‘Rhys—’
‘I saw.’ Dee’s voice is soothing. ‘He thought he could take what he wanted. But you’re safe now. It’s all okay.’
‘Bastard,’ Mia says. She is slowly feeling normal again, fear morphing to anger. Bobby will go ballistic when he finds out.
‘He certainly is,’ Dee says. She strokes Mia’s hair, like she’s a child. ‘And he’ll get his come-uppance, never fear.’
Mia hopes she’s right. Rhys can’t be allowed to get away with it, and, if he’s done it to her, who knows who else he’s tried it on with?
‘Oh, yes,’ Dee says, a hard edge to her voice. ‘Men like that always get what’s coming to them.’
FORTY-TWO
JANUARY 8TH | LEO
As Leo walks down the corridor towards the briefing room, his stomach tightens. Working with Ffion and spending so much time in and around The Shore has provided Leo with the perfect excuse to miss briefings, and it’s only now he’s back in the office that he realises how much he dreads seeing his DI.
‘You’re early.’ Crouch looks at his watch. ‘Shit the bed, did you?’
Leo sits down. He can feel Ffion’s eyes on him, but really – what can Leo do about it? Sir, sir, I don’t like the way you speak to me. Leo would be laughed out of the job. You don’t hear anyone else complaining. It’s just Crouch’s way. Blunt, coarse. Nothing personal.
‘You know,’ Crouch is saying to the DC nearest to him, ‘I hear Liverpool’s the only place you can be called a paedophile for shagging someone’s mum.’
Except it is personal, isn’t it?
Is he like that to everyone? Ffion had asked, the first time she’d met Crouch, and Leo was forced to admit the truth. No one else in the office bears the brunt of Crouch’s special brand of humour. Even if the jibes are childish – the sort of shit joke Leo heard time and time again when he was growing up – Crouch only makes them to Leo. It is personal.
‘What do you call a Liverpudlian in a suit?’ the DI says now, to no one in particular. Leo hears Ffion’s words in his head. What about the next person he picks on? He thinks about everything she’s been through. She looked so broken yesterday, yet here she is. Still standing.
‘The defendant,’ Leo says, before Crouch can give the punchline. The DI blinks, then opens his mouth to impart yet another ‘joke’。 ‘I don’t think you’ve done the one about the Scouser who won’t accept a blow job in case it stops his benefits. Or there’s the one about holding a shell suit to your ear, to hear a Liverpool accent.’ Leo fixes his eyes on Crouch. ‘Shall we just get them all out of the way now, sir?’
Silence falls heavily across the room, as the two men look at each other. The DI’s face is a ruddy red, his jowls wobbling as he moves his mouth to formulate a response. ‘What’s the matter, Brady?’ he says finally. ‘Everyone else finds it funny – what’s wrong with you? Don’t you know how to take a joke?’
Leo’s gaze doesn’t waver. ‘I don’t know, sir. Try me with one that isn’t offensive or discriminatory, and let’s see if I laugh.’
Somewhere in the room, someone moves a chair, the leg scraping against the floor. Crouch clears his throat. Leo is stifled by the silence, by the eyes of more than a dozen officers, not a single one of whom gives enough of a shit to raise a hand and—
‘I don’t find it funny, sir.’ DC Clements speaks quietly but clearly, her unwavering gaze taking in first Leo, then Crouch.
‘Me neither.’ A DC by the window speaks up.
‘Nor me.’ Another.
‘Or me.’ Ffion. And of all the voices, Leo realises it’s hers he wanted to hear.
Crouch looks around the room. ‘Bloody snowflakes, the lot of you,’ he blusters, but there’s an ugly flush across his neck. ‘Who’s got the update on Number 36?’
‘MetPol are still looking into the assault.’ As DC Clements starts talking, Leo’s pulse begins to slow. All around the room, he sees nods of support, eye-rolls aimed towards the DI. Whatever Crouch does next, Leo won’t be on his own. ‘The victim’s associates have been alibied, but they’re still working on tracing the owner of the club. The accounts are all offshore – the directors well hidden.’
‘And in the meantime,’ Crouch says, ‘DCs Brady and Morgan have a new theory.’ He looks at Leo, and it’s so obvious he wants to have another go at him, to remind him of the hours spent interviewing Yasmin, and chasing after dead ends. But all he says is, ‘And this one might actually hold water.’