‘I just need an hour or two for my heart rate to return to normal, then I’ll nick off,’ Dave replied.

‘You have been on the advanced driving course, haven’t you?’ Archie asked.

‘Pfft, I should be teaching that,’ Jessica replied.

Neither of them seemed convinced. ‘Is that why you took a chunk out of the back bumper?’ Dave asked.

Jessica nodded at Archie. ‘That was his fault – if he hadn’t been squealing like a trapped mouse, I would’ve been able to concentrate.’

Archie sipped his drink but his eyes were blinking rapidly. ‘That guy in uniform’s gone home for the day. It wouldn’t surprise me if he’s off on the sick for six months now. Poor bastard.’

‘Will you two stop moaning about my driving? I got us there, didn’t I? We’re all in one piece – you should be thanking me.’

‘What for?’ Dave asked.

‘Showing you how to multi-task. There you were crying like a baby abandoned in a box, while I was driving, answering radios, navigating—’

‘Scaring the shite out of cyclists,’ Dave added.

‘Bah, they should get a car.’

There was a knock on the door, with a PC poking his head around to say that Hamish Pendlebury and his solicitor were now ready. Jessica was already past the end of her shift – again.

‘Go home,’ she said, nodding at Dave and then turning to Archie. ‘Right then, brown pants, you did the legwork, so you can ask the questions if you can keep your lunch down for a few minutes.’

Archie perked up, sitting straighter in his chair and then standing. ‘Really?’

‘Yes, just splash some water on your face first – you look like you’ve got chronic bowel syndrome. Meet me at the interview rooms.’

Hamish Pendlebury was a big man. His studded leather jacket had been confiscated but he was still wearing jeans and a scruffy black skull and crossbones T-shirt full of creases. His hair wasn’t as long as Tim’s but they could have been members of the same biker gang, and he had a long grey beard which had been clumped into a point. His solicitor was the complete opposite: small, well decked out, expensive leather satchel, cocky. Hamish was looking fairly confident too, his steady gaze sweeping across Jessica and Archie, which wasn’t a good sign.

Before Archie had said a word, Jessica had a sinking feeling. When both the suspect and his solicitor were looking conceited in the interview room, it was because they knew something the officers in front of them didn’t. There was a definite smugness about the pair of them. A smuggy smugness that they weren’t even attempting to conceal with their smug grins and smug posture. Even the satchel had a smug look about it, as if the solicitor had spent an hour in Marrakech bartering some poor kid down from thirty quid until he’d managed to buy it for fifty pence – and then put it on expenses when he got home. The smug bastard.

Archie didn’t seem to notice. The only sound in the interview room was the tapping of his foot on the floor as he curled his top lip aggressively.

‘I suppose you think you’re clever, don’t you,’ he said, glaring at Hamish.

That hint of a Scottish accent again. ‘Not really.’

‘Two young girls – what was it, you couldn’t get a shag so you took it out on them?’

The solicitor tutted but didn’t say anything. Jessica knew he was going to cut in when they’d made big enough idiots of themselves. She was going to at least let Archie show her what he had.

‘I’ll bet you were well chuffed after the first girl, weren’t you,’ Archie added, laying the accent on thick. ‘You thought you had it all worked out – go cruising close to the closed bus stop for any girls unfortunate enough to be looking for a lift home. But it all went to cock, didn’t it?’

No reply.

‘No offence, mate, but you’ve even got the name for it, haven’t you? I mean, if I was called “Hamish”, I’d be out there trying to cop off with anything that moved. I’ve only heard of one Hamish in my life and he was a right paedo, he—’

Another tut from the solicitor. This was going badly.

‘All right,’ Jessica cut in. ‘How about we go back to last Thursday night. We know you weren’t on shift at the taxi place, so what were you doing?’

‘No comment.’

Oh, for God’s sake. He was one of those.

‘You do know that if you don’t talk to us, then it can go against you?’

Hamish’s solicitor cut in. ‘My client isn’t saying he won’t ever answer your questions, simply that it’s difficult to answer that exact one.’

It seemed to be the week for Jessica not quite grasping what was going on. At a loss, she nudged Archie with her knee.

He began tapping his foot again. ‘Hmm, Hamish, Hamish, Hamish . . . I think you do remember what you were up to last Thursday. I’m guessing you knocked off work at around five or six. Went home, had a couple of crispy pancakes, watched a few cartoons on television, perhaps even got excited by that one who presents the news.’ He turned to Jessica. ‘What’s her name?’ Without waiting for a reply, he continued. ‘Never mind. Anyway, after that, you spent a while looking at questionable material on the Internet. I know, I’ve been there myself after a long day. The difference is that I don’t currently have officers poring through my search history. What do you think they’re going to find on there? Horse sex?’

Hamish peeped sideways at his solicitor and motioned him to stand.

‘Whoa there, big fella,’ Archie said, not moving.

‘I went out on Thursday night,’ Hamish said, sitting again.

‘Well, hal-le-lu-jah – he speaks,’ Archie added mockingly.

‘I left my cab at home and I walked to this place a few streets over from mine.’

‘What place?’ Archie asked.

A hint of a smile slid across the cabbie’s features. ‘It’s called Sandra’s.’

Jessica and Archie exchanged a look and mouthed the same word simultaneously. ‘Shite.’

24

Jessica stood outside the unassuming doorway in the gap between street lights and turned to Archie. ‘Ever been here before?’

‘No!’

‘I won’t hold it against you if you have.’

‘Sod off – I don’t have to pay for it.’

‘Some men like the seedy nature of paying for sex . . . apparently.’

‘How do you know, is your boyfriend a fan?’

Jessica saw Archie’s simmering grin and let it go. ‘I went on some vice course a couple of years ago. A lot of it was about people smuggling but then it took us a day or so just to figure out what the laws are. Half of what I thought was illegal is perfectly fine. It’s a bloody minefield.’

‘All that to get a quick shag off a prostitute.’

Archie motioned to step towards the doorway but Jessica pulled him to one side, deeper into the shadows. ‘We need a quick word first.’

‘What?’

‘About the interview room – what were you doing?’

In the gloom, she could just about make out his shrug. ‘I dunno, trying to get a reaction. I thought that if I acted like a knob head, then you could jump in and be the sensible one.’

‘Bloody hell, I’ve never been called that before.’

‘Is there a problem?’

Jessica started to reply and then stopped herself. He reminded her far too much of what she was like when she was younger – stupid, brash, gobby, trying to get under people’s skins. Sometimes she still felt like that now, but here he was, a decade younger than her, figuring it all out for himself. She could hardly give him a hard time when she had done far worse things than he was likely to.

‘No, just . . . try to think a little more before you speak. You’re going to get yourself into trouble.’

‘Aye, fair enough. Now can we go scare the shite out of a few punters?’

‘Lead the way.’

The only markings on the dark door were the number thirty-one and a buzzer. Archie pushed it open and headed up the stairs with Jessica behind. He led the way through a second door at the top into a small waiting room. On one side was a counter like the reception desk in any office, except that the woman behind it had approximately forty per cent more cleavage on show. Directly across from the door was a flatscreen television fixed to the wall displaying a porn star mid-act, while underneath two men sat, staring at the floor and definitely not at each other. A scattering of pornographic magazines was on the coffee table in front of them.