‘Fourteen months ago?’ said Carys.
‘We’re understaffed, like I said. Budget cuts. Look, the rent kept being paid on time, so the council had no reason to question the tenancy.’
‘But surely the death certificate would have been sent to you?’
‘It seems to have been mislaid.’
Kay groaned, and pulled her headphones from her ears, then reached out and stopped the recording.
She logged out of the system, switched off her computer and swung her bag over her shoulder.
The incident room had emptied half an hour ago, a subdued air hanging amongst the team as the news of Bob Rogers’ death had reached them.
Despite the temptation to grab a takeaway on the way home for convenience, she changed her mind when she realised the guinea pigs had been eating a healthier diet than her in Adam’s absence from the house.
Twenty minutes later, she pulled into her driveway, determined to use up the bag of salad in the refrigerator before it started to sprout a whole new species, and consoled herself with the fact that at least she had at least two glasses of white burgundy left in a bottle to wash it down with.
After feeding Bonnie and Clyde and then herself, she sat at the kitchen worktop, a manila file open at her elbow filled with her own notes about the investigation while she drew a series of linking circles, all connected to one name.
Jozef Demiri.
She dropped the pen and took a sip of wine. Everything pointed to Demiri retreating from his business ventures, perhaps even from the southern coast of England, and she simply couldn’t afford to let him escape.
Her thoughts returned to Harrison and O’Reilly.
Would Harrison let her have a chance to be the one to arrest Demiri when the time came, or would he seize the opportunity for himself? Would he ensure O’Reilly was the one to accompany him rather than see anyone from Sharp’s team take the credit?
She set down her wine glass, determined that whatever happened politically between her two senior officers, she’d be present to see the Albanian people smuggler’s face when he was charged with the murder of Katya and the other victims.
Her mobile vibrated on the worktop a second before it started to ring, and she reached across for it, recognising her sister’s phone number.
‘Hi, Abby.’
‘Hang on.’
Kay rolled her eyes as her sister attempted to cover the phone before her muffled voice reached her ears, berating the eldest of her two toddlers and then returning, breathless.
‘Honestly, those two. I swear I’m going to get an egg timer set up when they’re playing so they share the toys fairly.’
‘Like Mum did with us, you mean?’
‘Worked, didn’t it?’
They both laughed at the memory.
‘I hadn’t heard from you for a while. Everything okay?’ said Abby.
After months of silence, Kay had finally confided in her family about the miscarriage triggered by the Professional Standards investigation she’d been subjected to.
Her work colleagues had found out by accident; a rumour spread around the police station thanks to a series of listening devices placed in her house. Kay suspected Jozef Demiri – or at least one of his lackeys – of the handiwork and subsequent tip-off to try to fracture the team around her, but she still had no proof and, rather than have them find out by other means like her colleagues, she’d taken the decision to tell her family one summer afternoon she and Adam had been at her parents’ house for a barbeque.
It hadn’t gone down well.
‘You there?’
‘Sorry.’ Kay took another sip of wine. ‘I’m fine. Busy at work, as usual. Adam’s up in Aberdeen at a conference all week. How are things with you?’
She smiled as her sister carried on about Emily’s antics at her daily play group, and then tuned out as the topic turned to the baby, Charlotte, and the perils of potty training.
‘Aren’t you going to ask how Mum is?’
‘Did she ask after me?’
Kay’s mother had been furious when she’d finally been told about Kay’s miscarriage – both at being kept in the dark about the news, but also at Kay for taking her career so seriously that she’d endangered the life of her grandchild.
Shocked at her mother’s selfishness, and disappointed at herself for not realising that her mother’s reaction had been predictable given her previous lack of support for whatever Kay did with her life, Kay had stormed from the house leaving Adam to make their excuses for leaving while she fumed in the car.
Her father had been devastated.
He’d phoned the following Tuesday morning, their usual time to chat while her mother was out of the house, and both of them had ended the call in tears.
She hadn’t spoken to her mother since the barbeque.
‘No, she didn’t ask after you.’
Kay sighed. ‘Sorry you got dragged into this. I didn’t mean for it to happen.’
She could almost hear the shrug at the end of the phone.
‘S’okay. She’ll come around.’
‘Eventually.’
They both said the word at the same time, and Abby managed a small laugh.
‘I’ve got to go, sis. Big day tomorrow,’ said Kay.
‘Okay. Love you.’
‘Love you, too.’
Kay ended the call, slid the phone across the worktop, and picked up the photograph showing her quarry leaving his offices some six months before.
‘I’d rather take on you any day compared to my family, Demiri.’
Chapter Thirty-Five
‘Settle down.’
Harrison stalked to the front of the incident room, and paced in front of the whiteboard while Kay and her colleagues stopped talking and faced the detective chief inspector.
Sharp leaned against a desk to one side of the room, his eyes sweeping over the assembled uniformed officers and detectives as they found seats or somewhere else to perch and a silence descended, save for the scratch of pens on paper.
‘Right. First of all, thanks to you all for the early start. I appreciate it’s no
