To Cast a Shadow Chapter One
THREE WEEKS EARLIER
“Nice tan. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you look that colour.” Detective Sergeant Vinny Leigh sat down next to me and swivelled round on the chair, catching a stack of papers on the desk and sending them flying.
“I’m going to take that as a compliment, and you can stop there.” I pointed at the papers. “They were in an order.”
“And now they’re in another order.” He picked them up and put them back on the desk. “Did you bring yourself back an Italian stallion as a souvenir?” He inched his chair closer to mine.
I stuck out a leg and kicked his chair back a foot or so.
“Italian stallion? Are you serious?” I shook my head and stared back at my screen.
I’d been away for a day short of two weeks, spending a week in Italy with my foster sister, the first time I’d been abroad in my life, a fact Vinny didn’t know.
He shrugged, clearly having thought he’d have gotten some sordid confession out of me about my love life. “You know, women, abroad – cocktails that taste of regret the following day.
“Italy was great. We explored Rome, did the touristy thing and then spent three days at a spa hotel being waiting on.” I locked my computer.
Despite having an as yet undiscovered weight measurement of paperwork to go through on our last major case, I clearly needed to give my male counterpart some attention. “How’s things been here?”
“Dr Miz has asked me out on a date.”
“Have I entered a parallel universe?” A few months ago, she was claiming she needed a small specimen jar to store Vinny’s crown jewels after a one-night stand that shouldn’t have happened.
He smirked. “She clearly can’t stay away. I blew her mind too much.” He waved his hand around like a prat.
“Are you sure it’s not a date for your postmortem? Or are you delusional? Maybe you’ve eaten something you shouldn’t.”
He tried to look hurt.
“I’ll find out more from my brother and let you know. How have things been here?” My brother and Saira Mizra were two of our regular pathologists, and while Nate was unlikely to gossip, Vinny didn’t know that.
His eyes flicked over to the office that now belonged to Detective Inspector Tadeusz O’Sullivan, our old DI’s replacement and our new boss.
I was yet to have a conversation with DI O’Sullivan. His announcement was made the day I started my leave, so I’d avoided seeing him for the last two weeks.
“How is he?”
Vinny gave a long slow nod and folded his arms. “He seems alright. It’s a bit weird because he’s the same age as me, but he’s not being a dick about being senior.
We had drinks on Friday and that was okay.
” He nodded again. “I think he’ll do alright.
He’s organised and he doesn’t forget anything. And he’s not obsessed with cricket.”
“Good.” I wasn’t sure if I was disappointed or not. “Any cases come up while I’ve been off?”
“Manchester has been on its best behaviour.” He rested his hands behind his head and leaned back in the chair. “So tell me about your holiday fling, then?”
I was debating launching my pen at him when the door to the DI’s office opened and Tadeusz O’Sullivan looked out across his new kingdom, his gaze landing on me.
He gestured for me to come and see him, which saved Vinny from a bruised ego. “I’ve been summoned.”
“Ah, don’t worry. He’s a decent bloke.”
That was the problem. I knew that already.
“Mia.” He closed the door behind me, affording us some privacy. “How was your holiday?”
“Good. Exactly what I needed.” I didn’t sit down. I wasn’t sure what would come out of my mouth if I spent any length of time here right now. I knew my new boss as Taz; the person who’d slipped me information to help with solving a case, as well as installing my bathroom.
He did sit, behind a desk that suited him even though I didn’t want it to.
“You cut your hair.” There were times I wondered whether my mouth was connected to my brain. “And shaved.” This wasn’t one of those times.
He smiled even though he was fighting not to. “The DCI told me I needed to look less like a caveman.”
“It suited you.” I sat down. This wasn’t going well anyway. “Not that—that—doesn’t.”
Taz started laughing, very much at me, before composing himself. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. When you were looking at the Justine Bellamy case I was finishing off a stint undercover. I couldn’t say who I was, obviously.”
“How long were you undercover?”
“Four years. I was based down in London. I was made aware Wrigley was due to retire and they wanted a DI. They knew I wanted out and to be back in Manchester.”
Four years was a long time undercover. “What were you doing—what sort of undercover?”
“Cybercrime. I’m not bad with computers.”
“Why didn’t you tell me you were a cop?” I tried to keep the heat out of my voice. I was cross with him for not telling me, and even more cross with myself for not working it out.
“I couldn’t.” He paused, silence filling the space awkwardly.
I felt like a girl who’d just found out the boy she was crushing on didn’t like her, but I didn’t have a crush on Taz.
“I get it.” I did. I got how things worked. “I bet your mum’s glad you’re not under cover any more.”
“She is. Matty’s filling your fridge with her cooking today.
He’s finishing off the tiling in the hall.
Are you pleased with it?” He still sounded the same as he had done when I’d known him just as Taz.
“Although I shouldn’t be asking you about that when we’re in work.
” He looked up at the ceiling, his smile falling away.
I wondered whether he was regretting the strange friendship we’d developed since he’d contacted me out of nowhere when I was working a case earlier in the year.
I swallowed, my mouth dry. “Yeah, I wasn’t expecting you to be my new boss.”
“I know. I thought you might work it out.”
There had been breadcrumbs, I supposed. His obtuse answers when I’d dug about his job had made me suspicious and now it made sense. “Why’ve you been helping me with the house when you knew I’d be one of your team?”
“Because I’d help one of my team out with something like that anyway.
It’s in my interest to make sure my detectives are living in houses that aren’t hovels.
I need your mind on the job and not on whether your roof’s about to fall through.
” He messed with the button on his cuff.
“I’m not sure I’m going to get used to wearing this.
I’ve dressed like an IT nerd for the last four years. ”
“You look smart. I almost didn’t recognise you.” It had taken a couple of seconds when he was introduced as Wrigley’s replacement.
“I don’t recognise myself.” He undid the buttons on his cuffs and rolled his sleeves up. “I give it a week until I’m out of suits.”
“I imagine your mother loves you in them.”
That brought back the smile. “She does, but she misses the curly hair. Mia, I—” He was interrupted by the phone on his desk blasting through the air like an extended gun shot. “Taz O’Sullivan,” he answered.
I stood up, ready to leave, half glad to be escaping, then he gestured for me to stay. Here and now he was my boss so I stayed put, wondering whether I should be listening in and deciding that him telling me to stay gave me the right.
“Chloe Bennett, eighteen. And it’s definitely coming to us?” He paused, listening to whatever was being said on the other end. “Okay. Send everything over. I’ll be there in twenty.” He hung up, exhaling, dark brown eyes stormy and humourless.
“We have a new case?”
A nod. “Chloe Bennett, one of the two girls involved in the texting scandal with Ryan Devlin, was found dead two hours ago. She’s just been informally identified and they’re passing it over to us.
” He stood up, throwing off his suit jacket and losing the tie.
I doubted it would be taken out of the drawer where he put it until he moved out of there.
“Get what you need, Mia, we’ll head over to where the body’s been found. ”
I ignored Vinny’s jibe about being the teacher’s pet when I told him where the boss and I were heading, and that he was stuck with finding out more about the texting scandal that Chloe Bennett had been involved with.
Taz was waiting for me next to the lift, looking more like a businessman on an early lunch break than a cop.
Undercover work was hard. It changed people.
You were away from friends and family with no contact for months at a time and it was dangerous.
Every connection you made was fake, based on a person that wasn’t you and you were constantly walking a thin blue line around ethics that was occasionally rubbed away.
“Who’s driving?” I said, noticing his foot tapping impatiently.
“Me. I’m parked outside.” He jumped in the lift and so began ten of the most uncomfortable seconds of my life where I had no idea what to say.
His car was parked outside in a space that I had never seen free before. It was black and shiny, smelling of leather and newness.
“When did you get this?”
“Yesterday. I ordered it three months ago.” He slammed his door.
“New house, new car, new job. How is it not being undercover anymore?” I wasn’t sure if I’d have asked any other boss that question.
“It’s good. It helps that my family are interferers. Life went on when I was away, but they didn’t forget about me.” He navigated through a busy city centre, not needing to use the satnav.
“How often did you manage to get back here?”
“Every three months. I was working as a white hat hacker for a tech firm where there were suspicions about human and arms trafficking. It was a joint op and I knew it would be lengthy when I took it.” He cursed another driver, taking a sudden left down a side street that only locals would know where it led.
“Is it over now?”
“Yep. We got them and more. I was one of the last out and my identity was arrested and died in prison. Fun times.” He fished around in the door bin and pulled out a packet of mints, squeezing one out of it as he drove south out of the city. “Want one?” He tossed me the packet.