‘Please, Gemma. Scott’s secret things. The stuff he keeps in the bedroom. You told me about them when we first met. I promised not to tell anyone else.’
It clicked. Gemma took a step towards the doorway, then looked to Scott, checking with him.
‘Let her do it,’ Hannah said.
Scott nodded apprehensively. Gemma disappeared, but was back in seconds, her hands full.
Hannah saw how Daniel’s eyes widened. He said, ‘That’s . . . that’s an Adam-9 briefcase. A real one!’
‘Yes it is.’
‘And that’s one of his masks. He uses that one the most.’
Gemma held up the third item.
‘His identity card! How did you . . . ?’
‘Only one person could have all these things, couldn’t they, Daniel? Only one.’
Daniel turned fully around to face his father. As he did so, the gun muzzle came to rest directly between his eyes.
‘Dad?’
In shame, Scott lowered the gun.
‘Dad? Is it true? Are you Adam-9?’
Scott looked across at Hannah, then back at his son. He seemed unsure about whether to play along, and then it was as though he’d decided he had nothing to lose. He nodded, blinking more tears away.
‘You stop all the bad guys? You stopped Joey Cobb?’
‘I . . . I had to, Daniel. He was threatening us. He had a gun. This gun.’
‘But . . . but . . . your briefcase. You didn’t have it with you that day. You need it for the robot arm.’
Scott looked troubled that the pretence had been demolished so quickly, but then something triggered in his eyes.
‘I had my backpack with me. Only it wasn’t really a backpack. The camouflage switch, remember? I can disguise the briefcase. I used it that time when I had to hike up that mountain in Tibet.’
‘To get to the Ice Lair!’
‘Yes, that’s right.’
Daniel’s mouth dropped open. ‘Dad! I can’t believe it!’
Scott looked across at Hannah. ‘Me neither.’
‘Can I see? Can I look at the identity card?’
Scott started to bring his gun up, and for a moment Hannah thought she had lost him again. But then he said, ‘Sure. Careful with it, though. I’ll be needing it.’
It was as though Daniel’s life had never been in danger. His entire focus now centred on his discovery of his father’s top-secret identity.
Hannah swallowed hard. It was then that she realised Tilly was no longer in the room. She had disappeared as quickly and silently as she had entered.
She knows she’s not needed, Hannah thought. She’s done what she came for.
While Daniel was engrossed in the identity card, Hannah took a step towards Scott. She was about to do something she would have thought unthinkable an hour ago.
‘You can make a case for self-defence,’ she told him. ‘Joey Cobb was threatening you and he had a gun. Daniel’s story will no longer jeopardise that defence. I will personally supervise the interviews with Daniel and with Gemma.’
She let that sink in. Let him know that she wouldn’t be pressing them for any version of events that would endanger him. She wasn’t going to tell Scott that, as of tonight, she was no longer the senior investigating officer on the case. She was going to demand that role back from Devereux. He could hardly deny that right of the detective who had cracked the case.
Scott looked across at his wife, who was doing her best to keep Daniel occupied while staring at her husband with frightened eyes.
‘Gemma,’ he muttered.
‘She knew nothing,’ Hannah said, her voice loud enough to ensure that Gemma got the message. ‘You brought a man into your flat who was injured. Gemma got annoyed at you for getting into a fight, and she left you to sort it out. The next day, he was gone again, and she thought no more about it. Could Daniel contradict any of that?’
Scott scratched his head, as if to dislodge memories and assess their ramifications. ‘I don’t think so.’
‘There’s still the disposal of the body,’ she said. No point trying to sugar-coat it. ‘You’ll have to own up to that. You were frightened. You’d seen the drugs and the money and the gun, and you were afraid of retaliation or jail. You didn’t know what you were doing, and you acted spontaneously.’
Scott swayed in uncertainty. From his appearance – the mud, the way he was holding himself as though in severe pain, the fact that he’d casually wandered in here with a gun – she suspected there was a lot more to this story. She didn’t want to know. But at the same time she prayed it wasn’t something that would undermine the edifice she was desperately trying to construct and bring it tumbling down again.
‘It’s true,’ he said. ‘I tried to cover it all up. I didn’t tell anyone what I was doing. I only wanted to protect them.’
Hannah nodded. She was almost there.
