‘Needed to clear my head.’
‘Yeah, me too,’ she said. ‘Don’t worry, Pat, I know how many hours you’ve put in over the last week. Of course I don’t begrudge you a couple off. Is that your Bonnie?’
Bonnie was now gawping up at an older boy, of five or six, who was studiously ignoring her as he made a sandcastle.
‘It is,’ he said proudly.
Suzanne gazed at her, her shoulders still heaving. ‘She’s absolutely beautiful.’
‘And this is my mother, Mairead.’ He turned to her. ‘Mum, this is my boss, Suzanne. DCI Laughland.’
‘You look awful glamorous for a detective,’ Mairead said suspiciously.
‘Well, thank you, Mrs Lennon,’ she replied, wiping her forehead. ‘Not that I feel it at the moment, after running three miles, I must be bright red . . . Pat, since we both find ourselves here, could we have a quick word?’
He vaulted over the fence to where Suzanne stood on the gravel path. ‘Mum, keep an eye on Bonnie, would you?’ he called back.
It was odd, being so near Suzanne when she was unkempt and sweaty, but Patrick couldn’t help feeling turned on. It was the way her breasts were heaving, the flush at her collarbone, the scent of fresh sweat coming off her. He had a mental flash of her in a post-coital tangle of sheets, a cat-that-got-the-cream smile on her face, arms reaching out to him.
Their eyes met.
‘So,’ she said, briskly zipping up her jacket to cover her chest.
Why did she make him feel like a randy teenager? He suddenly smiled at her, unable to help himself, and she returned the smile. Neither of them spoke for a moment, but their chemistry puffed almost visibly around them in the chill February air, like Suzanne’s hot breath.
‘So,’ he repeated softly, equally unable to stop himself reaching out and gently touching her hand.
The spell was broken by a screeching voice. ‘Daddeee! Look at meeeee!’
He and Suzanne both turned to see Bonnie lying on her back in the sandpit making sand angels, while Mairead tutted and tried to peel her onto her feet.
‘Any news from Carmella in Dublin?’ Suzanne asked abruptly, taking a swig from her water bottle.
‘Not yet. She’s about to visit the girl at home, says she’ll call when she’s done.’
‘Hmm. Anything else?’
Patrick frowned. ‘Not a lot. Batey’s dicking around getting nowhere, says he’s been to all the burger bars but nobody saw Rose. I got pissed off with him, actually – he should’ve been chasing up Peter Bell and the hotel key card. Oh, one bit of good news . . .’
‘Yes?’
‘Wendy’s made an OnTarget connection to where Rose was found – “Room 365” is apparently the name of one of their songs. I’d never have figured that one out in a million years. Bright girl, that one.’
‘Hmm, well, I wouldn’t say that an encyclopedic knowledge of OnTarget’s back catalogue would normally be an asset in a PC’s skillset, but good on her.’
Patrick laughed. ‘I meant that she’s a bright girl, in general. I like her.’
‘She likes you too,’ Suzanne said, a trifle darkly, Patrick thought, puzzled. ‘Anyway, I’d better be heading off; I’m getting cold. Are you back in this afternoon?’
He nodded. ‘See you later, boss.’
‘See you, Pat. Good to bump into you. Say goodbye to your mum and Bonnie.’
She smiled again and set off, her blonde ponytail swinging on her back and her long legs stretching gracefully as she ran. Patrick couldn’t help but stare after her, watching the way her buttocks moved in the tight black Lycra. She had an amazing figure – she could pass for a teenager from behind, he thought.
‘Patrick!’ his mother called sharply.
‘Yes?’ He climbed slowly back over the fence into the playground and jumped into the sandpit with both feet, to make Bonnie laugh. She did laugh, but Mairead was fixing him with one of her Paddington stares.
‘I’m not as green as I’m cabbage-looking, you know,’ she said, sotto voce so that Bonnie couldn’t hear. ‘Would you care to tell me exactly what’s going on with you and that one, now?’
It wasn’t difficult for Patrick to arrange his features into an expression of horror and outrage – although what he was really horrified about was how easily his mother appeared to have read the situation.
‘Nothing, Mum,’ he said meekly. ‘I swear. We’re just work colleagues.’
‘And the rest, Patrick Martin Lennon. You watch yourself with that one. You’ve enough on your plate.’
‘I know I have,’ he said, but he couldn’t prevent a pang of misery stabbing him in the chest. So was that it, then? Having ‘enough on his plate’ meant that he was trapped in an unhappy marriage with Gill forever, with no hope of ever getting what he wanted out of a relationship?
The trouble was, he wasn’t entirely sure what it even was that he wanted anymore, or with whom.
He and his mother both watched Suzanne jog away in between the trees, until she shrank to a blonde dot and vanished.
It was the first time since Gill’s release that he had articulated, even to himself, that his marriage was unhappy.
As soon as Patrick got back to the station, the woman on reception said, ‘There’s a chap here to see you.’ She gestured towards the waiting area, where a bearded man in a corduroy jacket sat thumbing a smartphone. Graham Burns, the social media manager from Global Sounds. His trousers, Patrick noticed, were a few inches too short, displaying a pair of bright yellow socks.
Patrick strolled over. ‘Mr Burns.’
Burns looked up, startled. He jumped to his feet. ‘Detective. I think I’ve found something . . . interesting.’
Patrick led Burns to an interview room and asked him if he wanted a coffee.
‘Flat white, please.’
Patrick gave him a look.
‘Um . . . actually, don’t worry. I’m good. Yeah.’ He was carrying a mustard yellow satchel, which he rummaged inside, pulling out a sheaf of papers. ‘You remember you asked me if I could access the private messages Rose and Jess exchanged?’
Patrick nodded, trying not to look too eager.
‘Well . . . I could be fired for doing this, but . . . you’re not going to tell anyone, are you?’
Patrick couldn’t make that promise in case this evidence was ever needed in court, so said, ‘What did you find?’
Graham handed over the sheets of A4 paper and spoke as Patrick cast his eye over them. ‘These were sent last year, on the fifteenth of October.’
The first message was from Jess to Rose.
Hey, I saw you posting about Shawn, saying you didn’t believe he’d ever go with a groupie . . . Well, a friend of mine got picked out of the crowd at Wembley and met Shawn at a hotel!!!
As Patrick read, Burns pulled a cotton handkerchief out of his inside pocket, blowing his nose loudly.
Rose wrote back: OMG, no WAY!!! What happened? Did she have sex with him?! What was it like?
Jess replied: Get this: apparently, Shawn wanted to tie her up and smack her bum with a riding crop!!!
Rose replied with a row of smiley faces in various states of shock and alarm. Did she let him?!?!
Yeah. She said she couldn’t sit down for a week. But this is obvs TOP SECRET, OK?
Patrick looked up. ‘Is that it? Did they exchange any more messages?’
‘No, not that I could find. It’s possible there were more, but if they deleted them, they wouldn’t be stored anywhere. It’s pretty worrying stuff, isn’t it?’
‘I assume you know about Shawn and the young woman in Dublin.’
‘Yeah, I was aware of that . . . Part of my remit is to stop rumours spreading about the band on social media, to manage their reputation. So if any of this stuff ever got out . . .’