Trust No One

‘Fancy a beer?’

Her mind was still elsewhere, her expression that of a diver surfacing back into fresh air.

‘Sorry, Joe. Miles away. What did you say?’

The company accounts were open on her computer screen, but all her thoughts had been on Jake. Jake and the data stick. Jake and those last few minutes of his life.

Joe was leaning at the open door, glancing at his watch. ‘I’m just about through. Wondered if you fancied a beer.’

It was Wednesday, she realized. In her first months in this job, that had been the dead point of the week. The furthest from her weekends back with Liam. The point in the week that she’d felt most alone, most exposed.

Looking back, her relationship with Jake had been a midweek affair, one more way of filling those lonely nights. It had made her realize that she couldn’t allow herself to get too close to anyone. Even ordinary friendships were risky. It was too easy to make a slip, reveal some detail that didn’t quite square with the woman she was supposed to be.

But she felt an unexpected ease in Joe’s presence, a sense that neither expected anything of the other beyond companionable small talk. If Joe had a private life, he’d shown no signs of sharing it with her, and he seemed to have no interest in enquiring about hers. Their conversation remained resolutely superficial, and they had similar taste in films, undemanding crime novels, music. Marie had half-expected that Joe might eventually invite her out to a film or a concert – plenty of other men had done so on a much less secure foundation of shared interests – but the idea never seemed to occur to him.

She glanced at her watch. ‘Jesus, that the time?’

‘Seems to be,’ Joe said. ‘You OK? You look a bit tired.’

Typical of Joe, she thought. He gave little away, but he didn’t miss much. He’d already detected that she was distracted, and he was giving her a ready-made excuse.

‘Yeah, a bit. Didn’t sleep too well last night for some reason.’ She tapped aimlessly at her keyboard. ‘Do you mind if we give it a miss tonight, Joe? I ought to get the VAT sorted, and then all I’ll be fit for’s falling asleep.’

‘Your call, boss,’ he said. ‘Long as you don’t get out of the habit completely.’

‘This is alcohol we’re talking about, right?’

‘You’re OK, though?’ This time there was a note of real concern in his voice.

Christ, did she really look that bad? ‘Why’d you ask?’

‘Dunno. Didn’t seem quite yourself this afternoon. Wondered if there was some problem.’

‘No more than usual.’ She gestured vaguely towards the computer screen. ‘Just the standard balls-ache. Tax. VAT. Chasing up the customers who think it’s a bit abrupt of us to demand payment in less than six months.’

He smiled. ‘Definitely your territory, not mine. Even Darren’s easier than that. OK, but you won’t wriggle out of a beer next week.’

‘Drag me there kicking and screaming,’ she said.

‘If you insist.’ He pushed himself away from the doorframe and turned to walk away. Then he looked back. ‘By the way, did you find that package?’

She looked up, her throat suddenly dry. ‘Package?’

‘Thing in today’s post. Jiffy bag. Personal and Confidential. Didn’t want it to get lost under the other bumf.’ He waved his hand towards her paper-strewn desk.

He’d stepped back from the doorway into the darkened workshop. She couldn’t read his expression.

‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘Yes, I found it. Nothing important.’ She wondered whether to offer more explanation, but anything would sound forced. ‘But thanks anyway.’

‘No problem,’ he said. ‘See you in the morning, then.’

He turned and walked away across the workshop. A moment later, she heard the slamming of the main door.

She sat for a moment, watching the doorway, acutely conscious now of the data stick sitting in her handbag beside her.

Typical Joe. Giving little away. Missing nothing.

Chapter 8

‘Guv?’

Salter paused in the doorway. Welsby was at the far end of the office, his chair close to the window. Despite the pouring rain, the window was wide open. Some of the papers from Welsby’s desk – those not pinned in place by an array of empty coffee mugs – had already been scattered across the room by the icy draught.

Anyone unfamiliar with Welsby’s tastes might have assumed that he had a love of fresh air. In fact, Welsby wasn’t keen on any air untainted by nicotine. He’d viewed the national ban on indoor smoking initially as a personal affront and then – when it became clear that the ban wouldn’t be rescinded in his undoubtedly shortened lifetime – as a personal challenge. He’d engaged in numerous spats with pub landlords, pointing out in answer to their threats that he was the fucking police, even though this was no longer strictly true. In the office, after a few unproductive run-ins with his superiors, he’d established a compromise that allowed all parties to save face. The only problem was that, in the depths of winter, his office was just slightly warmer than the average fridge. But even that had its upside. It meant that people disturbed him only when they really needed to.

‘Guv?’ Salter said again.

Welsby twisted awkwardly on his seat. His right hand remained dangling out of the open window. ‘Morning, Hugh. Lovely day.’

‘Glorious.’ Salter perched himself on the seat opposite Welsby’s desk. He moved the chair slightly to retain eye contact as Welsby ducked his head out of the window to take another drag. The impressive thing was not so much that the lit cigarette never entered the room, as that Welsby maintained his usual authority in the process.

The cigarette was only half-finished, but Welsby flicked it nonchalantly away, no doubt surprising some passer-by in the street outside.

‘How’s it looking?’

‘Not good. I’ve been back through every possible compromise over the last couple of years. Most of them are something and nothing. Stuff that we’ve logged in case they suggest a pattern. Most probably just coincidence. Someone under observation who changes his plans at the last minute. Someone who stumbles across one of our surveillance devices. Shit happens. Buggers out there don’t play by the rules.’

‘But?’ Welsby picked up the coffee mug and stared into it, as if expecting that it would have miraculously refilled.

‘One or two incidents suggest something more.’

‘Like what?’

‘We’ve had one major operation screwed because the parties changed their plans at the last minute. In fact, reading that report, it looks to me like we were fed misinformation from the start. Then there were a couple of promising-looking enquiries that died on their arses because someone had got wind of our interest.’

‘Doesn’t sound a lot,’ Welsby said. ‘Like you say, shit happens. And the other side usually get ahead of the game with no help from us.’

‘Maybe so. Nothing that couldn’t be explained by bad luck and circumstance. But there’s a lot of it, right up to Morton.’

Welsby nodded unhappily. ‘Ah, yes, our friend Morton. Well, we should’ve been smarter with Morton. Got him into witness protection straightaway.’

‘Meaning I should have?’ Salter said. ‘Don’t remember anyone offering me any bright ideas at the time. All I seem to remember’s a load of paperwork and endless questions about whose budget it was going against.’

‘Nobody blames you, Hugh,’ Welsby said, in a tone suggesting that, now it had been raised, it might be worth giving the idea some consideration. ‘We’ve all learned something. I’m just suggesting that it might be as much