will still be there-’
She waves a hand to stop him, gives a shrug. ‘I love that accent,’ she says, half to herself. ‘I did a stint in Edinburgh, you know. Best Practice initiative or some such nonsense. Some idea my old boss had about a prostitute tolerance area. Never got off the ground. Maybe ten years ago now. I was a detective sergeant. That your era?’
McAvoy scratches his forehead, miming thinking. ‘Erm …’
‘My son does that,’ laughs Pharaoh, looking at him. ‘Or he strokes his chin. It’s so sweet.’
Another blush explodes in McAvoy’s cheeks. ‘How old is he?’
‘Ten,’ she says, and takes her eyes off the mirror. She stares into the middle distance, looking at nothing.
‘Still got the terrible teens ahead,’ says Pharaoh, picking a piece of fluff off her tights and blowing it off her palm with pursed, wet lips. ‘The things we see in this job, they’re going to have a hard time getting out of the house, let alone getting into trouble. Can’t wait.’
‘I’m sure it won’t be that bad,’ he replies, uncertain what else to say. He doesn’t know whether she has any help from a husband. Finds himself marvelling at the way she has juggled life and career. ‘My boy’s a few years away from all that.’
She turns her head and looks at him. ‘You’ve got another on the way, haven’t you?’
He can’t help but let the smile split his face. ‘Two months to go,’ he says. ‘She’s bigger than she was with Fin, but the pregnancy hasn’t been so hard. It was hellish before …’ he stops himself, sensing a trap ahead. ‘I won’t be taking any paternity time, ma’am. If this looks like being a lengthy investigation, you’ve got me for as long as you need.’
She rolls her eyes and shakes her head.
‘Hector,’ she says, and then gives a soft laugh. ‘Sorry. It’s Aector, isn’t it? With a cough in the middle? I’m not sure I’ve got the slaver to be able to say it the Gaelic way every day. Can you handle Hector?’
‘It’s fine,’ he says.
‘Hector, if you don’t take paternity leave I’ll wring your bloody neck. You’re entitled to it, you take it.’
‘But-’
‘But nothing, you wally.’ She laughs again. ‘Hector, can I ask you a question?’
‘Of course, ma’am.’
She squeezes his thigh in a friendly, comforting way as she looks up into his eyes. ‘What’s the matter with you?’
‘Ma’am?’
‘McAvoy, we like a gentle giant but there’s a fine line between not using your size to take advantage, and being a complete bloody pansy.’
McAvoy blinks a few times.
‘A pansy?’
‘Say it,’ she says.
He looks away, trying to keep his voice even. ‘Say what?’
‘Tell me what you’ve been itching to tell us all since we got here.’
He forces himself to look into her eyes.
‘I don’t know …’
‘Yes you do, Hector. You want to tell me to read your file. To ask around. To find out what you did.’
‘I …’
‘Hector, I’ve known you for, what, six months? Maybe a bit longer? How many conversations have we had?’
He shrugs.
‘Hector, every time I give you a job to do you look at me with this expression somewhere between an eager- to-please puppy and a bloody serial killer. You look at me like you’ll do whatever I ask, and you’ll do it better than everybody else. And that’s a very endearing quality. But there’s this other bit peering out from behind all that which says, “Don’t you know who I am? Don’t you know what I did?”’
‘I’m sorry if that’s the impression I give, ma’am, but-’
‘I met Doug Roper, Hector.’
McAvoy visibly flinches at the name.
‘He was a sexist, vicious bastard, and for every hanger-on who wanted to be part of his gang or ride his coat-tails, there were a dozen more who thought he was a total prick.’
‘I’m not allowed …’
‘… to talk about it? I know, Hector. We all know. We know that Doug did something very bad, and that you were the one who found out about it. We know that you took it to the brass. That you were promised the earth, and that Roper would swing. And we know that they lost their nerve, let him swan off without a stink, and that you were left as the poor bastard in the middle, in a CID team that was disintegrating faster than a snowball in a microwave. How am I doing so far?’
McAvoy stays silent.
‘I don’t know what they promised you, Hector. I very much doubt it’s what you’ve got. It must be hard, eh? Must eat away at you, people knowing, but not knowing.’ She makes a claw of her hand and presses it to her heart. ‘Must get you here.’
‘You’ve no idea,’ he says softly, and when he looks up, her face is close to his. He sees his own reflection swim on her eyes. Overcome by this moment, he finds himself leaning in …
She pulls back abruptly and looks back up at the mirror, withdrawing her hand from McAvoy’s thigh to flick away an invisible eyelash from her cheek.
‘So,’ she says, smiling brightly. ‘That’s about enough of that. I was going to have this chat with you a few months ago, but you know how it is, finding the time …’
‘Well I appreciate it, ma’am.’ His heart is thundering.
She eases down the electric window and a pleasing cold draught fills the car. She closes her eyes and seems to enjoy its sensation on her skin as she angles her face towards the fresh, cool air.
McAvoy does the same with his own window. Feels his damp fringe flutter on the breeze.
They sit in silence for a moment. McAvoy tries to find something to do with his hands. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out his phone. Realises it’s been switched off since before he interviewed Vicki Mountford. He turns it on, and the tinkling sound that accompanies its welcome screen sounds irritatingly loud in the confines of the car. Immediately, the voicemail begins to ring. He holds it to his ear. Two messages. One, from Helen Tremberg, warning him that Trish Pharaoh has been asking about his whereabouts and might be tagging along on the Mountford interview. And one from Barbara Stein-Collinson. The sister of the dead trawlerman:
McAvoy closes his phone. He knows he’ll call her back. Will listen to her concerns. Make the right noises. Tell her he’ll do what he can.
‘Anything?’ asks Pharaoh.
‘Maybe,’ he says, and truly isn’t sure. ‘A favour I did for the ACC. Wife of one of the Police Authority faces. Her brother’s been found dead. Old trawlerman. Was busy making a documentary about the trawler tragedies of 1968. Looks like he chucked himself over the side, seventy miles off Iceland. They found him in a lifeboat. I had to break the news.’
‘Poor bugger,’ she says thoughtfully. It’s the police officer’s mantra.
‘I’ll follow it up in my own time …’
‘Oh, McAvoy, give it a rest.’ Her voice has absorbed a touch of steel.
‘Ma’am?’
‘Look, McAvoy,’ she says, and she seems suddenly short-tempered. ‘People don’t know what to make of you. You’re either going to be a future chief constable or end up under a bridge drinking Special Brew. They can’t read you. They just know you’re a big softie who could break them in half and who cost Humberside’s most notorious copper his job. Those are facts that require some qualification, do you understand?’
