The Last Party (DC Morgan #1)(43)

DC Thorngate, from Crouch’s team, has been tasked with looking into the various dating apps Rhys used – some of which were deleted from his phone several weeks prior to his death – but Ffion’s curious about the other apps. Number 36 is listed as a membership club.

I was having a drink at my club in Soho, Rhys said in his statement, about the evening the unknown woman visited his home, threatening Yasmin.

Is Number 36 the Soho club? A limited amount of data has been retrieved from the app and is recorded beneath the listing. Rhys made reservations there most weeks, until June last year, when his membership ended. Lack of money? Perhaps Rhys was starting to feel the pinch, without work coming in.

Ffion googles the club. Number 36 doesn’t appear anywhere, and there’s nothing on social media. The investigating officer in Rhys’s harassment case is listed on the scanned statement Leo shared with her, and Ffion fires off a quick email, asking what he knows about Rhys’s club. It feels dodgy to Ffion. Even if Number 36 is stuck in the dark ages, nowadays every business has some kind of online presence, doesn’t it?

Unless it doesn’t want to be found.





SEVENTEEN




JANUARY 5TH | LEO


Leo is running a personal errand on job time. This is such an unprecedented occurrence that he can feel his pulse quickening, and he wonders if Ffion ‘Lone Ranger’ Morgan operates in a constant state of stress, fuelled by adrenaline and caffeine, and whether it bothers her. He suspects not.

He’s standing on the doorstep of what used to be his house, a three-bedroomed semi on a respectable estate in Chester. Allie – or, more likely, Dominic – has painted the front door a glossy black, and a for sale sign skewers the front lawn. After their divorce, Allie had bought Leo out, leaving him with not quite enough to start over – not once you factored in the monthly direct debit Allie insisted on.

‘I gave up my career to look after Harris.’

‘Oh, come on,’ Leo had said. ‘It was hardly a career.’ He’d regretted it as soon as he’d said it, knowing it would find its way into Allie’s little black book of Leo’s wrongdoings. Before Allie fell pregnant, she had been office manager at a removal firm. They’d offered her part-time hours, but she had declined, putting Harris into full-time nursery when he was six months old and spending the day doing fitness classes.

She’s in her gym wear now, answering the door in burgundy leggings and a matching top, a tight Lycra band around her hair. ‘What do you want?’

‘Can I come in? It’s freezing out here.’

Allie hesitates, then sighs and walks inside. Leo follows her into the kitchen. A pile of cream invitations sits on one side of the table; matching envelopes on the other. In the centre is a printed spreadsheet, on which Allie has ticked some of the names.

‘Wedding invitations,’ Allie says. She sits and pulls one off the pile, checking her list and writing a name across the invite, before sliding it into an envelope and licking the seal.

Leo’s heart has long since stopped hurting, so he ignores his ex-wife’s lack of tact, and sits opposite her. ‘Please don’t take my son away.’ He’s been awake most of the night, having this conversation in his head.

‘I’m not “taking him away”.’ Allie waggles her fingers in the air. ‘I’m giving him opportunities. This country’s a shithole.’

‘Somewhere closer, then.’ A note of desperation creeps into Leo’s voice. ‘France. Spain.’ He doesn’t want his son to go anywhere at all, but at least if he’s in Europe Leo will be able to visit more often.

Allie wrinkles her nose. ‘Nobody speaks English there.’ She licks another envelope, then winces, running her tongue around the inside of her mouth. ‘Why do paper cuts hurt so much? Anyway, it’s all arranged. Dominic’s going to be departmental head at a great secondary school, and there’s a primary school on site, so he can take Harris with him.’

‘Like fuck he can.’ Leo promised himself he wouldn’t lose his temper today, but it’s that or give in to the sobs welling up in his chest, and he won’t give Allie the satisfaction of seeing him cry.

‘You see? This is what I mean. Time and time again I give you another chance, only for you to go off on one. It’s not acceptable, Leo. To be honest I think Harris would be better without you in his life. You’re a bad influence.’

‘I love him.’

‘You put him in danger!’ There it is. Allie’s trump card. ‘He was terrified, Leo! God knows what mental scars it will have left. When I think of his little voice on the end of the phone . . .’ She puts a hand to her mouth, crocodile tears squeezing from her closed eyes. Leo says nothing. What can he say, that he hasn’t already tried?

He had been taking Harris back to Allie when it happened. Along with most of his colleagues, he’d spent much of the week looking for Kieron Tackley, a sixty-five-year-old paedophile with enough of the right contacts for his prison van to be intercepted. Instead of facing trial, Tackley was now roaming the city, and every day that passed put another child at risk.

‘Who let the dogs out?’ Leo was singing along to the radio.

‘Who, who, who, who, who?’ came the response from the back seat. Never mind “Wind the Bobbin Up”, Baha Men had Harris throwing shapes like nobody’s business.