Sweet Little Lies (Cat Kinsella #1)(66)

Although she could have been using her phone.

‘What happens now?’ Gina leans right forward and for a second I think she’s going to grab my hands but she stops about an inch short. ‘What happens about the fact I lied?’

Perverting the course of justice would be a long shot. I doubt it’d be considered in the public interest to waste valuable resources taking down a misguided Good Samaritan. Obstructing a police officer might fly, though. We’ve certainly prosecuted for less.

And yet when I look at her, all I feel is pity. Pity for a woman who tried to do a kind thing. Pity for a woman who’s run ragged looking after toddlers and policing teens while her father dies slowly under her roof.

Pity for a woman whose husband sleeps with prostitutes.

I push away my pity and summon my sternest tone. ‘We won’t do anything on this occasion, Gina. But mark my words, the threat of prosecution will be very real if I discover anything you’ve told me today to be false, or not the whole story, do you understand?’

Her eyes fill up and she starts searching for tissues in multiple pockets. ‘Thank you, Detective Kinsella. Thank you. There’s nothing else, I promise you. I just want to forget this ever happened and go home to my family.’

I stay seated as she gathers up her bags, pulls on her coat.

I say, ‘You really should speak to your husband though. Once we make an arrest and this goes to court, there’s every chance we’ll need you to go on record. Alice’s last few weeks will become public knowledge and he will find out.’

She shakes her head quickly. ‘No, no, I can’t, he’ll be so angry. If I have to in the future then so be it, but I’ll cross that bridge then .?.?.’

I think of Nate Hicks and Saskia French. Of Saskia French performing acts that any ‘self-respecting girlfriend would do if she could be bothered’. I think of Gina’s cheating ex-partner. Of the humiliation she endured.

I think about all the STDs that piece-of-shit husband has exposed her to.

‘Gina, trust me, you really need to speak to your husband.’

And I really need to speak to my boss.

*

Steele’s still out charming the top brass so I download everything onto Parnell, barely coming up for air in the hope he’ll be so dazzled by the speed of information that he’ll forget to bollock me for not halting the interview and hauling him in.

And he doesn’t bollock me. Far from it, in fact. It could be because it seems a little miserly, a little un-festive, to tear a strip off someone hours before waving them off on their hard-earned Christmas break.

It could be because he trusts me. Which makes me feel a myriad of mixed emotions, none of them particularly pleasant.

I made the right call not charging Gina, he says. However, it sounds like Saskia French might not be shown the same clemency. Her story about Maryanne working as a prostitute, especially the supposed ‘dodgy clients’ conversation, could have sent us completely in the wrong direction – hours and hours of time wasted chasing non-existent punters – and Parnell seems to view this in a much harsher light than Gina Hicks’ omission of truth. The CPS could well agree.

But then Saskia was lying to protect Gina.

Maybe I should have charged her?

I make tea then Parnell and I pore over the incident board, underlining Saskia’s name in thick red marker twice – one for each secret she had to keep from Gina that Alice Lapaine could have uncovered; her affair with her husband and the way she was earning her living. Under instruction from Parnell, I call Saskia to arrange for her to come into the station on Monday – just a chat, nothing to worry about – but all I get is her voicemail. A clipped bored instruction to the caller to leave a message and she’ll try to call back.

The try annoys me. The ‘I’m-just-so-busy’ self-importance of it.

Which makes me a hypocrite as I’ve now had six missed calls from my sister in the past twenty-four hours.

I’m a self-aware hypocrite though. A hypocrite with a conscience.

I dial Jacqui’s number and she answers within three rings.

‘You called?’ I say, with the heavy dose of irony that Jacqui never seems to pick up on.

‘Half a dozen times, Cat. No one’s that busy, not even you.’

There’s no nastiness there just that big-sister righteousness that sets my teeth on edge.

‘Look, I’m sorry, Jacqs, it’s just .?.?.’

She cuts in. ‘Oh, I know how super-important you are so I’ll be quick, don’t worry. Are you coming for Christmas lunch tomorrow? Well, let me rephrase that, you are coming for Christmas lunch tomorrow. I just want to know what time you’ll be here. Finn wants help with his Lego Batcave and me, Ash and Dad are “rubbish” apparently.’

Finn’s name seals it. I take a punt that his gorgeous little face and boundless effervescence will somehow balance out the crackling animosity that always threatens to surface when my family are gathered in a confined space. Textbook equilibrium, surely.

‘I’ll be there,’ I say to Jacqui, ‘What time’s lunch?’

‘Around threeish, but that doesn’t mean you turn up at two fifty-five. It’d be nice to have a proper family day for once.’

My mind boggles at what she means by ‘proper’ but I make a noncommittal noise that she takes as a yes.