‘Blimey,’ says Merri. ‘That is unobservant. Still. People forget their babies in cars all the time, I suppose. I’d love to know how he did it, though.’
‘Did what?’
‘Did the Landlord. Adipose tissue and sewage in the lungs. What’s that all about?’
‘Must’ve been some sort of revenge thing,’ Burke says. ‘Maybe he found out about the videos? He certainly wasn’t after the money, was he? That toolbox, full of it, just sitting there in the cupboard.’
She considers this and waggles her head. ‘True. Maybe. You’re sure it was him, are you?’
‘Preece’s DNA’s all over his car boot and the telly in Miss Cheryl’s room that she says Dunbar gave to her out of Preece’s flat has still got the plaster from the sitting-room wall on it. Oh, you don’t think she did it, do you?’
He reels back in mock horror, and they both laugh, heartily.
‘Still,’ she says, ‘handy for us. Cuts down on a lot of cross-reffing, I should think. And Lisa Dunne: three years, we’ve been looking for her. At least we can knock her off our list, now. Just a shame the disc got full before the end. Would have been handy for a time-of-death if we’d been able to see when she stopped showering.’
‘Yeah,’ he says. ‘Sorry about that. You must be way pissed off.’
‘Oh, look. She would have been a good witness. Well, of course, we don’t know if she would have or not, really. She might have played dumb if we had got to her. But she’s not our only lead. Tony Stott’s a player. He’ll bring himself down eventually, with or without Lisa Dunne.’
‘Hope so,’ he says.
‘Bet the rest of them are pissed off there’s no one left to sue, though,’ she says, moving the subject backwards. ‘That would be a nice little nest egg, the compensation for that sort of thing. Might’ve got our Cheryl a studio flat, when she grows up.’
‘More like enough crack to kill herself, I should think. Better off without it, I’d say. These people. Not everybody can be trusted to make the right choices. And don’t we just know it.’
‘Don’t we just. So what’s going to happen to her, then?’
‘Back to Liverpool,’ he says. ‘Armed guard of social workers and back into care until they can turf her out again.’
‘Another one for us to be processing in three years’ time, then,’ she says. ‘Pity she’s so thick. She could be nice-looking if her jaw wasn’t always dangling.’
‘Yeah. Sad, though. Crappy parents, hopeless kids, and all the rest of us having to pick up the pieces.’
‘You know what, Chris?’ she says. ‘If I cried about all of them I’d have no tears left for myself. In the end, there’s just some proportion of the population that’s hopeless and always will be. And that’s why we’re there. Keep the rest of them safe.’
They reach her car and she bips it open with her remote. Pops the boot and puts her case files in it.
‘Well,’ he says.
She opens the car door and turns to smile at him. ‘Well. Thanks for this, Chris. We appreciate all the help you’ve given us.’
He gathers his courage and throws it to the wind. ‘I don’t suppose,’ he says, ‘you fancy popping out for a quick one, do you? I could do with a wind-down.’
DI Cheyne looks uncertain for a moment, then smiles. ‘Not tonight,’ she says. ‘Sorry. Busy.’
‘Oh.’ He’s crestfallen.
‘Another time, though?’
Her cheers up again. ‘Oh, okay, sure. I’ll give you a bell, then, shall I?’
Her smile gets wider. ‘Sure,’ she tells him. ‘That would be great. Not for the next couple of weeks, though. My caseload’s a nightmare.’
‘Don’t I just know that feeling. Okay, couple of weeks it is.’
‘Brilliant. I’ll look forward to it,’ she says, and flirts up at him through her eyelashes for such a brief moment he’s only half sure she’s done it.
She gets into the car and drives off, and he stands in the car park to watch her go. The black metal gates slide open, powered by an unseen hand in the control office, and she bumps her way out on to the pavement. Raises a hand in farewell, and he raises one back. He walks back into the station, feeling happy about his day’s work. That’s something to look forward to, he thinks, in a couple of weeks.
DI Cheyne turns left into the one-way street and drives up three blocks to the main road before she pulls in to a meter space and gets out her phone. Sighs, and dials, waits three rings before it answers.
‘It’s me,’ she says. ‘Yep. It’s her. No doubt about it. Kid confirmed it. Thick as butter, but she recognised the photo, after about ten minutes of drooling. And there’s absolutely no doubt that those were her fingers they found in the freezer compartment. They’re definitely hers. And there was a watch. Gold watch, in among the trophies. Engraved from her mother to her. I mean, I suppose there could be other Janines and Lisas, but it doesn’t seem likely, does it? Plus, there’s hours of video of her in the shower, from the Landlord’s little sideline.’
She listens for a moment, and smiles.
‘Yes,’ she says. ‘Yes. I think you can stand them down. Lisa Dunne’s gone and got herself slotted and we never had to do a thing. Looks like you’re in the clear, Tony. At least for now.’
He says something at the other end of the line and she laughs. ‘Sure,’ she says. ‘I’ll drop in on Saturday. Just make sure the Cristal’s on ice for when I get there.’
Postscript
The youth worker likes everyone to call him Steve, but behind his back the kids all call him Wicked, because that’s his favourite word. She sees him Monday and Friday lunchtimes, which is good because it means that no one asks where she’s going when she leaves school to do it. She’s got into the habit of dawdling on her way back, dropping in to Poundland and Primani, or just having a couple of ciggies by one of the duck ponds in Sefton Park, and she’s found that the words ‘youth worker’ seem to be enough to stop anyone asking questions as long as she doesn’t actually skip the whole afternoon. The school has classified her Special anyway, and in her case ‘Special’ seems to mean ‘not much point bothering as we all know where she’s going to end up’, so a bit of dawdling is neither here nor there.
He’s bent over a piece of paper when she comes in, looks up and says, ‘Cheryl. Wicked. I won’t be a moment, take a seat,’ the way he always does, and goes back to ticking boxes, the way he always does.
Cher plonks herself on the padded bench against the far wall of the office and starts picking at a patch of seat foam exposed over the years by her waiting peers. She’s been picking at it for two months and has managed to make a hole that’s almost six inches wide as she’s waited for Wicked. The office is small – more of a cubicle than an office, really, its temporary walling covered in posters of smiling teenagers and exhortations not to catch chlamydia – and cluttered with piles of paper and box files. She kicks her duffel bag into the space beneath the bench and crosses her legs in front of it.