31CARTER
I just don’t know what to make of any of this.
“You’re unusually quiet,” DCI Bird says when we get back to the station. As if she knows me. As though she cares.
“Am I?”
“Yes, it’s nice. Easier to think.”
“Glad to be of assistance. Why did you take the hairbrush?”
“In case we need it for a DNA match at some point. I think Harrison Woolf is the kind of shifty bastard who might get rid of evidence so I thought, best to get it now. I don’t trust that fucker. I’m sure he’s hiding something. You mentioned that there was some CCTV footage of the woman claiming to be the real Eden Fox. Can I see it?”
“It’s not great quality—there’s only one camera in the village—but I’ll load it up,” I say, sitting down at my desk as she stands behind me. Too close as always. So close I can smell her. The computer is painfully slow, and the silence while we wait feels uncomfortable, but she seems to prefer it when I say nothing at all and I’m starting to think it might be best, for both of us, if I keep schtum. Twenty-four hours ago everything about my life was exactly how I wanted it to be. Routine. Quiet. Content. Since the call came in last night abouta random woman trespassing at Spyglass, everything feels wrong. A former one-night stand coming back to haunt me six months later and declaring she’s my new boss is the final straw.
I am not in the habit of having one-night stands. I rarely leave Hope Falls, and it’s not the sort of thing you do in a place like this where everybody knows you and everything about you. Especially when you’re the local policeman. People here trust me. They respect me. They don’t think I’m that kind of guy, and I’m not. Unless a stranger comes to town.
Me sleeping with someone I shouldn’t has caused no end of problems.
“I looked you up,” I tell Bird, unsure whether it is the right thing to say.
“What do you mean?”
“I wanted to see who they chose over me, so I looked you up and I get why you got the job. You joined the force when you were twenty, moved up the ranks pretty fast. You’ve had the highest number of arrests and convictions in London every year for the past five years and you turned down the George Medal.”
“Nobody should get a medal just for doing their job.”
“I couldn’t find anything about your personal life. No social media accounts. I couldn’t even find a photo of you online.”
“Your point?”
“It’s just a little strange in this day and age. As is you being here. Why would you take this job?”
“Gosh, let me try to answer the barrage of questions in order. There is nothing personal about me online because I’m not an idiot. I value my privacy, as should any sane individual. I’m here because I want to be, I fancied a change. Any other queries or could we perhaps focus on the job? You sound like a stalker, by the way, looking me up like that,” she says as a grainy image appears on the screen. It eventually shows an eerie shape of a woman walking along the main lane in the village.
“Is that it?” Bird asks, clearly unimpressed.
“Afraid so.”
“I can’t tell shit from that. That could be anyone. It could be me.”
Strange thing for her to say.
“The husband was lying to us just now. He’s our best lead so far,” she adds.
If she can tell that he is lying can she tell that I am too?
“I’m going back to my office,” she says, heading for the door.
“The pub?” I ask, incredulous.
“I think better with company.”
“I could come with you—”
“I meant my dog. Did you talk to the art gallery owner?”
“Yes.”
