Action

“I don’t know.” Jack ran a hand over his face. “This guy,” he said, tapping the folder, “is up to something. He has something on Davy. I don’t like the way she behaves around him. And I don’t like the way he talks to her.”

“Has he threatened her?”

“She hasn’t said anything.”

“Got anything on tape?”

Jack stilled.

“I stopped listening days ago. Well, apart from one interesting conversation Davy had with her friend. I thought it was a waste of time.”

“Might be worth going over any tapes you have,” Andy said. “If it was my girl, I would.”

“I keep telling you, she’s not my girl.”

Andy stared at his shoes. Jack had known him long enough to see that he had something else on his mind. He waited. It would come out soon enough.

“Uh, listen, Jack, just to give you a heads up. You might get a visit from the London Met’s CIB guys. There’s been some activity around the Chief.” He paused. “They’re investigating him.”

Jack stilled.

“You’re kidding me. The internal complaints guys are investigating?”

“Yeah, apparently the guy has a girlfriend in London. He upset her and she wandered into a station up there to get even. She’s been a mine of information.” Andy smiled and shrugged. “It looks like you were onto something after all.”

Jack didn’t care about that. All he cared about was that the arrogant son of a monkey got his come-uppance. His brain was buzzing. He’d been right. He was vindicated. It felt good. S

omething occurred to him.

“Does this mean I can stop seeing a shrink?”

“No way. You’re seeing a shrink because you hit your boss. And technically you actually need to turn up for the appointments to be seeing a shrink.”

Well, that was a bummer.

“Don’t get your hopes up, but this could mean you get your job back. We need to wait and see.”

Jack grinned. He was going to get his life back. He could forget about Millie’s house and get back to what he did best. Strange, but he wasn’t as enthusiastic about that as he thought he would be. It was Davina. His old life didn’t have Crazy Davy in it. Maybe, he could forget about the house but keep Davy around? Yeah, he liked that idea much better.

Andy watched him think with a know-it-all smile on his face.

“You’ve got it bad,” Andy told him.

“Get lost,” Jack said eloquently.

Andy let himself out of the apartment, whistling My Girl as he went. Jack threw a towel at him, but it missed and hit the door instead. Without even bothering to shower, Jack pulled out all the recordings he had from the house. He parked himself in his favourite spot on the couch, pulled on his earphones and listened. If Ken Doll so much as whispered a threat to Davy, he was going to kill him.

Thoughts of getting his job back went straight out of his head.

This is stupid, stupid, stupid, Davina told herself for the millionth time.

“You don’t have to do this, you know,” said Marianne.

“If I don’t go out with Derek he’s going to talk to my boss. I’ll lose the equipment and I won’t be able to make my movie.”

In the back of her mind a little voice told her that she could lose a lot more than the equipment, she could lose her job, or her freedom. Did they lock up people for this sort of thing? Jack would know. But then she wasn’t very likely to ask him, was she? Plus she was pretty sure that if Jack found out Derek was blackmailing her, he’d break the cameraman’s legs. She smiled. It was tempting.

“Hand me the green dress, will you, Mar?” She pointed to the one hanging on the closet door.