‘I got them going through their records looking for missing batch numbers. They’re pissed. Not sure they’ll tell me, even if they find them.’

‘Why don’t you subpoena them?’

‘Can’t. Not from my end anyway. I’ve got one body, one confession. That’s a good trade-off to my boss. I can make the other stuff look like loose ends for a while, but really it’s just for you.’

‘Don’t. I’m filling up,’ said Tom. ‘Talking of which, how’s the diet?’

‘Much better now I’m eating again.’

They both laughed. Then Tom got back to business. ‘Any leads on who they were selling them to?’

‘Nope.’

‘Zhong still not talking?’

‘Wouldn’t even come out of his cell for me.’

Tom thought for a moment. ‘You tried leaning on the consenting adult?’

‘Yep. Says he doesn’t know and doesn’t want to know.’

‘I don’t blame him. Those guys must’ve been scary to keep Zhong stealing even after that redneck started … y’know?’ He chewed his lip. ‘Hey, have they filled his job?’

‘I don’t know. Why?’

‘Should stake out the new guy too, just in case.’

‘The NTSB going halves on manpower?’

Tom knew Suarez was only half joking. Surveillance cost bucks. But Tom also knew this was the best chance he’d have of picking up what had become a cold paper trail after the collapse of the deal with Chuck Zhong. The thought of getting on a plane back to Texas filled him with a premonition of homesickness, but he told Suarez he’d be back soon to help out in person.

‘Just you?’ said Suarez.

‘Don’t push your luck.’ Tom hung up and called Pete LaBello.

‘What now?’ said Pete, warily.

‘I’ve got a serious chance of tracing those fake parts.’

‘Tom, every six months we get a container of fake parts stopped at some port somewhere.’

‘Yeah, but these aren’t being stopped. They’re getting through. Anyway, the parts aren’t important. It’s the paperwork that opens the doors – that’s what gets the parts into planes – and it’s the paperwork I’m on to now, but I can’t do it on my dollar any more. I’ve been putting my hand in my own pocket on this for months and I’m cleaned out.’

He was hardly lying. He had rent and credit-card bills to pay, and what was left wouldn’t last through the next month.

There was a heavy silence in DC. The longer it went on, the more hopeful Tom got.

‘I’m sorry, Tom. I just can’t do it. Not when Munro’s report on the Pride of Maine is already a matter of record. How can I okay expenses on a closed case?

He sounded genuinely sorry but Tom felt prickles of anger run up the back of his neck. ‘Fuck sorry, Pete! And fuck you!’

‘Tom—’

‘Pete, I got thrown out of CalSuperior on my ass like a god-damned drunk. I went ten thousand miles to South Africa and almost got killed finding evidence that I then giftwrapped and gave to Lenny fucking Munro of all people! I went to Texas on a hunch and my dollar, and now it looks like that hunch might be about to pay off and maybe – just maybe – we can stop thousands of people risking their lives every time a 737 takes off. And you won’t pay my way because of office fucking politics?’ Tom actually laughed – it sounded so stupid to him. ‘I like you, Pete. But you’re being a gigantic asshole!’

Pete LaBello was a patient man. He was a kind man. And he was a decent man. But he was a man – not a saint.

‘You’re this close to being fired, Patrick!’ he shouted across the continent. ‘This fucking close!’

‘Fuck that!’ yelled Tom. ‘I quit!’

‘Good!’ Pete yelled back – a little less certainly.

Three thousand miles away, Pete LaBello frowned at the sudden sounds of the wind, the clatter, the angry horns and the terminal crunch – all of which he correctly interpreted to mean that Tom Patrick had thrown his phone out of a car window on a Californian freeway.

*

By the time he swung the Buick into his street, Tom had gone from buzzing with adrenalin, through slight discomfort and on to regret. But he’d lingered there only momentarily before rebuilding to self-righteousness, and from that there was a well-worn path to angry bitterness.

He couldn’t believe he’d been forced to quit. Quit the only thing he loved; the only thing he was really good at. Not to mention the only legit thing he got paid for – albeit badly right now.

He’d thrown away his phone partly in frustration but also because he knew that he might otherwise have called Pete right back and withdrawn his reckless words. Tom’s pride had taken a battering over the past eighteen months and he knew that what little he had left had spurred him into quitting, but the only apparent alternative was continuing to be sidelined while waiting to be fired.

Jumping before he was pushed was a sour little victory; a sharp diamond in his shoe.

Tom lifted his hip so he could search his jeans pocket. He pulled out a handful of crumpled bills, change and fluff, and saw that the bill he’d written Lucia’s number on was still there. Now all he needed was yet another phone, he thought, and the anger swelled in him again.

He squealed to a halt outside his condo, jerked the parking brake furiously and registered the black Lotus parked across the street. He got out and slammed his door, ignoring the other car, but Ness caught up with him as he reached his front door. ‘Hi,’ she said, searching his face. ‘What’s up?’

‘I quit my job.’ He yanked open the door and stormed in, leaving it up to her as to whether or not she followed.

She did, her brow creased. ‘Why?’

He hesitated. Suddenly the only reasons he could give for surrendering his career sounded weak.

Politics.

Pride.

Petulance.

The anger left him instantly, and left him empty. He crumpled onto the couch. ‘Because I’m an asshole.’

She raised her eyebrows and half smiled, and he remembered just how spectacularly beautiful she was.

‘Thanks for not arguing,’ he said drily.

She smiled properly then and sat beside him, close, facing him, one hand snaking gently round the back of his neck, the other smoothing circles on his chest. Tom felt himself calming, perspective returning.