CHAPTER NINE
The photograph of Daniel lasted forty-three minutes before Leah proved it was a lie.
Not the face.
The man in the chair was Daniel Sayer.
She found an old custody image through a police database Drew would probably have enjoyed knowing she still had access to. Same broken nose. Same notch through the left eyebrow. Same small burn scar on the neck.
The lie was the time.
"Look at the newspaper," she said.
Drew stood behind her at the desk.
"Can't read it."
"You don't need to. Front page colour band. Hull Daily used blue mastheads until eighteen months ago. They changed the design last year."
He leaned closer.
"So old photo."
"At least eighteen months. Maybe older."
"Alive eighteen months ago is still alive eight years after he was supposed to be dead."
"Yes."
He walked away.
Leah let him.
There were moments when comfort was useful and moments when it was just another person touching a wound.
Outside, dawn had turned the warehouse windows pale grey. Owen had been taken to a private doctor North End trusted. Mia slept upstairs. Gareth had disappeared into the washroom and had not come out for twenty minutes.
Sam and Pete were checking vehicles for trackers.
For the first time in hours, Leah and Drew were alone.
She looked at the encrypted folder on the laptop.
Three password attempts had failed.
Q.
Daniel.
Michael Quinn.
None worked.
"What's something only your brother would know?" she asked.
Drew stood at the sink, running cold water over his hands.
"Thousands of things."
"Something tied to you."
"Why?"
"Because the text file was written for both of us. My name gets me to the card. Your brother gets you to the question. Whoever made it expected us to end up in the same room."
Drew shut off the tap.
"That's comforting."
"I wasn't trying to comfort you."
"You're excellent at it."
He dried his hands on a tea towel.
Leah watched the muscles in his forearms flex and hated the fact her body remained capable of having priorities this stupid.
Drew noticed.
Of course he noticed.
"Still catastrophic?"
She looked away. "Worse."
"Good."
"Stop saying good when I tell you something is terrible."
"Tell me something good."
She considered it.
"Your brother may be alive."
His face changed.
"That's not good yet."
No. It wasn't.
Leah closed the laptop.
"What did Daniel call you when you were kids?"
Drew laughed once.
"You don't want to know."
"Now I definitely do."
"Princess."
Leah stared.
"Absolutely not."
"I was six. I had long hair. He was an arsehole."
She opened the encrypted folder prompt and typed PRINCESS.
Access denied.
Drew looked relieved.
"Try something less humiliating."
"Family address? First bike?"
"His first bike was a Yamaha DT fifty."
She typed DT50.
Denied.
"What did he want?"
"What?"
"Before North End. Before money and clubs and all this. What did Daniel want to be?"
Drew was quiet for a long time.
"A pilot."
Leah turned.
"Really?"
"Dad took us to an air show at Leconfield when we were kids. Daniel decided he was joining the RAF. Lasted until he realised maths existed."
"Aircraft?"
Drew smiled faintly.
"Harrier. He was obsessed."
Leah typed HARRIER.
The folder opened.
Neither spoke.
Inside were twelve directories sorted by year.
Photographs. Scanned invoices. Police intelligence logs. Vehicle registrations. Bank transfers. Port schedules.
A map of cocaine movements through Hull over more than a decade.
And names.
Police names.
Club names.
Politicians.
Customs officers.
A chief superintendent Leah recognised immediately.
Robert Hale.
Her father's former commanding officer.
The current head of regional organised crime.
"The message said don't trust the chief superintendent," Drew said.
"That's him."
"Your boss?"
"Venn's boss. Mine indirectly."
Drew scrolled.
A spreadsheet opened.
Payments appeared beside initials.
M.Q.
M.V.
R.H.
Then D.S.
Drew stopped breathing.
"Daniel."
Leah looked at the dates.
Payments to D.S. continued for seven years after Daniel's official death.
Monthly.
Sometimes five thousand pounds. Sometimes thirty.
"He was being paid," Drew said.
"Or someone used his identity."
"Don't."
"I'm not defending him. I'm telling you what we can prove."
He slammed the laptop shut.
"We can prove fuck all."
"We can prove enough to know Venn's operation is bigger than one bent detective."
"My brother is on a payroll with your father."
"My father is supposed to be dead too."
"Maybe they started a club."
"Drew."
He walked past her.
She caught his arm.
He turned so fast she almost released him.
Anger sat underneath everything now. Grief. Betrayal. Nine years of violence built on a story that might have been manufactured.
"Don't tell me to calm down," he said.
"I wasn't going to."
"Good."
"I was going to tell you that smashing the only copy we have would be fucking stupid."
His eyes held hers.
Then his shoulders dropped a fraction.
"There she is."
"Who?"
"Leah Quinn."
The words did something strange to her.
Four months as Leah Trent had trained her to answer to another woman. Harder. Less educated. No police family. No dead father. No old grief.
Drew saying her real name felt more intimate than it should have.
"You don't know Leah Quinn."
"Neither do you, apparently."
She should have been offended.
Instead she laughed.
His hand closed around her wrist.
The air changed.
Again.
It had become ridiculous how quickly it happened.
Leah looked at his mouth.
"We have an exchange to plan."
"In seventeen hours."
"A compromised police network to expose."
"Still there in seventeen hours."
"A hostage. Two hostages. Possibly your dead brother."
"You keep making the list longer."
"I'm trying to make you stop looking at me like that."
"Is it working?"
"No."
He kissed her.
This time there was no wall, no interruption, no excuse of adrenaline after gunfire.
That made it worse.
Or better.
Leah had not decided by the time she pulled his shirt over his head.
Drew caught the hem of hers and paused.
Not performative. Not careful in a way that broke the moment. Just enough time for her to choose.
She lifted her arms.
His eyes moved over her, taking in the bruises from the night before, the small scar near her ribs, the shoulder holster mark that had not quite faded from months of wearing one before the undercover job.
"Police gym?" he murmured.
"Tuesday class."
His mouth curved.
Then he kissed the bruise at her shoulder and the humour disappeared.
Leah pushed him back against the desk.
"Don't go gentle because I got hit."
"Wasn't planning to."
"Good."
"Now you're doing it."
She laughed against his mouth.
The laugh broke into a breath when his hands found her hips.
Everything between them had been built out of suspicion. Every look tested. Every conversation carrying a second one underneath. Touch stripped that away faster than truth had.
She unfastened his belt. He pulled her closer. The desk shifted against the concrete floor.
"If Sam walks in," she said, "I'm arresting him."
"For what?"
"Something."
"Strong case."
Drew lifted her onto the edge of the desk.
Her fingers dug into his shoulders as he kissed down her throat. Heat ran through her, sharp and immediate, made more intense by exhaustion and the knowledge that nothing outside the room had improved.
This was not relief.
It was refusal.
For ten minutes, she did not want to be the daughter of a dead man who was alive. She did not want to be Detective Sergeant Quinn or Leah Trent or the officer whose handler had sold her name.
She wanted one thing that was hers because she chose it.
Drew seemed to understand without asking.
When they finally came together, it was hard, urgent and graceless in the way real desperation often was.
The metal desk rattled. Leah bit his shoulder to stop herself making a sound loud enough to wake the building.
Drew swore into her neck and held her as if the entire structure might tilt beneath them.
Afterwards, she stayed against him longer than either of them could pretend was necessary.
His heartbeat slowed beneath her palm.
"This complicates things," she said.
"Things were simple before?"
"Comparatively."
"Fair."
She lifted her head.
"I hate that word."
"I know."
The office door opened.
Leah closed her eyes.
Sam Ridley stopped in the doorway.
Nobody moved.
He looked at Drew without expression.
Then at Leah sitting on the desk in Drew's shirt.
Then at the laptop.
"I was going to tell you Gareth's gone," he said.
Drew straightened.
"Gone where?"
"If I knew that, I'd have started with it."
The moment shattered.
Leah pulled on her clothes while Drew found his phone.
Gareth's calls went straight to voicemail.
His car was missing.
So was the metal cash box containing the card.
Sam held up a folded note.
"Left this in the office."
Drew took it.
Two words.
MY DAUGHTER.
Leah stared at the empty space where the card had been.
"He's going to Venn alone."
Drew's face became something cold.
"No."
"What?"
He handed her the note.
On the back, almost invisible beneath the ink, was the indentation of an older message written while the paper sat on top of another sheet.
Leah angled it beneath the light.
A phone number.
And a name.
MARCUS.
Drew said, "He's been talking to Venn for a lot longer than tonight."