And he’d called her Cara. Not boss, not DCI Elliott, like the other detectives in her team. Certainly not “ma’am,” a term she hates for making her feel about fifty. Noah had requested a transfer, and she’d read his file. Undercover until 2014. Drug squad since, with accompanying plaudits, and she’d agreed without hesitation. But this man? she’d thought on first sight. He’d had a detachment about him that Cara had mistaken for arrogance, and she’d wondered if she’d made a mistake.
But she soon learned, none of her other detectives were like Deaks—and that was a good thing. Unconsciously, she’d found herself gravitating to his side. They’d go on callouts together, and she’d single him out to ask his opinion. He was serious, quiet, and worked harder than anyone else there, herself included. Their partnership became the norm: where DCI Cara Elliott went, DS Noah Deakin went too.
* * *
Deakin pushes himself up from the wall. He puts a hand on Cara’s arm, then leans forward and gives her a hug. She’s surprised by the sudden contact but realizes that it was just what she needed, and briefly she rests her head on his shoulder. He smells of some sort of soap or washing powder, an aftershave she’s always liked, and Polo mints. He pulls away from the hug and offers her one of the mints now. She takes the candy out of the tube and pops it in her mouth.
“I’m going to head off,” she says, breaking the silence. “Do you want a lift?”
He shakes his head. “I’ll stay and keep an eye on things,” he mutters.
Cara knows any attempt at persuasion will be useless. And she knows how Noah is feeling. That restlessness, coupled with despair at their lack of progress. But Libby’s right: there’s nothing more she can do here, she needs to let SOCO do their job. To log and take samples and process—and hope and pray that this guy has made a mistake.
Because God knows, she thinks, as she looks up at the bland block of apartments, knowing the horrors behind its pebble-dashed walls, this bloodbath is enough.
CHAPTER
22
JESS HEARS THE phone beep, then senses Griffin get out of bed. She opens her eyes and watches him in the darkness, his head bent, talking on the phone in hushed tones. He is in just his boxer shorts, and she appreciates the sight, then wonders, who is this guy and what is she doing here?
When they got back earlier, they hadn’t talked. Griffin hadn’t offered her food or drink, just taken his clothes off and climbed into bed. She’d paused for a second, then done the same, her presence in this apartment seemingly now implicitly accepted.
Nav had been worried about her being here, and she knows he had been right to be. Griffin could be anyone.
But she feels like she knows him. Deep in her psyche, she recognizes something. The damage. The desperate search for the intangible. He is pretty much twice her size, but since that first night he’s never done anything that has made her worry. But perhaps her bar is just low, she thinks. Perhaps she wouldn’t know danger until it hit her square in the face.
Griffin finishes his call and gets back into bed. She can sense he’s still awake. He’s twitchy, fidgeting.
“Another one?” she says and he turns to her. He nods, she sees his face through the darkness.
“Does this mean Patrick’s murder is definitely linked?” Jess asks quietly.
“Nothing’s definite, Jess,” he says. “But maybe.”
He rolls away from her, and she shuffles down under the duvet, lying on her back, staring at the ceiling. She needs to do something to forget about this. The anxiety, the impatience. Waiting for the bomb to drop. She can feel the warmth of his body next to her; she wants to touch him. She wants to—
But she can’t. She balls her hands into fists. She knows that sex with Griffin would make her feel better, if only for a moment, but after the rejection last time, she couldn’t cope if he did the same again.
She needs to gain some control. Even if it’s just over her own body.
Jess takes a long breath in, then gets up and goes to the bathroom, closing the door behind her. She blinks as she turns the light on, then sits on the cold linoleum floor, leaning forward and opening the cupboard below the sink. She finds what she’s looking for and puts it next to her. A new razor blade, still in its packet. She’s only wearing a T-shirt and briefs, and she pushes her bare legs out in front of her.
