‘Only one feather,’ I tell her. ‘A guy called Ed Navarro.’ I drawl his name in a dud Texan accent. ‘Sounds like a gunslinger from an old Western, don’t you think?’
‘You’re thinking of The Guns of Navarone, and that’s a war film, not a Western.’
Dyer’s laugh fills the room. ‘God, you haven’t changed a bit, Kate.’
Steele sits down. ‘Well, I’ll be honest, Tess. I can’t say the same about you. I hardly recognised you.’
Dyer shrugs, but there’s a glint of triumph in her powder-blue eyes. ‘Ah, you know, working in Lyon, you have to up your game. French women are a different breed.’
Steele explains. ‘Interpol, no less. Four years.’
‘Wow.’
‘Not as “wow” as you’d think, Cat.’ My name trips off her tongue with an easy warmth. ‘You’re not making arrests. It’s all about information-sharing, greasing wheels, co-ordination between member countries. You actually have very little power.’
Meaning it’s high on pomp and protocol, low on kick-ass glory.
‘So when did you get back?’ asks Parnell.
‘Late last year. I’m with SO15 now.’
‘Counter-Terrorism, eh? “Making the World a Better Place” – isn’t that the latest slogan?’
Dyer’s eyes flick skyward. ‘Yeah, although “Plugging the leak with your little finger” might be closer to the truth.’
‘At least you’re trying to stop bad things happening,’ I say. Flashes of our visit this morning: Parnell and I staring uselessly into a scooped-out ditch. Holly Kemp’s bones packed into Tupperware boxes – life at its most extinct. ‘All we do is mop up the mess.’ Steele’s face is a picture – Portrait of a Pissed-off Woman. ‘Sorry, that sounded worse than I meant, boss. It’s been a long day.’
‘It’s about to get a whole lot longer, m’dear.’ She doesn’t elaborate and I don’t ask. I’ll find out soon enough. ‘So, Tess, any superintendent plans on the horizon?’
‘You never know.’ She gives a cryptic smile, then tosses the question right back. ‘You never fancied it? The way Olly talked about you, I thought you’d be commissioner by now.’
It might just be me, in fact there’s a very good chance it is – when I’m tired and cranky, I have a high frequency for slights – but I sense something sharp in Dyer’s statement. An acidic little jab. Steele doesn’t look bothered, though, and that’s good enough for me.
‘Oh yeah, so who’s this Olly then?’ I say, grinning. ‘Another paid-up member of the Kate Steele Appreciation Society?’
Steele likes that, blows me a kiss for my efforts. ‘Detective Chief Superintendent Oliver Cairns. Actually, Retired Detective Chief Superintendent Oliver Cairns. He was my mentor way back and Tess’s – well, not quite so way back, let’s leave it at that.’ She turns back to Dyer. ‘And in answer to your question, Tess – no, I’ve never fancied it. I’ve thought about it over the years, of course I have, but I like it at the coalface. This lot think I’m bone idle as it is, sitting on my arse planning for divisional budget meetings. And anyway, I think Olly had higher hopes for you than he ever had for me.’
‘I doubt it.’ Dyer frowns over the rim of her coffee. ‘You scaled the heights quicker. You were thirty-six when you made DCI. I was thirty-eight.’ She makes a joke of it, muttering ‘Dammit’ under her breath, while I silently calculate that I’ve got roughly a decade to get my act together. To become the kind of woman who plans budgets while wearing chic bespoke tailoring.
‘Ah, but I didn’t have two small kids,’ says Steele, gracious to the last. ‘You trumped me there. And thirty-six isn’t any great shakes these days, not with all these fast-track schemes. Look at my Lord and Master, Blake. He made superintendent before he could pull his own pants up.’
It’s unfair but it’s funny and funny wins out. Steele likes Blake, really. And a DCI like Kate Steele needs a DCS like Russell Blake – someone who’ll give her carte blanche as long as she at least pretends that he’s the one in charge.
‘So have you seen Olly lately?’ Dyer asks Steele.
‘You must be joking. I haven’t seen my own husband in broad daylight for the past ten days.’ Eyes down, she catches a memory. ‘I suppose it must be around two years, give or take. His retirement do, probably.’
‘Oh, you went? I’m glad. He’d have appreciated that.’ Dyer’s voice is soft, a little gloomy. ‘I really wanted to get back for it, but you know how it is . . .’
Steele flaps a hand. ‘I wouldn’t worry, you didn’t miss much. Flat prosecco and DAC Dempsey making jokes about golfing holidays. Did you ever hear anything like it? Olly wouldn’t know which end of the bat to hold.’ Parnell opens his mouth. ‘And yes, I know it’s a club, Lu. It was a joke.’ Back to Dyer. ‘I heard he’d not been well.’
‘Well enough to be meeting me for a drink or five tomorrow. After band practice, of course.’
Steele leans back, smiling. ‘God, I’d forgotten about that. Him and his bloody pipe band. So he’s still big in the Emerald Society?’ She stretches an arm across, grazing my elbow with the tip of a mauve fingernail. ‘Here, you could join that, Kinsella. It’d be right up your street, all that Irish stuff.’
‘Oh, here we go. You know, technically, I’m not even half-Irish, boss. My dad was born here, which means . . .’
But she’s not listening anymore. A quick glance at the time and Steele’s face is wiped clean of smiles and replaced with the kind of focus that gets you DCI rank before your thirty-seventh birthday.
‘Right, mes amis, I’m due at a “Policing After Brexit” workshop in an hour, lucky me, and Tess isn’t going to make superintendent lounging around with the likes of us, so let’s crack on, OK? And you – sit down.’ I sit, assuming that’s aimed at me, given the clipped maternal tone. ‘Now obviously we’re all familiar with “The Roommate” case, but one thing’s for sure – if I have to go in front of the media once we get Holly Kemp’s PM results back, I want to be more than familiar. I want to be clued-up. And you pair should be too.’ She raises a hand to Dyer, effectively offering her the floor. ‘So clue us up, Tess.’
In truth, ‘familiar’ is still a slight stretch for me. Sure, I had a skim through the case file last night. I scanned the Wikipedia page, did a quick Google search while my prawn bhuna was cooking – Parnell’s big idea: spicy foods cool you down, allegedly. And, obviously, I was aware of the case back in 2012. But only in the way you’re aware of an interest rate rise or a senior royal wedding. It’s important, yet distant, and you really couldn’t give a fuck.
Sounds harsh? Well, don’t judge me. It wasn’t long after my mum died. While Holly Kemp and ‘the others’ were living out their final months in blissful ignorance, Mum was on her final straight too. A slow, merciless straight that altered me forever; the grief, a cancer of its own. So, by the time the news broke that London had a new monster to revile and four victims to mourn, I was so mired in my own despair – in senseless guilt and ferocious drinking – that the details of ‘The Roommate’ case slipped me by. In fact, life slipped me by. I cared for nothing except anger and white wine oblivion. Aliens could have landed and I’d have neither noticed, nor cared.