‘Oh God,’ Tomek said. ‘What have you done? You’ve either fucked up badly or you’re about to give me the best news ever.’
Chey said nothing. Instead, he gestured for Tomek to follow him into a small room. In his arms, the constable carried his laptop. As he shut the door behind them, Tomek said, ‘You’re not handing in your notice, are you?’
‘What, and lose any chance of becoming your best friend? I don’t think so, Sarge. You can’t get rid of me that easily.’
‘Nor can I get rid of that fucking smile,’ Tomek replied. ‘Stop it. It’s scaring me.’
The constable’s face fell on command.
‘Better?’
‘Better. Much, much, much better. Don’t ever smile like that again. You’ll get yourself arrested.’
‘I’d be more than happy for you to arrest me, Sarge. And after the stories I’m hearing from the weekend, you might be happy to do it.’
Tomek held his breath. ‘The fuck is that supposed to mean? What stories have you heard? What’s Rachel been telling you?’
He knew it was a bad idea putting the two of them together. They couldn’t be trusted. Rachel – she was the problem. She had enjoyed Friday night far too much. He knew she’d want to tell everyone on the team what they’d seen, and he’d been foolish to think they could keep it a secret, despite their agreement.
‘Nothing juicy, sir. Just that you attracted quite a lot of attention,’ Chey answered.
Tomek puffed his chest out and tried to hide his embarrassment. ‘I did all right, thanks.’
‘So did Rach. Though not the type of attention she was looking for, if her account’s anything to go by.’
‘We were there strictly on police business, Chey. Nothing happened.’
The constable set his laptop on the table in the middle of the room and lifted the lid. ‘Do you reckon you could get me an invite to one of these things, maybe?’
Tomek didn’t answer.
‘On a strictly professional basis as well.’
‘You whore,’ he replied, sniggering. ‘The organiser wasn’t too keen on having us there in the first place. I can’t imagine he’s going to be too thrilled when we start multiplying and different people turn up every month.’
Chey rolled his eyes. ‘Killjoy.’ Then the young man turned his focus to his laptop, and as he logged in, he explained, ‘We spoke with Angelica’s friends again, as requested. And one of them, Xanthia, her name is, well, she gave us a little more than we were hoping for.’
‘Right.’
Chey finished what he was doing on the computer and looked up at Tomek. ‘Turns out that Xanthia and Angelica had had a little thing going on,’ he explained. ‘A drunken one-night-stand type of thing.’
‘Yeah, I got that.’
‘But it was more like a two-, three-night-stand thing. They’d spent a couple of nights together after they’d gone out for drinks as a group. It was always after a night out, and they never mentioned it to anyone else.’
‘It was their little secret,’ Tomek said, his mind whirring. Could this have been the other individual that Emilia Solveig had been referring to? The welder?
‘It was more than a secret,’ Chey continued. ‘For Angelica, I’m told, it didn’t happen. She always denied it whenever Xanthia tried to bring it up, but then when they later got drunk together, things would happen. And then the next day Angelica wouldn’t remember a thing.’
The cogs began to turn faster now.
‘Could Xanthia have drugged Angelica so she’d forget?’
Chey considered that for a moment. ‘I… I hadn’t thought of that. But we can look into it. I mean, she works in a pharmacy, so she might know how to access that type of thing.’ Realisation flashed across Chey’s face, and Tomek could see the young man making a mental note, a frame of reference for his learning later down the line. At last, Tomek had imparted some wisdom to the constable.
‘Was that everything? Is that what the smile on your face was about, or was there something else?’
The smile returned. Tomek was unable to look the man in the eye.
‘Something else,’ Chey answered.
Pointing to the laptop, Tomek said, ‘Go on, show me. Your face is reminding me of some of the blokes from Friday night, standing on the edge of the room touching themselves.’
That seemed to get rid of it; Chey prodded the Enter button on his keyboard, and after the screen had illuminated, spun the machine round to him. On the screen was Angelica Whitaker’s blog. “My Little Corner of the Internet” was emblazoned at the top of the page, with a small image of a beach to the right. Beneath it was an article dated two weeks before, titled, “Where would I be without you?”
Tomek took control of the laptop and scrolled down the page, his eyes scanning the length of the post.
‘You got the SparkNotes version, or you want me to read it all?’
‘Neither, Sarge,’ Chey said, taking the laptop back. ‘I want you to listen.’
Surprised, and a little offended, Tomek leant back in his chair, folded one leg over his other knee, and waited patiently for the explanation.
‘You asked me to print out all the blog posts, yes?’
‘Yes.’
‘Which I did. And I gave them out to each member of the team, so they could start reading them, right?’
