‘Oh,’ says Patrice, nodding respectfully. ‘Which one?’
‘Cards on table,’ says Chris. ‘Imagine I know who you’re talking about. Why are you here?’
A woman at the piano has just started playing ‘Tiny Dancer’ softly in the corner of the restaurant.
‘“Tiny Dancer”,’ says Patrice.
‘I’m in trouble,’ says Jill. ‘And everyone in the NCA is delighted about it.’
‘You’re not popular?’ Chris asks.
‘Come on, you’ve met me,’ says Jill.
Chris smiles and nods. ‘You seem OK to me. I didn’t like being thrown out of my office, but you seem like a proper copper.’
‘Jesus, why don’t you just marry her,’ says Patrice.
‘I ran Luca Buttaci, you see,’ says Jill. ‘He was mine. This whole operation was mine. The heroin.’
‘A sting?’ asks Chris.
Jill nods. ‘We’d been disrupting Mitch Maxwell’s operations for a few months. Stopped a lot of heroin, arrested a few foot soldiers, tested Luca’s loyalty and tested his information.’
‘And this was the big one?’
Jill nods again. ‘I couldn’t have one of your chips, could I?’
‘They’re sweet-potato fries, I’m afraid,’ says Chris.
‘Oh, not to worry, then,’ says Jill. ‘We’d got the go-ahead to let this shipment through customs, and to follow it every step of the way.’
‘Catch Maxwell in the act?’ says Chris.
‘Exactly,’ says Jill. ‘Follow every move, photographs, videos, the lot, and when the heroin was safely in Luca’s hands, therefore safely in my hands, we were supposed to swoop in and arrest Maxwell.’
‘Only it never reached Luca’s hands? Or your hands.’
‘My worst nightmare,’ says Jill. ‘The go-between, Sharma.’
‘Kuldesh,’ says Chris.
‘Drove off in the middle of the night, gets himself murdered, and the heroin disappears.’
‘A hundred grand’s worth of heroin out on the streets, and you with no evidence it ever even existed?’
‘Could have been washing powder in that box,’ says Jill. ‘Until we could test it, and prove it was our heroin.’
‘So they bring you all down from London,’ says Chris, ‘to investigate the murder, but really to find out where the heroin is?’
‘Well, we could have done both,’ says Jill. ‘But yes. Now Luca thought he was on the trail. He had new information, and was going to confirm it today.’
‘Until he got thrown off a car park,’ says Patrice. She is then distracted by the pianist. ‘“Careless Whisper”!’
‘So I’m facing disaster, and an enquiry,’ says Jill. ‘And I’m working in a room full of people I don’t trust, all of whom know it’s my neck on the line, and that my job is up for grabs.’
‘What a mess,’ says Chris.
‘What a mess,’ agrees Jill. ‘And it’s all mine. Which is why I’m asking you, officer to officer, can you help? Do you have the same information that Luca had?’
Chris thinks. ‘Let’s say Donna and I had been looking into it?’
‘Chris, I know you have,’ says Jill. ‘I’ve let you both do it.’
Chris raises his eyebrows. ‘I thought the NCA didn’t trust us?’
‘They don’t,’ says Jill. ‘But I don’t trust the NCA, so I took the chance.’
‘And if I help you with this?’ says Chris.
‘Then, oh, I don’t know,’ says Jill. ‘Then, off the top of my head, I never show anyone the surveillance videos of you breaking into the hangar on the day Dom Holt was murdered?’
Chris looks down at his sweet-potato fries, gives a little nod, then looks back at Jill.
‘You knew I’d broken in?’
‘I knew you’d broken in, I knew Donna had gone to the football.’ Jill starts counting things off on her fingers. ‘I know a man called Ibrahim Arif visits Connie Johnson in prison once a week. I know he also went to visit a woman called Samantha Barnes with a woman named Joyce, who, by coincidence, was outside the hangar when you found Dom Holt’s body. I know she took photos of his files while he lay dead. I also know that she was helped by a man named Ron Ritchie, father of Jason Ritchie, whom you went to visit two weeks ago.’
‘OK,’ says Chris, but Jill hasn’t finished.
‘I know Samantha Barnes, Luca Buttaci and Mitch Maxwell went to visit a retirement village ten days ago and now two of them are dead. I know Donna found Kuldesh Sharma’s phone, but I have no way of proving it, so I hope you’ve been putting it to good use. But, most of all, I knew the more you hated me, the more you would investigate, just to spite me, and I knew that you, and Donna, and this group you seem to hang about with were my best chance of saving my job.’
‘Huh,’ says Chris. ‘I did say you were a good copper.’
‘So have you found it?’ asks Jill.
‘The heroin?’ asks Chris. ‘Yes, we’ve found it.’
‘Can I have it?’ says Jill. ‘Do you think?’
‘Depends. Could you help us find out who killed Kuldesh?’ asks Chris. ‘Do you think?’
‘Huh,’ says Jill Regan. ‘Well, I can tell you a few people who definitely
‘It would certainly be a start,’ says Chris.
Jeremmy just needs to check he has heard Ibrahim correctly.
‘Heroin?’ he asks.
‘You see, we don’t know what to do with it,’ says Joyce. ‘But we thought, what luck, you seem to be a criminal, and you’re coming to see us.’
‘Where did you get it?’ Jeremmy asks.
