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‘No, Stone, you should have been all over that. You had the victim’s name, and you didn’t immediately check to see if anyone was talking about him. I was reading the post two minutes after the Sentinel had written it, and you should have been too. I’m interested to know why you weren’t. Someone in your team is—’
‘Shut it. I want you to take down the article and—’
‘Not a chance. There’s nothing in that article that isn’t the truth, and what’s more you know I’m right.’
‘That damn woman,’ Kim cried as the line went dead.
‘That’s a fiver I’m getting from Penn. We spotted the article in the canteen while you and Stacey were having your one to one.’
‘You were betting on my reaction?’
‘Ha, not your reaction. We both know you well enough for that. We bet on how long it would take you to call her and chew her ass. I won.’
In spite of herself, she chuckled. She had no idea if he was telling the truth, but it had eased some of the tension from her body.
‘We’re never going to control her, guv. Her own agenda comes before anything else. Best spend our time on something we can affect.’
He had a point. She unlocked her phone and scrolled to the name ‘Vikram Shah’.
‘Hey, Vik,’ she said when he answered. The two of them had partnered up in their uniform days before she’d applied to CID and he’d moved to Traffic.
‘Yo, stranger.’
‘Just calling about that hit and run in Gornal last night. Who’s heading it?’
‘That would be me. What’s your interest?’ he asked, avoiding any small talk. It was one of the reasons they’d got on. Neither of them had felt compelled to fill the silences that inevitably occurred during a twelve-hour night shift.
‘He was a witness on a recent case,’ she said, not yet lying. ‘We got our guy but just making sure there are no loose ends.’
‘Got you. You absolutely sure you got the right guy?’
Her stomach turned. ‘Yeah, full confession, but you know how I feel about coincidence. This guy’s accident coming just after…’
‘Yeah, a bit premature there, Inspector. We’re definitely not ready to rule it an accident yet. We’ve got conflicting witness reports.’
She said nothing, hoping for more.
Nothing more came, but he’d said enough to tell her this wouldn’t be going away as quickly as she’d hoped.
‘Okay, thanks for that, Vik. Any chance of an update?’
Hesitation. ‘Not sure how tight you want to sew up this previous case but sure, why not.’
She thanked him and ended the call right as Bryant pulled up at the address.
‘Err…where are we?’ he asked, turning off the engine.
‘At the home of Terence Birch. Wanna take a look around?’
‘I go where you go,’ he said as they both got out of the car.
The street in Coombs Wood was quiet, and she was pretty sure no one saw her as she nudged her foot against the front door. It didn’t budge.
Bryant said nothing as she headed to the back of the house.
A quick appraisal told her two things: there were no open windows, and the back door lock wouldn’t be too hard to jimmy open if she wanted to.
She thought for a moment before turning to her colleague. ‘Bryant, I feel that I may be about to make some bad decisions. You might want to go wait for me in the car.’
