Sweet Little Lies (Cat Kinsella #1)(69)

‘What the hell are you doing here?’ she says, parking a buttock on the end of Emily’s desk.

‘I could ask you the same, Boss.’

A wry smile. ‘You could, but you answer to me, m’dear, not the other way round.’

‘I was passing.’

It’s not exactly a lie. As the crow flies, the office is pretty much en route to Dad’s and I’ve always loved walking through London on Christmas Day. The apocalyptic stillness of the place. The frost glittering on un-trod paths. I’d managed to walk all the way from home – along Albert Embankment, past the London Eye and over Waterloo Bridge without encountering more than a handful of folk, each one cheerfully bidding me a Merry Christmas where just days ago we’d have ignored each other, probably startled at any form of approach. It wasn’t until I’d hit Theobald’s Road and a large troop spilled towards me, no doubt fresh from the service at St George the Martyr, that I’d had to negotiate my path to make way for other people.

Steele narrows her eyes. ‘OK, so you were passing and you thought you’d just pop in. Why?’

‘I forgot something.’ I stroll over to my desk, willing something to make itself obvious. There’s a bottle of vodka I won in a raffle over a year ago. ‘I’m flat broke,’ I say, picking it up. ‘Thought I could re-gift this. Can’t turn up to my Dad’s empty-handed, can I?’

She clearly doesn’t believe me but she rolls with it. ‘Think I’ve got the same bottle on my desk actually. Flowers’s annual tombola, right?’ She stands up, ambles in the direction of her office. ‘Well, while you’re here, we might as well have a Christmas snifter. Be a love and grab a couple of mugs.’

I walk into the kitchen, pick up Parnell’s Arsenal mug and another with the fewest chips. While I’m there I neck a pint of water over the sink, cursing myself for those two glasses of wine earlier.

I wipe my mouth and walk back to Steele’s office.

‘Shall I be mother?’ she says. Steele pours and we clink mugs, each pulling the same face at the sheer awfulness of the drop. ‘Christ, unless your dad’s your worst enemy, I wouldn’t be handing over this cat’s-piss, Kinsella.’

I should laugh. I try to but it sounds false, even to my ears.

She sits back, smirking and swivelling in her chair like a cartoon baddie. ‘So cut the crap, why are you really here?’

Because I feel calm and competent when I’m in this office and right now, more than ever, I need to feel calm and competent. I need to think straight.

‘I told you, I’m broke, I wanted to pick up .?.?.’

‘Rubbish. You only got paid two days ago. And do you think I’m blind? I saw the shopping bags under your desk all week.’

She’s like a bloody hawk but then I swear it’s just with me. She didn’t notice for weeks when Ben got a borderline-prohibited haircut over the summer, and Seth’s foot was in plaster for two whole days before she finally thought to ask why he was limping.

On a surface level, it drives me nuts – this level of scrutiny she reserves for just me. On a deeper level, it soothes. Reminds me that I don’t need to visit clairvoyants to know that someone’s watching over me.

‘So if you haven’t got your dad a present,’ Steele goes on, ‘it’s because you’re disorganised or selfish. Not because you’re broke.’

‘You sound just like my sister. She’s always saying I’m disorganised. I’m not though, I just don’t do what she wants, when she wants.’

Steele screws her nose up. ‘Typical older sister. I can just about stomach mine a couple of times a year, max.’ I open my mouth to ask how she knows my sister’s older but she shuts the subject down. ‘So for the third and final time, Kinsella, why are you here?’

I grin a little as if I’ve been caught out. ‘Look, I wanted to check out a burglary at the Hickses’, OK?’ It’s not a complete lie. ‘I forgot to do it yesterday before I left and it was niggling at me.’

She raises a toast. ‘Well, that’s very commendable, but sometimes – only very occasionally, mind – you need to ignore those niggles and concentrate on having a life for a few days. Do you have a life?’

I look around. ‘Do you?’

I instantly regret saying it but she doesn’t take offence. ‘I’ve got a lot more to lose than you, m’dear. It’s been ten days and we still don’t have one truly viable suspect. We haven’t found any skeletons in Nate Hicks’ closet yet – well, none that he hasn’t told us about anyway, and he’s got an alibi for the night of the murder – he was in Cardiff on business. We’ll obviously try to pick holes in that, Cardiff’s less than a three-hour drive but .?.?.’ But, it’s unlikely. ‘There’s still Thomas Lapaine, I suppose, but Abigail What’s-her-Chops is adamant he was with her all night so we need something more on him before we can even think about turning the screw. Unfortunately, there’s a very fine line between diligence and harassment as far as the IPCC’s concerned, and Lapaine’s got form for complaining.’

Of course – the accusation of police brutality twenty years ago. I’d forgotten about it if I’m honest. That first briefing feels like twenty years ago.