‘I do have one question,’ I said as I edged towards the door, speaking against my better judgement. ‘If O’Neill was doing something a little shady, how did he get away with it for so long? No one picked up on it? Not at all?’
I spun around to see if Vivian was still looking at her computer, but she was looking directly at me for the first time today. For a fraction of a moment, her eyes flashed with something that – to me – looked like a bit of pride. Or maybe it was trapped wind; I couldn’t be sure.
‘All I know is he wasknownto the police well before this case,’ Vivian emphasised, lifting both of her palms as if she was surrendering to me. ‘That’s all I know.’
So, I walked back to my desk, slid my hand underneath the collections of files, documents and folders, and balanced them precariously as I slowly strode over to Darren and dropped thepile in front of him. He jolted at the smack of the small forest’s-worth of paper hitting the table.
‘Good luck, mate,’ I said blankly.
I knew I needed to somehow find a way to clear Fran from the investigation before she got dragged in. But if the superintendent was getting involved, maybe there was far more going on than I had originally thought.
I felt my phone vibrate in my trouser pocket, and pulled it out to see ‘Husband Hunk’ had texted me.
Husband Hunk?
It took a second for the neurons in my brain to connect. I had accidentally taken Fran’s phone with me, a fact reinforced by the message preview on the phone screen:
You took the wrong phone, you plonker.
I scoffed to myself as I offered a small prayer that I hadn’t left any tabs open about how to be an alpha male in the bedroom. I typed in the pass code and swiped up on Fran’s phone to unlock and text back, but the notes section opened:
Clean the wine stain
Write the shopping list
Reset the camera
Get rid of the rubbish
Pack the shopping away
Feed the cat
TWELVE
