BONES TO BREAK

DI OLIVIA AUSTIN - BOOK FORTY-NINE

NIC ROBERTS

Copyright © 2025 by Nic Roberts

‘Bones To Break’

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

This is a work of fiction. Names characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Some may be used for parody purposes.

Any resemblance to events, locales, business establishments, or actual persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

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PROLOGUE

Neil Heaton paced up and down in his cell, indulging in his usual pastime of thinking up ways to ruin Dean Lawrence.

There were some days when the walls felt very narrow and he truly understood what it meant to be boxed in.

By all rights, he should not have been there. A bent cop in prison, his ticket should have been marked the moment the doors closed behind him.

But instead, he’d managed to use his influence to keep himself out of trouble and net himself a very comfortable stay with more variety in food and people to protect him. It was amazing how far a little money had gone. He could do all but walk straight through the prison doors.

But he still devoted much of his time to Dean.

People told him that he needed to get over the grudge, but for Heaton, that wasn’t possible. It felt wrong that he was stuck in this shithole with no chance of getting out, while Dean was out there enjoying his life and his fiancé.

He’d tried to ruin Dean a few years ago, put the pieces in place so that Dean would go down for corruption and murder, but it hadn’t worked out that way. What was worse was that Heaton knew he was now on Dean’s radar.

He’d been keeping abreast of the case that DI Lawrence—or rather, his fiancé, DI Austin—had been involved in, on the lookout for corrupt police officers. Even though they’d managed to make a few arrests so far, Heaton knew they’d only scratched the surface.

He thought about the happy couple, knowing they were in the midst of organising their wedding. His hands curled into fists at the thought of Dean walking off into the sunset. He’d made Dean the man he was, and he had thanked Heaton by throwing it back in his face.

He thought long and hard about killing Dean, but that wouldn’t be the same kind of suffering he’d been ensured. He wanted Dean to be weighed down by days, weeks, or even months of misery as he felt his life crumbling around him.

Assassinating Dean Lawrence was definitely something he was capable of organising from prison, but it wouldn’t be long before the trail led back to him, and he’d get even more years added on to his sentence.

The biggest victory scored so far was arranging for the near-fatal beating of Detective Superintendent Steven Collins. Even though the man was still alive, he wasn’t going to be in a position to help the team any further. He was sure that the man was going to take early retirement.

But there was still the issue of DI Lawrence.

He wanted to have a little fun with him. There were still a few moves to make.

Heaton sent out an instruction for one of the guards to come to him.

“What do you want, Heaton?” the guard asked, a reliable man who’d stopped caring about the job a long time ago. He just went through the motions until he could start collecting his pension.

“I need you to get my lawyer on the phone,” he requested in a polite and civil tone. In truth, he could have used the mobile that’d been smuggled in for him and was currently placed under his mattress, but he wanted to put on a good image for what he had planned.

“Should I give any message?” the prison officer asked with a yawn.

“I need to talk to him about some arrangements to be made,” Heaton explained, trying to hide his smirk. “Involving the police.”

1

Liv and Dean had dived to the floor as the petrol bomb came smashing through the window and landed on the ground. Briggs had jumped out of the way and was now scrabbling at the door to get out.

“Are you all right?” Dean asked, prompting Liv to frantically nod her head. Dean caught sight of the fire that was slowly spreading next to the dining room table, snaking along the floor and starting to climb the walls. Dean rushed towards it, only for Liv to hold him back.

“No, Dean, leave it!” she instructed, just as pained as he was at seeing the flames eating away at their home but knowing they had to get to safety. “We need to get out of here.” Dean nodded and let himself be pulled off the floor, coughing as the smoke tried to fill his lungs. Liv yanked the door open, and the pair stumbled out into the night as the neighbours came outside to see the commotion.

Liv found herself coughing violently as she fell onto the pavement, clutching at her chest. She reached down to her pocket for her phone to call out the fire department… only to realise it was still inside the house.

Briggs was turned around and barking incessantly at the house, as though willing the fire to go out.

Dean and Liv lay down alongside each other, knowing there was nothing more they could do, even though Liv couldn’t help thinking that they’d never been more vulnerable.

She thought about the petrol bomb that’d been hurled through the window and about the possible attacker. She wondered if they could’ve caught him. He would surely have been on foot. There was no point now. He’d already be long gone, and he wouldn’t have taken such a risk if he didn’t have access to a decent getaway.

The fire department arrived on the scene not long after and were able to put out the fire. “You’re lucky,” a firefighter commented as the two stood outside. “There was no damage to the structure.”

“Well, that’s good to hear,” Dean responded, rubbing Briggs’ head. But Liv wasn’t as easily assured. Even though they’d made a lot of enemies during their time together, their cosy home together represented a barrier from everything else. The moment they closed the door and shut themselves off from the outside world, they were supposed to be safe.

And now that that sanctuary had been violated. Even though there was nothing inside that couldn’t be repaired, Liv didn’t know if she would ever be able to relax again knowing that at any moment, someone could come crashing through the door.

Liv’s phone rang. It was Steph. Liv wasn’t sure what to make of the DCI stepping into Superintendent Collins’ shoes for the time being. But for now, she was willing to work with the woman for the sake of getting the job done. “Are you both okay?” she asked, her voice full of concern.

“Yeah, we are,” Liv replied, looking over at Dean who was simply looking ahead. “The house not so much.”

“Have you got anywhere you can go?” she asked. Liv was about to suggest her family, but then she remembered that the petrol bomber had been able to get to her home address with minimal fuss. If they had no issue with attacking a copper’s house, then there’d be zero concerns about attacking her family’s home. And given that her sister had two young children… she couldn’t afford to take the risk.

“We’ll find a hotel,” Dean suggested as he fussed Briggs. “We’ll collect my mum and see about getting somewhere for the night. Probably going to be expensive given it’s at the last minute.”

I’m pretty sure price is the least of our problems.

2

Nikki wasn’t sure whether to feel admiration or incredulity, instead settling for a mixture of both. “When you asked about seeing me, I didn’t realise you wanted a safety net.”

Superintendent Steven Collins was leaning over the side of his bed, his feet pressing against the ground, though he gripped the railing for good measure.

“You really shouldn’t be out of bed so soon,” Nikki insisted, ready to catch him at a moment’s notice. “You should be resting up.”

“Would you be taking that stance if our positions were reversed?” Collins asked with a raised eyebrow. Nikki knew by now not to dignify that with an answer.

“Even if you can make it from one side of the room to the other without collapsing, no one in their right mind is going to let you back into the office,” Nikki insisted. “And you can’t honestly expect us to work with that madwoman.”

“Nikki, you say that about everyone in authority,” Collins muttered, appreciating the levity his former colleague and lover brought with her. “Even me.”

“Yes, true, but you ended up growing on me,” Nikki noted, a smile spreading on her face. Even now, after all this time, there was still a spark between them. A spark that threatened to blossom into a flame…

But Nikki had to remind herself that that part of her life was over now. She had a new life in Derby, and a new man. Well, she couldn’t be sure if he was her man, but she certainly hoped so. He’d played a big part in helping her recover from the trauma of losing her husband.

“How are things getting on with you and Liv?” Collins asked, changing the subject. “I know that vein in that temple usually becomes more prominent whenever you’ve had a set-to.”

Nikki tried to find the best way to defend herself. “She wanted to look at giving the guy who put you in hospital a free pass in exchange for testifying. And… a few words were said. Tempers were flaring.”

“Oh, I can imagine,” Collins said sardonically. “Nice to know some things never change.”

“She can’t go making deals like that,” the woman declared, sitting on the end of Collins’ bed. “You could have died. For God’s sake, you’re barely out of the woods regarding your cancer diagnosis. The man needs punishing.”

“Well, I appreciate your fiery defence as always, Nikki,” he remarked, looking flattered. “But I think that Liv was looking at the big picture. It’s not just about nabbing one guy. It never has been. There are a lot of people out there who are going against their oaths as police officers, profiting off the misery of others. They all need their day in court. And as much as I would like to see the bastard hung out to dry…” Collins’ hand instinctively went to his neck, as though remembering the blunt instrument coming down hard on him. “...if it means getting a dozen more bent coppers off the street, I’ll take that. Sometimes, we have to put aside personal feelings.”

“Even when you’ve been used as a punchbag?” Nikki asked incredulously.

“Especially when you’ve been used as a punchbag,” Collins responded. “I know DI Austin has had her fair share of personal entanglements. But if for whatever reason I was unable to lead the unit, she’s the one I’d want leading the charge.”

“And why would she be doing that?” Nikki asked dubiously, watching her superior’s face cloud over.

But before she could say anything else, her mobile went, and her brow was furrowed. “It’s Liv.”

“Better answer it,” Collins suggested. “I can’t think of many things that would tear her away from DI Lawrence at this time of night.”

Nikki answered the phone, wondering if she should be gearing up for round two. But as her face fell, Collins could tell something had happened. Bad enough for Nikki to forget their previous argument.

“Someone tried to get at them in their own house,” she whispered in shock.

3

Thirteen years earlier

Detective Constable Dean Lawrence made his way into Newquay Station, feeling a sense of trepidation and anxiety.

As soon as he looked at the rows of desks with officers seated before him, imposter syndrome was well and truly settling in.

“DC Lawrence!” DCI Heaton chimed in from the other end of the room. He got up from his desk and walked across the room to warmly shake the new arrival’s hand. “How does it feel?”

“Well, I’ve already had a few slips of the tongue,” Dean replied, having accidentally introduced himself as PC Lawrence a few times over the past few days.

“It wears off over time,” Heaton assured him, giving him a hearty pat on the back. “Got to say, you’ve adjusted to the English climate quite well. Policing much different over there in Italy?”

“Well, for the most part, the outcome’s always the same,” Dean replied professionally. He’d been in the country for a year, and he felt alarmed by how the Italian twinge in his accent was fading fast. His mother would not approve.

“You’re going to enjoy yourself in CID,” Heaton said, and Dean was taken aback by the whole casualness of the situation. He’d expected it to be all tight suits and stiff expressions. “I think your career is going to go far with us, and I want you to know that I’ve got your back. Whatever you need, if you’ve got a problem, just come to me and we’ll sort it out.”

Given that Dean had been a bundle of neuroses since he’d stepped through the door, he was grateful for the show of support.

“I want you to think about what you want to get out of this job, my friend,” Heaton said. “This is a chance for you to really make your mark.”

“Well, I’m interested in the cases that are ongoing,” Dean said, having taken the time to get to know the local Newquay community that he’d be serving.

“I’m not just talking about the cases,” Heaton said, walking back around from behind his desk. “I’m talking about opportunities for career advancement. You’re with the right kind of people. Play your cards right, you could be a DI before you’re thirty and a DCI before you’re forty.”

A lot of the other officers in the squad nodded eagerly in agreement.

“Of course, you have to put the work in,” an officer with a loose tie announced, coming over to shake the new arrival’s hand. “No one’s going to give you the role on a silver platter.”

Heaton shot a look at the other officer before brightly saying, “Dean, this is Detective Inspector Steven Collins. He’s my number two man around here.”

“I’ve heard promising things about you, DC Lawrence,” Collins noted, pulling his hand away. “I hope you live up to it.”

“Now, you won’t be working with DI Collins just yet. I’m going to partner you up with… DS Baldwin.”

He gestured to a chair where a slick and well-groomed woman came up to the front, adjusting her blond ponytail as she did so. “I’m Melissa. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Dean,” she said in a tone that was perhaps more loaded than it needed to be.

“See what I mean?” Heaton chortled. “Melissa, if you could just show him what needs doing around here, that’d be great.”

“Don’t worry, we’re not going to stick you with the grunt work or the coffee order,” Melissa added in. “That’s Steven’s job.”

Collins nodded, half-heartedly getting involved.

His anxiety fading away, Dean was looking forward to his time in CID…

But he had no idea what was just around the corner.

4

Liv and Dean had gone into work the next morning looking worse for wear. By the time they’d managed to find a place to stay, there were a few hours before the dawn, so it hardly seemed worth the effort to go to sleep. They went back to the house and picked up some clothes before getting Dean’s mother, Mariana, settled at a hotel for a few days and then headed to the station.

They walked up to be greeted by Nikki, all the frustrations of the previous day since forgotten. “How are you both holding up?” she asked, before realising it wasn’t the most well thought out question.

“Well, we’re not walking barbecues, which is always a plus,” Liv responded.

“Any ideas who might have done it?” Dean asked.

“No. As soon as we got in, we tried CCTV and looked all over trying to find something, anyone who might be out and about,” the sergeant replied apologetically. “Unfortunately, because nobody has been walking around with ‘arsonist’ tattooed on their foreheads, we’ve only been able to get so much.”

“Do you think it could be someone you know?” Nikki suggested. “Someone you put away?”

“If that was the case, we’d be living on the run all the time,” Dean observed. “No, my guess is that this was somebody who was put up to it. Criminals in Newquay are a lot of things, but brave? No. They wouldn’t dare attack a copper’s house if they didn’t have either assurances they wouldn’t get caught or they were being well paid. Probably some guy they pulled off the street and bunged a couple of quid.”

“What does this mean for the wedding?” Nikki asked, causing the couple to snap their heads in her direction.

“What about it?” Liv asked, praying the conversation wasn’t going in the direction she thought it was going.

“Well, it’s just next month,” Nikki observed. “You think you’ll be able to walk down the aisle without looking over your shoulder?”

Liv felt a cold tightness in her stomach. This case had been dragging on since the beginning of the year and had taken many forms, but she never considered that it was going to end up causing her to miss the most important day of her life.

In that moment, Liv hated her job and the position it’d put her in. It’d taken so much from her over the years—mental energy, a sense of calm, the ability to connect with most people—and now she was worrying that she was going to miss out on her own wedding.

She was tempted to phone Collins up and throw his offer back at him.

But as usual, Dean came to the rescue. “We’re going to get this sorted by then, I assure you.” He looked to Liv and said sharply, “No one is cancelling anything.”

“Is this you saying that you know how to crack the case, or is this you indulging in a bit of wishful thinking?” Nikki asked sceptically.

“Whatever gets us the best result,” Dean explained, taking Liv’s hand and holding it close. “We’ve gone through too much to not have our happy day, so we’re going to fight for it.”

Nikki smiled. She clearly wanted to believe they could pull it off but was conscious that they were playing down the severity of the situation.

She looked at something over Liv’s shoulder and frowned. “I tell you what. Any minute now, you’re probably going to wish the fire had got you both.”

“Why?” Liv asked before the clacking of heels announced the arrival of the last person she wanted to see.

DCI Steph Brown didn’t even try to put on a show of sympathy for the pair, looking as stone-faced as ever. “I think we need to have a talk about what happened last night, don’t you? And more importantly, whether you should be on active duty.”

Now I know what they mean when they say it’s like fighting the enemy within.

5

“We’re okay, if that’s what you want to know,” Liv said as she and Dean stood before the sergeant, who had yet to claim the desk for herself.

“Olivia, you seem to be mistaking me for someone who hasn’t read your file,” Steph fired back, arms folded. “I know about your entire history—your brother going missing, the loss of your…” She looked over at Dean, as though deciding whether to press on before adding, “...first fiancé. I think for all that you’ve gone through, any rational senior officer would wonder if you could do the job.”

Liv was struggling to reign herself in. It was one thing for people to question her judgment, but questioning her capacity…

“With respect, ma’am,” she said through gritted teeth, trying to force a level of courtesy through even as the anger threatened to boil over. “Those incidents were years ago. And if you’d seen my records, you’d know I’ve solved a great number of cases in Newquay as a result.”

“Oh yes, it’s impressive,” Steph noted. “And Superintendent Collins certainly has an eye for talent. I wonder if that’s why he let you stay on the team as long as he did.”

“I’m assuming there’s a reason you called us in here,” Dean said, noting that Liv might have borrowed some of Nikki’s anger.

“I wanted to talk about the possibility of arranging for you both to go into protective custody,” Steph suggested.

The couple’s jaws fell open. “You’re not being fucking serious,” Liv exclaimed.

“You both survived an attack on your home,” Steph fired back, trying not to look insulted and clearly utilising every last ounce of diplomacy that she possessed. “And somehow, I feel like there is more to come. So, we need to look at getting you to a safe place.”

“Don’t you see?” Liv demanded angrily. “If they wanted us dead, they would have tried that. Death by petrol bomb? I don’t think so. This was a scare tactic. The fact that they’re coming at us in our own home means we’re getting to them.”

Dean gave her a bewildered look, unsure how to take the attack on the house as a good thing.

“So, you take being assaulted outside office hours as a sign you’re doing your job right?” Steph asked with a tone that shut down any optimism Liv might’ve been feeling.

“Take a look at me, guv,” Liv insisted, stepping forward. “Am I breaking out in a nervous sweat? Shaking? At a loss for words?” When Steph didn’t respond, she continued, “I can get the job done without any fuss. And I promise you, you’re going to have a hard time replacing me.”

Before Steph could offer up a response, the phone started ringing. Temporarily distracted, she went to pick it up. “DCI Brown? What? You’re kidding me?” She looked from Liv to Dean. “Can’t I send anyone else? Surely, you can’t expect me to…” She looked crestfallen. “Fine, I’ll let them know.” She hung up the phone and looked to the inspectors. “Well, it looks like I don’t get a say whether you enter the fray or not. You’re both needed down at the prison.”

“What for?” Dean asked.

“An old friend of yours, Neil Heaton,” the DCI responded, giving them a moment to get over the shock. “It seems he’s worked out that prison life isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. I’ve just had his solicitor on the phone talking about arranging a meeting. He says that he’s only going to speak to the two of you. No one else.”

Liv and Dean glanced at each other. Normally, she’d enjoy the prospect of working with her fiancé on a case. But she knew that if it were this criminal who wanted them together—especially someone who knew the full extent of their relationship—there was an ulterior motive. “Did he say what he wanted?” Dean asked, dreading the answer.

“He said he wanted to cut a deal.”

6

Lewis checked his jacket over, trying to see if there was any hint of smoke in the material. He’d made a point of running as soon as he’d thrown the petrol bomb, but he needed to be sure. He’d thrown all the clothes he’d worn away and put on some new ones.

He’d been careful to avoid attracting any attention. He was sure that he’d got away with it. Otherwise, the police would have come knocking on his door by now.

So, why was he shaking?

Maybe it was the cold splashes of water coming in on his face.

He’d been instructed to head to the beach for a debriefing.

He hated doing it out here in the wide open. He felt exposed. Even though it was still in the early hours of the morning, he was still conscious of a small child running up and down, splashing against the declining tide.

He’d moved down to the far end of the beach, away from where anyone could see him. This kind of activity was best left away from prying eyes.

He waited as a woman walked up to greet him. She had her hands in her pockets, and her red hair was flowing in the sun. She was dressed in a T-shirt, shorts, and sandals to match the hot weather. For a moment, she looked like a typical beach visitor, but as he read her body language, he could see how she moved forward with purpose. It was smart, the attire she wore. No one would suspect her of anything. With hindsight, he should have dressed less conspicuously. It also meant that she was unlikely to be concealing any weapons.

“So, is it all sorted?” she asked, having no time for pleasantries.

“Well, yes, the fire was put out before it could cause any real damage, but I think I put the fear of God into them,” Lewis said smugly.

“But they’re still alive and kicking,” the woman observed. “Last I heard, they were going into work as if nothing happened. Would you consider that a ‘job well done?’”

“Hey, now,” Lewis said, holding out his hands, conscious of the woman shortchanging him. “You said that you just wanted to scare them. You never said anything about outright killing them. What did you expect me to do? Run into the building and burn them first hand?”

“That’s true,” the woman agreed. “Maybe we should have considered that Olivia Austin is not so easily intimidated.” She paused, looking up and down the beach. “I take it nobody else saw you?”

“Of course not.” Lewis scoffed. “I’m not stupid enough to get caught. Now, I believe you have something of mine.” He suddenly wondered how she was going to stash a few thousand pounds on her person.

“I’ll look at transferring the money now,” she said as she reached into her pocket and fumbled about.

He nodded, before realising, “Hang on, I didn’t tell you my bank…”

She moved so quickly, he barely had time to see the small line of silver glinting in the sunlight, moments before it disappeared into his stomach.

Lewis stood there, dumbfounded, unable to make sense of what’d just happened. He stumbled away, clutching at his stomach, at which point the woman stabbed him multiple times in the back as he tried to get away from her.

As the puncture wounds oozed red, he stumbled to the ground, collapsing in the sand. His breath became more and more ragged as the water washed over him and mixed with the seeping blood.

The woman looked satisfied with her handiwork, doing one last check to make sure nobody had seen them and then washing the blade in the sea, wiping it down and pocketing it before carrying on up the beach as though she were taking a morning stroll.

7

Liv and Dean made their way into the private waiting room, trying to temper their expectations for the visit ahead.

“Probably best to let me do the talking,” Dean suggested, and seeing Olivia’s nostrils flare with offence, he added, “I used to work with this guy. I know all the tricks he will try to pull.”

“Who do you think I am? Nikki?” Liv asked a little indignantly.

The door opened and Heaton stepped into the waiting area, taking a seat at the table. “DI Lawrence, always a pleasure,” he said grimly with an expression that betrayed exactly how much contempt he held for the other copper. “And this must be DI Austin. I must say, I’ve heard a lot about you. Dean certainly has fine taste in women.”

Liv felt her skin crawl at the proclamation.

“How’s Collins getting on?” Heaton asked. “He managed to pull himself out of bed yet?”

“Let’s cut the bullshit, Heaton,” Dean exclaimed. “You said you wanted to meet with us. Why did you drag us all the way down here in the middle of an ongoing case?”

“I’ve spent a long time inside,” Heaton exclaimed, suddenly sounding morose. “Now, maybe you think I deserve it, but that’s a huge chunk of my life gone that I’m never getting back. Which is why I want to try and prioritise what time I’ve got left.”

Dean looked his old mentor over for any sign of bluffing.

“And I’m not beset by remorse or turning to religion, if that’s what you’re thinking. There’s nothing altruistic about this. I want certain guarantees,” he insisted.

Dean and Liv shared a glance. Finally, Liv felt like she had enough ground to speak. “You realise that whatever demands or whatever you want, any decision is probably going to be made by people way above our pay grade. And of course, you know it’s going to be based on results. So, what exactly do you want?” She was dreading him asking for the one thing that every criminal facing a life in prison would ask for.

“I want to see about witness protection,” he stated, prompting an exasperated sigh from Liv. “I’m simply looking to enjoy a bit more convenience in my later years.”

“What, like dinner and a show?” Liv asked sardonically.

“Obviously, we need to work out the finer points,” Heaton continued. “I’ve spent too long staring at a boxed room and being surrounded by the worst kinds of people.”

They’re your kind of people.

“So, what are you offering us in return?” Dean asked.

“I can give you all the information you need on the network of corrupt police officers,” he said slowly to hammer the point home.

“Bullshit,” Dean finally exclaimed. “You’ve been banged up for nearly a decade. How could you possibly know who’s on the take and who isn’t?”

“You think when I went to prison that I just disappeared into a cave?” Heaton asked sardonically. “I had people who kept on supplying me with information, and I would advise them in how to stay ahead of the curve.” He leaned across the table. “You remember when I was able to frame you, DI Lawrence? It wasn’t even that hard. It was just a matter of setting up the dominoes and watching them fall. You think that would have been possible if I didn’t have people to push in the right directions?”

Dean thought back to the time when it looked like his entire world was crumbling down. He remembered the murder of Gabi, his former fiancé, and how he’d been accused of such a crime.

“So, do you want to start discussing details?” Heaton asked, looking like he’d just sealed the deal.

But to Liv’s surprise, Dean got up from his seat and declared, “You can go fuck yourself.” He then marched out of the room, leaving Liv sitting there. Not wanting to be left alone with the man, she took off after him.

8

Thirteen years earlier

“So… you in a relationship?” Melissa asked as they walked past the boats.

“Not at the moment, no,” Dean said, unable to hide the heaviness in his heart. When he left Italy behind, it meant he also had to leave Gabi, and he was already kicking himself for how things ended between them, wishing he had the chance to go back and make it all right. “I’ve just been getting used to the area.”

“You fancy getting a drink any time soon?” she offered with a wry smile, and Dean pondered how many people she’d charmed with that smile.

“Yeah, can’t hurt,” Dean said, not really ready to engage on that level with any of his colleagues yet, but feeling he needed to make inroads. “So, what kind of crimes are you used to solving around Newquay?”

“You’d be surprised the shit some people get up to in a seaside town,” Melissa noted as she approached one of the boats. “Most of the time, you get the occasional loiterer or public drunkard. And every now and then, a body drops. But if you want to make a name for yourself in CID, the real money is in organised crime.”

“Somehow, I can’t see this area giving way to a Godfather scenario,” he noted sceptically.

“You’d be surprised,” Melissa noted. “Take this boat here…” She gestured to a magnificent yacht, the likes of which elevated the entire harbour. “What are your thoughts?”

“That I’m in the wrong line of work?” Dean asked dubiously, wondering how many years he’d have to work before he could afford a boat like that.

“There’s a guy who’s been coming in here on a regular basis for the past three weeks,” she told him. “We’re still not sure where he’s been going, but we’re pretty confident he’s transporting illegal goods. Got a few helpful tip-offs here and there.”

“So, what do you propose we do? Get a warrant?” Dean asked, having spent much of his time in the UK reading up on the standard procedure.

“I think we need to have a little chat with him,” Melissa stated, walking up to the boat. Dean wasn’t sure what was happening, but he was pretty sure this wasn’t among the regulations.

She knocked on the front door of the boat, and a few minutes later, a balding man in his late forties with a prominent tan and a few strands of silver left on his head answered the door. He was wearing a white summer shirt that looked like it’d been hastily put on. “Can I help you both?”

Melissa held up her police ID. “I’m Detective Sergeant Baldwin, this is Detective Constable Lawrence, we were wondering if we could have a word about some of the visits you’ve been making to the Newquay area,” she asked pleasantly.

“Why, am I in trouble or anything?” the man asked.

“No, but it’d be nice to have a chat about what brings you here,” Melissa continued with a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. “And making sure it’s all aboveboard.”

The man was about to respond when he was distracted by a young woman coming up behind him. She was wearing a satin robe and had her strawberry blonde hair done up in a bun.

Dean took one look at her and immediately could tell the whole situation was off. For starters, he was pretty sure there wasn’t a father-daughter dynamic going on there. And she didn’t look like she was enjoying the wealth surrounding her. In fact, she looked petrified.

“What the hell are you doing out here?” the older man asked, turning on his heel and snapping at her, prompting the girl to nearly jump out of her skin. “Go on, get back in the other room.” He shooed her away as he turned back to the officers. “Unless you have something legal to say, I don’t want to see either of you anywhere near my boat.” And with that, he slammed the door in their faces.

Melissa walked away, looking disgruntled, but Dean couldn’t help but think of the young woman who’d been stood there moments before.

9

“Dean!” Liv called out, trying to catch up with him in the corridor.

“We can’t do it. We cannot make any kind of deal with that man,” Dean said, turning around, his face red. “We might as well shake hands with the fucking devil.”

“What if he does have information that could be useful?” Liv asked. “I’m not assuming that he’s doing any of this out of the goodness of his heart, but what if he could possibly give us something that would put a lot of bad people away?”

“No, there’s an angle that he’s playing here,” Dean said, pacing up and down on the spot. “He’s kept quiet about this for nearly ten years. When he was sent down, he could have had a lighter sentence. Hell, he might have even walked if Anti-Corruption had their way. All he had to do was give up a series of names, but he didn’t, and he’s kept his mouth shut. And just to remind you that he did all of this for no one but himself, people with influence know that he didn’t grass. And they made sure he was well-treated. Three meals a day, respect from his fellow inmates. Hell, if anyone there got even the slightest inkling that he was having this conversation with us, he’d be dead before he made it back to his cell. The fact that he’s having this conversation with us is a joke in itself. He was arrested, charged, and sentenced. The power to reverse all of that lies in someone way about our pay grade. Ministerial level, I’d say. And you’re going to be hard-pressed to find somebody willing to give a shit about the goings-on of a seaside town.”

Liv considered their options. She knew that a lot of corrupt officers were being rounded up and the scheme was being dismantled, but these were mainly lower ranking PCs. The ones of higher authority could slip back into the shadows, wait for the heat to die down, and then start up all over again.

“Dean, you know this guy better than anyone,” she said evenly. “What do you think he expects you to do next? He’s going to expect us to twist in the wind and play by his rules,” Liv insisted.

“This isn’t a game!” Dean fired back. “People could die over this!”

“That’s exactly what it is; it’s a big elaborate game!” she snapped, desperate to get through to him. “He’s expecting a reaction from you. He wants you to take the bait. Don’t forget that this immunity crap is wholly dependent on results. If it turns out he’s just jerking us around, then he’s going to go back inside without the ‘I didn’t grass’ status he’s been hanging onto.”

Dean frowned. “Maybe Nikki had a point that we’re spending too much time fraternising with our enemies. First, we’re being lenient with the bloke who beat Collins senseless, and now you want to get into bed with HIM?” Liv kept quiet as he continued. “I would tell you that that man represents everything that’s wrong with the police service, but what would be the point? Nor shall I remind you that he tried to frame me as a bent copper and get me sent down. Instead, I’ll point out that he killed Gabi. He had her mowed down by a car.” His face clouded over, and he looked away, unable to face her as the emotions came boiling over. “We weren’t on the best of terms when she died—she was actively trying to destroy me—and I know I should hate her for that… but there’s always going to be a part of me, however small, that regrets we weren’t able to patch things up when we still had the chance.”

Liv hung her head, having had no idea of the level of hurt he was going through or that he’d been keeping it so close to his chest.

“Listen, I get it, I do. If it was Alex or Mills or the kids, I’d be acting exactly the same way.” She took his hand and kissed it. “And I want to help you get through this. This isn’t about helping him, this is about getting us through it. We’ve got a wedding next month, and I want us to be ready for it.”

Dean cupped her face and stroked her cheek tenderly, as though drawing strength from the sensual touch.

“Okay,” he finally confirmed. “Let’s just get through this and see how we can make use of the man. Afterwards, he can go to hell for all I care.”

10

DC Andrew Shaw walked through the corridors of Newquay CID toward the breakroom, and despite the exuberant energy that DS Harding brought to the table, the atmosphere still felt flat without Dean about.

He was going to get a coffee when he bumped into the last person he expected to see.

“Helen!” he exclaimed, the psychiatrist looking as put-together as ever. Andrew had always prized himself on his personal grooming, and it’d always been a point of silent envy that she could wake up and answer the door in a few minutes and still look better than him or anyone else on his team… ever.

“Good to see you, Duracell,” Helen said, using the nickname with a flicker of affection. There was clearly still a spark between them, but not enough to revive their relationship.

“What brings you here?” he asked, going to the coffee machine before remembering her presence. “You want a cup?”

“Oh, no thank you. I’ve just had one,” she replied, and Andrew remembered how she would never dare drink from the same pot as everyone else, instead preferring to have a ridiculously overpriced latte. “I’m interviewing the suspect who previously injured Superintendent Collins. Given his offence…” She continued in a lower voice. “...I’m trying to keep a low profile.”

“Yeah, that kind of thing can turn you into the town pariah,” Andrew noted. “For what it’s worth, I get that it has to be done.”

“How have you been?” she asked, abruptly changing the subject.

“Well, I’ve continued my running gag of being threatened by the local criminal element,” he replied, remembering the near-death experience he and PC Diana Hershel had survived.

“You do seem to find a way of getting through it,” she explained, smiling fondly, though the smile quickly faded as she remembered the arguments they’d had over him putting himself in danger regularly.

Andrew sighed, feeling like they could avoid the elephant in the room all they wanted, but sooner or later, they’d have to confront it. “Why did we break up, Helen?”

Helen was stunned by the question. Normally, she was able to get a good read on her patients and work out exactly what they needed. But ironically, she floundered when it came to herself.

“I think we wanted different things in life,” she finally admitted. “I wanted you to take more of a desk job because of the risks you were taking, and I don’t think I was dynamic enough for you.”

“Are you kidding?” Andrew asked incredulously, having never known Dr Pike to put herself down before. “You brought out the smart side in me!”

“And there was also Olivia,” she continued, stopping him in his tracks. “It’s not just that you shared such a deep connection with her; it’s that you were occupying the same space as her.”

“Are you serious?” Andrew was getting sick and tired of people coming up with their own interpretations of his feelings for Olivia. “Look, we had our time together. It was great, and I’m always going to treasure it. And to be honest, Liv was—and still is—an incredible person. I’m probably not going to find somebody like her. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to compare every single relationship I have from this point on to Liv. And just to be clear, I’m not saying that you’re better or worse, so don’t start comparing yourself to her. We had a good time together, you and me. It was fun while it lasted, but I guess it wasn’t meant to last.”

Helen nodded. She understood that they’d divulged too much for them to reconcile their differences… but there was always going to be a part of her that regretted not being able to take those few years they’d shared together into a lifetime.

11

The meeting with Heaton was essentially an endurance test for Liv and Dean. He laid out in detail exactly what he wanted, saying he didn’t expect all of it straight away but wanted an opportunity to be let out on compassionate license for a day or two.

“I’m sure a few chats with the prison governor will allow you to smooth it over,” Heaton suggested. “Obviously, I would expect you to have a guard around me because you wouldn’t want to leave me on my own for too long.”

“No, perish the thought,” Dean said. “Look, if we’re going to take this back to our boss, we’re going to need a lot more than just a one-off shopping spree. We need something tangible that we can use for our investigation.”

“Okay, how about this for a bombshell?” Heaton suggested, clasping his hands together and leaning forward as far as the window would allow him. “I know who petrol-bombed your house last night.”

Of all the things Heaton was going to offer up on a plate, neither Liv nor Dean were expecting that. It took them both a moment to recover from the revelation. “Wait a minute, were you the one who—”

“No, I didn’t,” Heaton insisted, holding up his hands in innocence. “Get a Bible; I’ll swear on it. And besides, if I was really behind it, I wouldn’t settle for just startling you. I’d actually see you both burnt to the ground.”

The couple felt a chill going through their spines. In a way, the blase manner in which he said it was helpful because it reminded them that even if Heaton was willing to cooperate, it didn’t make him any less of a monster.

“How did you find out?” Dean asked, needing something concrete to know that he wasn’t bullshitting them.

“I had a contact who told me about the plan to have a go at you,” Heaton explained, before catching himself. “And I only found out after they’d already tried it. Which is a bit frustrating because I could have given them some pointers.” He paused, waiting to see if his dig had landed, but no luck. “You two are no fun. But I digress. It was a random nobody who did the deed, but the order was given by somebody on the inside of the force.”

“Do you have the name of the officer who organised it?” Dean asked, fully engaged and momentarily forgetting his former mentor’s tricks of the trade.

“Sorry, can’t tell you that,” he said, prompting Dean to thump his fist on the desk. “If I gave you that information now, how do I know you won’t hang me out to dry?”

Seeing that Dean was about to lose his temper, Liv jumped in with, “You’re pretty up to date on your rules and regulations. How about this one? Failure to cooperate will make you ineligible for Witness Protection.”

Heaton’s face fell momentarily, but he recovered in what Liv considered lightning speed and chortled, “Oh, she’s very good. I can see why you keep her around, Dean. Okay, I can throw you both a bone. I can give you the name of the guy who went after your house.”

All right, that’s something.

“His name is Lewis Farrell,” Heaton explained as Dean quickly scribbled down the name. “Apparently, he has a reputation as a bit of a firebug, which will no doubt show up on his conviction history. So, I would check him out and then maybe he can tell you what the lay of the land is and who hired him.”

“Okay,” Dean declared. “We’ll check it out.” He stood up to get ready to leave. “But if I find out you’re lying or that this is a game, then I promise you that you can wipe your arse with any deal.”

“I would expect nothing less,” the former senior copper said, leaning back in his chair and motioning for the guards to come to him.

Just before the pair were out the door, Heaton called out. “Oh, DI Austin? Did he talk to you about Harley?” He soaked in her immediate look of confusion. “Oh, he hasn’t, has he? Well, that’ll make for very interesting pillow talk.”

Liv turned to ask what he was talking about… but Dean was already gone.

12

Liv and Dean walked out of the prison, Dean looking drained by the conversation, as though just talking with his former mentor had taken several years off of him.

“Right,” he said, walking briskly. “We need to call Tim and get him looking up anything on Lewis Farrell. See if there’s an address we can hit.”

He continued dishing out plans as they got in the car and drove away. Normally, Liv would have admired such practicality—if he wasn’t doing it to ward off the huge bombshell.

“So, who’s Harley, Dean?” Liv asked as he drove the car.

“Does it really matter?” Dean asked as he was about to contact DS Tim Harris.

“Well, it seems to have knocked you for ten,” Liv retorted, having never heard any mention of her at any point during their relationship, and yet the way he’d reacted at the sound of her name… she could tell there was a history there.

“She was before your time,” Dean responded, keeping his eyes on the road. It was clear that there were a lot of feelings being dredged up that he’d rather forget.

“Is she an ex?” Liv asked, remembering how much she’d had to compete for Dean’s affections beforehand.

“No, nothing like that… It was complicated,” Dean replied, growing more and more uncomfortable with each passing second.

“Dean, you know that these days ‘complicated’ is code for ‘scandalous’,” she explained. “We’re going to be getting married next month, and I thought we agreed no more secrets between us.”

“It has nothing to do with us, I assure you,” he snapped. “Do you really want to be having this conversation in the middle of an ongoing case? I think the expression ‘time and a place’ comes to mind.” He steadied himself, not wanting to lash out at her. “Look, you said back in there that he was going to treat this like a game. You know he only told you that just to get you worked up, right? You told me not to fall into that trap.”

Liv nodded, chiding herself for being so easily distracted.

“I promise,” he declared. “When this is all done, I will tell you everything about her. But just to make it absolutely clear, she’s not a fling, she’s not a past love, and she is not your competition. The reason I haven’t mentioned her to anyone is because I’m trying to keep it quiet for the sake of everybody involved, including you.”

Liv felt a little bit embarrassed that even though she had been assured of Dean’s love for her a thousand times over, she still found herself getting territorial over him.

“Tim!” Dean loudly announced into the speakerphone. “Got a name for you—Lewis Farrell. Do you think you could fire up the computer and let us know about him? Apparently, he’s the guy who tried to burn down our home last night.”

“On it, guv,” Tim said, typing rapidly into the computer. A few seconds later, he came back with, “Yep, this guy sounds like your residential pyromaniac. He’s been in and out of prison for multiple offences since he was a kid. Apparently, he posted firecrackers through the letterbox of the local corner shop. The manager was left with permanent injuries. Ever since then, his MO has been, ‘burn anybody who pisses me off.’”

“Sounds like a petty guy,” Liv replied, a little disheartened. He didn’t fit her image of a hired gun. “Have there ever been any occasions of him getting paid to commit arson?”

“Not that I can see here,” Tim noted from the other line. “But if you were compiling a list of suspects for a fire-related offence in Newquay, he’d sit comfortably at the top.”

“Does it have his last known address on there?” Liv asked. “I think we need to have a word with him. See if he’ll tell us who put him up to bombing our home.”

“You think he’ll cave so easily?” Dean queried.

Before Liv could answer, she saw an incoming call from Archie. “Arch, talk to me. What have you got?”

“Boss, we’ve got a body on the beach. Multiple stab wounds. Very, very dead. We also found some ID on him—Lewis Farrell.”

The couple exchanged an ominous look before Dean sharply turned the car around and headed towards the beach.

13

They walked along the beach, having spent several magical moments there enjoying the peace and tranquility offered by the blowing wind and the crashing waves in the background. Once again, she was left wondering if she could ever walk through here without having to worry about the bad memories of finding a body on the beach.

There was already a forensics team in place, and from a distance, she could make out one of the forensic officers trying to shoo away seagulls from their prospective lunch.

Detective Sergeant Archie Elmhurst was stood over the body, having been there long enough to feel sick at the sight and get it out of his system. “Are you sure it’s him?” Liv asked.

“I’m pretty sure,” he responded. “Unless you can think of any other Lewis Farrells populating the UK.”

She studied the sand for any sign of distinctive footprints. The problem was that so many people had probably been trampling on and off the beach that there was no trail left to pick up.

Instead, she walked around the body, knowing that a quick search of the files would reveal if it was the same person. But her gut feeling told her that this was the man who had attacked their house last night… and had taken any knowledge of who’d put him up to it with him to the grave.

“The victim had thirteen stab wounds,” Archie surmised. “One to the gut and the remaining twelve in the back. Unless he was capable of attacking somebody from behind, I think we can rule out self-defence. Somebody wanted this guy dead and wanted to make damn sure he couldn’t get back up again.”

“He had a history of pissing people off,” Liv suggested. “Do you think somebody could have tracked him down and finally got their own back?”

“The same night our house nearly goes up in smoke? Fat chance,” Dean said. “I fucking knew it. I knew we shouldn’t have trusted that piece of shit.”

“There’s got to be an explanation for this,” she suggested, kneeling down and looking at the body.

“Oh, it’s pretty obvious to me,” her partner declared. “He’s just led us on a wild goose chase, and all we have to show for it is the name of a dead man.”

“Can’t be too surprised that they killed him,” she muttered solemnly before rising to her feet again. “They’ve had some of their informants turning on them in exchange for lighter sentences. They’re probably not taking any chances with us.”

“You think we should go back and speak with Heaton?” Dean asked. “See if he can shed some light on all of this?”

“So, he can just throw it in our faces?” Liv asked. “I think I’ve had enough below-the-belt gloating for one day. We can go back tomorrow after we find out from DCI Brown whether it’s possible to get this witness protection deal up and running. I want to see what kind of evidence this guy was packing.”

The team would later find Lewis Farrell’s last known address and a number of homemade petrol bombs just waiting to be deployed.

They also found a stack of photographs depicting Liv and Dean out and about, walking Briggs, coming back from the local pub. It was a surreal experience for Liv as she revisited all of the memories and realised just how long he’d been watching them.

“I feel sick,” Liv muttered, and Dean threw down the ones that showed his mother walking into the flat.

“I don’t think he took these himself,” Dean suggested. “I think these were provided to him so that he knew exactly which house to target.”

Liv looked through the papers around the room for anything that might suggest a contact who’d put him up to it, but there was no such luck,

The trail had gone cold.

14

“So, he gives you a name, and then within an hour, your main suspect ends up dead on a beach?” Steph Brown observed once Liv and Dean were back in the office. “Got to say, if he had organised the murder, he would have had to work like clockwork to pull that one off.”

“Actually, the coroner’s report provided by Dr James suggested that he was killed in the early hours of the morning,” Liv returned, not surprised at all by the forward thinking. “Which means that at the time Heaton was spilling the beans about Farrell, he was already dead.”

“And we have no concrete evidence to prove either that Heaton knew Farrell had died or that he might have ordered it,” Dean added with frustration. Liv could tell he would have loved the opportunity to find something else to nail his nemesis with.

“So, chances are the person who ordered the attack on your house will get away with it,” Steph suggested, taking her seat behind the desk.

“He said he wanted to apply for witness protection,” Liv said. “That he would give us vital information on some of the other coppers waiting to be rounded up.”

“He’s desperate,” Steph muttered dismissively. “He’s clutching at straws, trying to find anything that’ll get him out of his lengthy prison sentence… Though I will say, it might be worth tugging on that thread to see what happens.”

Liv and Dean wondered if the woman had lost her mind. “Are you serious?” Liv exclaimed.

“There are still people that need to be uncovered,” Steph emphasised. “We bag those, then it sends out a message to people that they can’t hide behind their badges.”

Liv admired the stance, and normally, she would have been onboard with that, but given who they were dealing with… “Which begs the question of whether we can get this immunity deal sorted out.”

That was when Steph’s face dropped. “I can’t authorise it myself. That decision has got to be made by somebody a good few pay grades above me. And given what Heaton was involved in and the fact that he is a corrupt police officer, it would mean a lot of revisiting. And of course, any detail would be based on success rates, so if he doesn’t deliver anything we can use, then he shouldn’t be picturing sunny skies and open spaces just yet.” She paused, trying to think of any other business. “What about Farrell? Is there anything more on him? Anything that could lead to a suspect?”

“We’ve got Clara looking through his mobile phone, but we probably won’t hear anything until tomorrow, and even still, I can’t see him being stupid enough to leave incriminating on there.”

“I don’t know, he was stupid enough to meet in a private place and expect them to just hand over his money,” Dean noted.

“And Farrell had no close friends or family?” DCI Brown asked with a raised eyebrow. “No one to make a fuss if he should ever go missing?”

“I imagine that’s probably why they chose him in the first place,” Dean guessed.

“And no witnesses have come forward regarding possibly seeing the murder?” the DCI queried.

“No, definitely not. We would have heard something by now,” Liv replied despondently, feeling like she was hitting brick wall after brick wall after brick wall.

“Well, then, I suggest that we call it a day and everyone goes home and gets some rest,” Steph suggested. “I have a feeling that things are going to get harder before they can get better. And the next few days will probably be rough on us all.”

Liv nodded her head in agreement. She could feel the exhaustion creeping up on her, but she wasn’t sure if she was ready to go home.

“We’ll see you tomorrow,” Dean said, walking out of the office with Liv. “We might as well get a look at what needs doing at home and get some sleep. Whatever Heaton’s got lined up for us, I don’t want to be fighting off fatigue along the way.”

Why is it always the past that comes back to haunt us? Liv wondered to herself. How much time has to pass before we can live without looking over our shoulders?

15

Nikki wasn’t sure if she should be doing what she was doing. She knew Olivia would probably hit the roof if she had even the slightest inkling, but she needed to get it out of her system.

Chris Hayes was supposed to have been in the cell for twenty-four hours, but they’d been able to extend the length of his custody due to special circumstances. Nikki did not envy the position he was in. All the police hated his guts for beating Superintendent Collins to near death, and there were a few criminals more than happy to gut him at the first opportunity. He was left without a friend in the world, and yet Nikki couldn’t bring herself to enjoy his distress.

Outside of the interviews, he barely spoke, just sitting slumped in his cell.

Nikki entered the cell and looked at him with a mixture of pity.

“How is he?” Chris said quietly, looking down at his hands, clearly haunted by what they’d done. “The man I attacked. How is he?”

The words took Nikki by surprise, so much so that she had to steady herself. “He's not his best self, but he's going to make a steady recovery.” And then, thinking that she might be letting him off too easily, she added, “Though whether he will be the same, I don't know. He could barely walk when I last saw him.”

Chris slumped against the wall. “Look, about why I did it…”

“I get why you did it,” Nikki said sharply, having been bought up to speed on how Chris had been blackmailed into compliance with a drug charge hanging over his brother's head. She understood his reasoning, what he'd been willing to do for the sake of family. She thought about her four-year-old daughter Francesca back in Derby. Nikki had often told herself that there wasn't anything she wouldn't do for her little girl. But after recent events, she wondered whether she could ever commit such a brutal crime against another person for the sake of family. She hoped she'd never have to find out.

“My family won't talk to me,” Chris bemoaned. “My mum couldn’t even bear to look at me. And my brother… I tried to get across that it was meant to help him, but he didn't want to hear it. I don’t know if I'm ever going to make it right.”

Nikki listened to him talk without changing her expression at all.

“The man you put in hospital is a good man,” Nikki finally said, feeling the words pouring out of her. “One of the best I've ever known. And he's just recovered from a cancer scare.”

“Oh, Jesus,” he exclaimed, holding his head in his hands from the fresh wave of guilt.

“I don't know if he's going to want to come back to work after this,” Nikki continued, not letting up. “He’s talking like it’s the end of his career, and regardless of whether you were coerced or not, you played a part in that. Now, I don’t think anything you say or do is ever going to make it worth it, because even though I’ve seen a lot of my colleagues turn out to be shitheads, Steven Collins has never sunk to those depths. And yet we’re likely to lose him. At the very least, you can make sure it wasn’t all for nothing.”

She walked up to him and leaned against the wall, overwhelmed by the emotion she was required to put on display.

“Whatever you know about the people you worked with, you need to cooperate with the police, tell them everything, leave no stone unturned,” she implored him.

He nodded numbly, though she could see the sense of newfound obligation in his eyes, especially now knowing about the state of his victim.

Nikki left the cell without another word, taking herself off into one of the storage rooms. She knew that she’d promised Liv all the time she needed to help her wrap up the case, but she was starting to feel the strain of being away from her daughter. She took out her phone, scrolling down to Sophie Taylor’s number, tempted to call her to hear the sound of her little girl’s voice. But she knew Francesca could be busy with a playdate, and she didn’t know if she could find the energy to put on a happy facade.

Instead, she just went about her job, hoping that something would connect so that she could finally go home to her job, her team, and her new partner.

At least she could take this as a sign of how much Derby had grown on her.

16

Liv and Dean inspected the damage to their home, Briggs’ acute nose picking up on the scent of the smoke. Liv had picked up a bottle of red wine from the shop on the way home. We’ll need a stiff drink to get us through the night.

The dining table had maintained its structure, but the woodwork was completely ruined, and it was clear the whole thing would have to be thrown. Liv thought of the many dinners she’d had around that table with Dean, all the memories she’d shared with him. It was a part of the history they’d built up together, and now they’d have to get rid of it. It pained her a little.

“Well, at least the fire hasn’t damaged anything that can’t be replaced,” Dean noted, trying to sound optimistic. Liv nodded, deciding not to mention that they couldn’t replace the sentiment. “Mum will be on her way back soon. I’m going to order an Uber for her.”

“If she comes back here, won’t that make her more of a target?” she suggested.

“She’s going to be a target regardless of where she is,” he fired back. “If people are going to come at her, I’d rather they’d be facing me than some hotel receptionist caught unawares.”

“Same here,” Liv chimed in. “I’ll be keeping them away from your mum and all.” She opened the bottle of wine and poured two glasses.

“Not too much,” Dean noted as the glasses were half full. “I want to take the edge off, but I don’t want to be completely sozzled for when anybody walks through the front door.”

Liv took a healthy swig of wine. “We’re supposed to be getting married next month.”

“And we will,” Dean declared, putting his own drink down and his hands on his fiancé’s shoulders. “Life has thrown so many things at us. We’ve had people kidnapping us, trying to kill us, framing us, and yet, through it all, we’ve never once come undone through anything. So, either all the bad guys are doing a shitty job at driving us apart, or what we have is so unbreakable that no one and nothing can ever come between us.”

Liv smiled at this, taking strength from his words as always. She wrapped her hands around him in a tender embrace, grateful to still be standing in their home with the man she loved. I’m actually the luckiest woman in the world.

Her phone rang, and she rolled her eyes. “I should probably set up an automated message after a certain time telling any incoming callers to sod off,” she joked.

“Answer it. It might be important,” Dean suggested.

Liv broke out of the embrace, praying it wasn’t work reporting on a fresh disaster. To her relief, she saw it was Mills. But then she wondered why Mills was calling her at such a time. Please tell me nothing’s happened to Alex or Mum and Dad…

“Hi, Mills,” she chirped out, chiding herself for her overenthusiastic voice.

“Hi, Sis,” Mills returned, seemingly oblivious to the stress mounting in her sibling. “Was thinking of having a look at venues for the wedding if you’re interested. I was thinking of Lusty Glaze Beach.”

Liv had often thought about her perfect wedding. And though in this case, a beach wedding seemed atypical for a place like Newquay, in a way, it was also quite fitting.

“Well, I’m sure we can find some time later in the week,” Liv suggested, trying to think of a day where she wasn’t going to be tied up with work.

“Well, it’d be good to see you anyway,” Mills continued, sounding a little more weary. “I love my kids, but they demand so much of me. I’ve spent so much time drawing rainbows that I’m starting to see them in the sky all the time.”

Liv laughed at that, and it felt good to know she still could even after everything that’d happened over the last few weeks.

“Let me know what your calendar looks like, and we’ll take it from there,” Mills said, blowing a kiss before hanging up the phone.

Olivia felt a lightness come into her. She’d spent so long being DI Austin that it would be nice to spend a few days as plain old Liv…

…and I’m definitely counting down the days until I can call myself Mrs Dean Lawrence.

17

Thirteen years earlier…

“I’m telling you, there’s something going on on that boat,” Heaton said to the team. “No way would he be that secretive.”

“But we haven’t got a warrant,” Collins chimed in, seemingly used to being the resident bubble burster. “Without it, we can’t go anywhere near the property.”

“Yes, thank you, Steven,” Heaton fired back, tired of hearing the police manual recited back to him. “We need to think of a way in.”

“We could always arrange some kind of surveillance,” Melissa suggested. “Get a look at the people going back and forth in that area, see what they can find out.”

“I think if we’re going to justify round-the-clock surveillance, we’re going to need a little bit more than that,” Heaton replied, and they got the impression he was used to tying himself up in red tape. “DC Lawrence,” he suddenly called out. “You’ve been very quiet. I was wondering if you had anything you wanted to share with the rest of the group?”

Dean’s thoughts weren’t with the man that could be a suspect or the contents of the boat. “I was just thinking about the young woman who was accompanying him. What was she doing there?”

“I think it’s safe to assume it wasn’t a family outing,” Melissa chimed in. “I couldn’t help but notice the love bites going down her neck. Clearly, they both like a bit of rough and tumble. I hope she earns enough to justify her getting on top of him.”

“But he’s old enough to be her dad!” Collins exclaimed with disgust.

“All these rich middle-aged arseholes tend to have trophy girlfriends a good three decades younger than them. Comes with the trade,” Melissa noted with an air of scepticism.

“Do you think it’s worth finding out the full extent of their relationship?” Dean suggested, prompting all heads to turn in his direction. “Clearly, she wasn’t happy to be there in that moment. It might help to know if she’s a victim in all this.”

There was silence as everybody present considered their options. “That’s not actually a bad idea,” Heaton noted. “We might be able to get the lay of the land through her.”

“And who’s going to approach her?” Collins interjected. “I mean, I’m not expecting him to lock her up in a gilded cage, but when people take a look at us, the first instinct is to run a mile in the other direction.”

“Well, that rules you out then, Steven,” Heaton joked before looking over at Dean. “I think we should let the new golden boy have a go.”

“What? Me?” Dean asked, taken aback.

“Yeah, you’ve got a face like a dreamboat,” Melissa noted. “Chances are, you’ll have her swooning over you by the end of the day.” She sent a flirty wink in his direction. “Maybe she’s looking to trade her sugar daddy in for a younger model.”

“Look, I’ll go down and speak with her and see if there’s anything she’ll tell us, but I can’t promise anything,” Dean said, getting up from his seat and walking out of the room, suddenly feeling overwhelmed by all the attention on him.

“DC Lawrence!” a voice called out to him, and Dean was surprised to see DI Collins trying to keep up with him. “I think we need to have a talk about this plan of yours.”

“Look, for what it’s worth, it’s not my plan, it’s theirs,” Dean noted, gesturing to the office where Heaton and Melissa remained. “I’m just going through the motions.”

“Exactly. Everyone there was thinking about the boat and its owner. You were the first person to give any thought to the girl.” There was something in his tone that possibly indicated admiration, but Dean wasn’t sure. “Keep that as your main focus. Don’t let yourself be distracted by anything else.”

He turned around and headed back into the office, leaving Dean completely perplexed by what had just happened.

Dean thought about the fear in the young woman’s eyes, and as Collins’ words went around and around in his head, he realised that Heaton and Melissa had only considered the woman’s value not as a victim of a crime but as a potential bargaining chip.

18

Olivia and Dean had barely slept that night, feeling like they were on full alert.

Liv got up after three hours of slumber and made her way downstairs where Dean’s mother Mariana was cooking breakfast in the kitchen. “You both sleep all right?”

“I’ll let the eye bags tell that story for you,” Liv suggested coyly.

“Well, I have called someone to look at getting that window repaired,” she said, pointing to the hole in the window that’d been haphazardly covered with cardboard and masking tape. “We really need to think of home security. And I’m wondering if it’s worth speaking to Dean about changing the locks.”

“I think if anybody wants to break into the house to get at us, they’re not going to let a locked door stop them,” Liv noted before moving over to the woman. “How are you feeling, Mariana?” She was conscious that the woman had been in remission from cancer for a while and was worried about the stress overwhelming her.

“Please, Olivia, I’m not a fragile flower. And there is nothing wrong with me. I would have told you and Dean otherwise. I’ve already made the mistake of keeping him in the dark about my cancer diagnosis. I will not make the same mistake twice,” she said as she put eggs and bacon onto the plate. “Come on, eat up.”

Dean came into the living room wearing a dressing gown, Briggs following alongside him. His nose sniffed the air, and he bounded into the kitchen where Mariana held out a line of bacon for the dog.

“So, what do you think is going to be next on the agenda?” Dean asked, wanting to enjoy the moment of tranquility, but knowing they’d have to get out there and face the difficulties of the case. “Please God, tell me we won’t have anything to do with Heaton. I can’t stand another second looking at that smug bastard.”

Liv gestured to his mother, at which point Dean promptly shut up. He sat on the sofa and Mariana carried the plate over to him. Nobody thought it wise to discuss the burnt table.

“So, you got your suit sorted for the wedding?” Mariana asked as she sat in one of the seats with a cup of coffee. “Want you looking your best.”

“Well, let’s hope I can still fit into it after today,” Dean joked as he wolfed down his breakfast. “But I know Liv over here doesn’t need a wedding dress to look beautiful.”

Liv gushed at the compliment. He always knows exactly what to say.

There was a part of her that wanted to ask Dean about Hayley. But she knew whatever his reasons for not telling her after all this time, it wasn’t because he didn’t trust her. She’d learned by now that it must have been something very personal to him. And I’m not going to interrogate him in front of his mum.

“I am hoping to meet up with my sister at some point this week and look at the wedding venue,” Liv explained. “I’ve already got my dress sorted.”

“I suggest you keep him well away from it until the special day,” Mariana suggested lightly. “Trust me, Deangelo, you see your bride before the day, it brings years of bad luck.”

“I don’t really need a wedding dress to bring me bad luck,” Dean joked sarcastically.

Liv had almost finished her breakfast when the phone rang. “No rest for the wicked. Maybe Clara was able to get something off that phone.” But then she saw the caller ID and realised it was DCI Steph Brown. “Everything okay, ma’am?”

She paced up and down as the DCI unloaded her latest bombshell on the inspector. “Jesus Christ, you’re kidding me. When did this happen?” The conversation caught Dean’s attention mid bite. “Okay, well, we’ll be there as soon as we can.” She hung up the phone.

“Well, what did she say?” Dean asked, knowing he was probably not going to enjoy it whatever it was. But she didn’t answer straight away. “Come on, Liv, it’s not the X-Factor.”

“It’s Heaton,” she said finally. “He was attacked in prison last night.”

“What?” Dean asked, not quite registering the words.

“A couple of the inmates jumped him and broke his left arm and a few ribs. He’s holed up in the prison hospital, so we’re going to need to speak to him in person and get to the bottom of it.” Regretfully, they left the breakfast behind, giving the leftovers to Briggs and heading out the door.

19

Thirteen years earlier

Dean stood alone outside the yacht. He couldn’t tell whether that was because Melissa fully trusted him to sort things out himself or whether it was because she didn’t want to be anywhere near him in case it all went pear-shaped.

He watched for a while and saw the woman, now wearing a coral-coloured top and a white skirt, walking up the dock towards the boat. She took one look at Dean standing nearby and immediately walked in the opposite direction.

“Wait!” Dean called out, then lowered his voice in case the man on the yacht heard him and took off. He didn’t want to lay hands on the woman. He was determined not to engage in any behaviours that could be reminiscent of his father.

“Listen, it’s all right, I’m not here in official capacity,” he said, trying to think of anything that might get her to stop. “I’m not with the other woman.”

The woman spun on her seat. “I can’t be seen with you. You realise what he will do to me if he sees you with me?”

Dean stopped in his tracks. He looked down at the woman’s exposed collarbone, catching sight of the faint bruise that was starting to show.

Dean balled his hands into fists, and suddenly, he wanted to turn on his heel, march back towards the boat, and beat the living shit out of the bastard, policework be damned.

It wouldn’t be the first time he’d done something like that. Back in Italy, he’d watched his beloved mother behind ground down by his father’s physical and emotional abuse. From his father, Dean had learned exactly the kind of man he didn’t want to be. He had beaten his father senseless, hoping to make him feel a flicker of the fear he’d inflicted on his mother. And he’d paid the price because he’d been forced to leave Italy and Gabi and everything in his old life behind. And yet, if he was given a second chance in that moment, he would do it all over again in a heartbeat.

Now, seeing that this woman was a possible victim of the same thing made him think about how to proceed. The last thing he wanted was to alarm the woman.

“Look,” he said, holding up his hands. “I’m not going to hurt you, I promise. I just want to help you. I appreciate you probably don’t trust me. It’s not like I’ve given you any reason to. All I’m asking for is a few minutes of your time, and if you decide you don’t want to talk to me, that’s absolutely fine. You can go back to the yacht, and he need never know about it.” He sighed, thinking again about his mother putting on makeup to cover the bruises she’d sustained, overdoing it on the uninjured eye purely so that it would balance out the makeup used on the blackened one. Everything he’d learned about policing told him that what he was about to say was the height of unprofessionalism. “I know what he’s doing to you, and I do not agree with it. I don’t know if I can help you in any way, but I’d like to try.”

When he’d first taken on the case, he thought that evidence could lead to a possible drug bust, the kind of thing that would get his career up and running. But all thoughts of finding his footing in the police was lost, and he was determined to help this woman out of a situation from which she felt there was no escape.

He’d known several victims of domestic abuse like her—proud, brilliant women worn down by cruel, cowardly men who could only make themselves big by making others feel small. But he was determined to see beyond that. Whenever his mother Mariana had been on the receiving end of an abusive episode and he was helping to patch her up, she’d said, “Please don’t let this be the only thing you see of me, Deangelo. Don’t let this be how you remember me.”

And he wanted to understand this woman in a similar fashion, wanted to find out who she was when she wasn’t fending off a harsh word. “Maybe there’s somewhere we can go to get a drink?” He could imagine Collins bollocking him in his ear.

To her surprise, she gave him a small smile. “What’s your name?”

“Dean,” he said, deliberately leaving out the surname and police rank.

“Hayley.”

20

“You know, given that we’re going to interview a victim of a serious offence, you could do with looking a lot less over the moon,” Liv announced as they made their way through the prison complex towards the hospital ward.

“And if it was anyone else, I’d be feeling sympathetic,” Dean replied with no attempt to change his tone whatsoever. “But this is Neil Heaton, as bent as they come, and frankly, my only regret is that whoever did it didn’t finish the job.”

“Then we wouldn’t have much of a case,” Liv reminded him, prompting Dean to quiet down. “Let’s just find out how it happened.”

They walked up to a private hospital room where there was an armed guard waiting outside. Inside, Neil Heaton had his left arm in a plaster cast and a sling, his face looking beaten and bloodied. “Try to keep the shit-eating grin off your face, DI Lawrence,” he muttered, but Dean was happy to see his former DCI looking a lot less smug.

Dean stepped back, aware that he was probably enjoying the man’s pain a little too much, and Liv stepped up to talk to him. “What happened?”

“I thought you already knew,” Heaton responded. “I was in the shower, and then a couple of guys came in and started pounding the crap out of me, one of them stomping on my arm until it broke. One of them grabbed me by the hair and said, ‘this is what happens to a rat.’” He looked haunted by the attack. “This has never happened to me before.”

“Really?” Dean asked, unable to hold back his surprise.

“It’s not just about the assault,” Heaton explained, trying to shuffle up in the bed, but every single movement brought pain and discomfort. “Word has got out. Inmates… guards… they all know that I am cooperating with you.”

“Well, presumably you’re going to keep on cooperating with us,” Liv reasoned, hoping that the attack hadn’t weakened his resolve for freedom. “That little tidbit— which we need to talk about— wasn’t a one-off. We need to see actual results. You want that chance to get out and see the sun again? You need to deliver us actionable information.” I’m actually seeing Dean’s logic here and hoping that he takes this as a sign to stop bullshitting us.

“I’ve suddenly become a target within these walls,” Heaton replied, clearly trying to play whatever cards he had left. “I’m helping you to help myself. I can’t do either of those things if I’m dead. And if it’s not one person today, it’ll be somebody else tomorrow.”

“So, what exactly are you suggesting?” Liv asked, bracing herself.

“That you get me out of here,” Heaton stated. “I’m not saying release me into the wild, not that I’d object to that. But I would like to talk about having my custody transferred to a private location where I can continue to provide information without worrying about someone coming at me with a knife. Because there’s always the chance I might not survive the next attack. Look at what they’ve already done to me.”

“So, you basically want house arrest?” Dean asked incredulously. “You want me to call around all the hotels in Newquay and see if they have a room for you?”

“I’m sure you can work something out,” Heaton insisted. “It’s not like you haven’t done it for anyone else, right? I seem to remember Hayley getting off easily.”

He paused waiting to see the effect her name had on the couple. “Oh, he’s still not told you, has he? Well, I’ve got to wonder how much trust you two actually have between you.”

Liv and Dean shared a look, with Dean shrugging as if to say, ‘I told you he’d be difficult.’ So, Liv stepped closer to his bedside.

“I know exactly what you’re doing, Heaton,” she hissed. “You’re trying to split both of us up, get a bit of mistrust going, start a bit of infighting, right? Well, let me tell you, I trust this man in anything he does, anything. And I’m sure he’ll tell me about Hayley when he feels like it,” though she secretly braced herself, feeling like that day might never come. “And you want to watch what you’re saying, because right now, you are speaking to the only two people who can actually protect you moving forward. So, maybe you want to have a think about whether it’s in your best interest to piss us off.”

Heaton said nothing and looked like he wanted to shrink back into his bed.

21

Thirteen years earlier

Dean wasn’t sure if this could even count as police work anymore.

Dean and Hayley had sat in a bar up the road and grabbed drinks, both non-alcoholic. They each had something to hide from the people they were feeding back to, and Dean wanted to be fully alert, giving her as little information as possible.

Hayley had done enough talking for the both of them, speaking about her past life, struggling to get into university, finding work as a secretary for a pharmaceutical company, and later going to work with the gentleman who owned the yacht, whom Dean had since discovered to be Chuck Lauter, a former drug manufacturer who had lost much of his business in a hostile takeover.

He didn’t ask her the dreaded question of why she stayed with him. He could imagine what some of the answers would be. Lauter had kept her completely dependent on him and made her feel that without him, she’d have nothing. And there was also the fear element. Maybe deep down, he needn’t worry about her talking to the police because he’d felt he’d done enough to put the fear of God into her.

“I appreciate you talking with me,” she said as she sipped her drink.

“It’s no problem at all,” he responded, asking her, “Do you ever keep in contact with your family?”

“I used to do it regularly with my mum,” Hayley responded, looking down at her near-finished drink. “But then Chuck started getting pissy about it and so I stopped. It’s been three weeks since we last spoke.”

“I know how difficult that must be,” Dean said, suddenly feeling very homesick himself and thinking of his own mother. “Do you know her number?”

“Yes, I memorised it off by heart,” she said, looking a little embarrassed.

Without hesitation, Dean took out his phone and held it out to her. “Here, give her a call.”

“You sure?” she asked, taking the phone as though it was the most precious gift she could receive.

“If it was my mum, I’d be contacting her,” he said, suddenly feeling guilty about how little time he’d had for his own mother since making it to CID.

Hayley tapped in the number and held the phone to her ear. “Hi, Mum, it’s me, Hayley. No, I’m just calling on a friend’s phone.” She gave a thumbs-up to Dean before continuing. “No, I’m sorry I haven’t been in touch for so long. Things have just been a little bit hectic on my end. I’ve just had a lot going on, that’s all. Is everyone at home okay? Give the dog a big cuddle for me. I promise I’m going to try and keep in contact more regularly.” She looked then at the possibility of making a promise she couldn’t keep. “Okay, I love you, Mum. ‘Bye.” She hung up the phone and handed it back to Dean. “Thank you for that.”

“You didn’t want to talk to her about anything else?” Dean asked, though he regretted the question considering what she would have to talk about.

“When I left home with Chuck, I think I sold my mum a flight of fancy,” she explained. “I told her I was going to sail the world, and I was going to do all these amazing things… and… life didn’t quite work out that way. I don’t have the heart to tell her that yet. Maybe I never will.”

Dean wanted to suggest she get away, find a different life for herself, but he needed to know what she was getting away from. “I’ve really enjoyed speaking with you today, Hayley,” he said earnestly. Today was a good reminder that the job wasn’t just about capturing criminals but helping those in need. And Hayley was a shining reminder to Dean that he was in the right job. “It’d be good if we could do this again at some point.”

“Absolutely,” Hayley agreed, with a look that indicated she wished she’d met someone like Dean a long time ago.

It wasn’t until he’d made his way back to the station that he realised he hadn’t asked the questions he was supposed to. But that didn’t matter. At least not yet.

22

“Completely unacceptable,” Steph Brown almost screeched as soon as the words had finished leaving DI Austin’s lips. “This type of treatment is normally reserved for criminals who are awaiting trial.”

“He says that he fears for his life,” Liv stated, believing that was the only thing that’d come out of the former copper’s mouth that actually wasn’t bullshit.

“Neil Heaton’s conviction was seen as one of the greatest moral victories that the police force had ever achieved,” Steph outlined, clearly reciting the words of whoever’s arms she’d been trying to twist. “Even with the shit that wasn’t proven. And now you’re asking me to undo all of that.”

“You think it’s not frustrating for me to hear?” Dean asked. “I’m the one who helped put him away in the first place. Believe me, ma’am, this is painful for me to do.”

“He still hasn’t explained why he gave up the name of a dead man, has he?” Steph asked rhetorically. “Because it’s going to take a lot of goodwill and no end of arm-twisting to get him out of that prison. And believe me, I’ll probably have to bribe some people to let him out.”

“We leave him in there and he’s going to end up dead sooner or later,” Liv declared, wondering if the inmates were already planning their next attack.

“Yeah, I’m not so sure about that,” Dean mused, rubbing his chin thoughtfully.

“You have a theory you want to share with the rest of us, DI Lawrence?” DCI Brown requested. “Come on, don’t keep us in suspense.”

“People know that he’s grassed on us, or at least is trying to grass,” the inspector continued. “Normally, once word gets out about a rat in the prison system, they typically have a very low life expectancy, and that guy was on his own and completely vulnerable. If they wanted him dead, they could have left him with a lot more than a broken arm.”

“Maybe it was a warning,” DCI Brown suggested. “Maybe they thought that was enough. I mean he’s had a fair bit of protection up to this point, so maybe they just didn’t want to take it any further.”

Dean nodded his head slowly, but it was clear he wasn’t fully accepting of the explanation. And Liv knew this wasn’t simply a case of being blindsided by Heaton.

“Regardless,” DCI Brown interrupted, trying to draw the topic away from speculation, “right now, he’s on a list. And we all know once you’re on it, there’s no getting off it.”

“If we were going to have Heaton in protective custody, then we’d need someone who can keep a close eye on him,” Liv noted. “Someone who can’t be easily bullshitted and can put Heaton in his place if need be.” She just realised she had described the perfect person, prompting DCI Brown to sigh.

“Oh, Jesus, no, DI Austin, not bloody…”

“Is this supposed to be some kind of honour bestowed on me?” Nikki Harding asked, now joining everyone else in the office. “Where’s the bloody logic?”

“Yeah, I’m looking at DS Harding right now and trying to find the comedy in this situation, DI Austin,” Steph noted with her arms folded.

“Heaton likes to play games with people,” Liv explained, feeling she needed to convince everyone. “It’s impossible to bullshit Nikki. Believe me, I’ve tried.”

“Is this supposed to be your idea of buttering me up?” Nikki asked sarcastically, looking a little offended. “Because if it is, I can’t wait to hear what your putdowns look like.”

“Yes, I don’t see how a loose cannon is going to help our case here,” Steph said.

Before Nikki could get another word in, Liv stepped in. “I can assure you that I have no issue with trusting Nikki Harding. She’s come through for me more times than I am willing to admit. Don’t forget, Katie Gibson’s life was under threat a while back, and if it weren’t for Nikki’s decisive action, we would have lost a key witness.”

Steph nodded slowly, unable to think of a retort to Liv’s logic. “All right, DS Harding can take on the babysitting duties—if I am able to find somebody to watch Heaton.”

23

Thirteen years earlier…

Dean continued to meet with Hayley on a regular basis over the next two weeks, enough to check in with her regularly, but not to the point where it had been noticed by Lauter.

The other members of the team were getting impatient, though. Heaton and Melissa were clearly hoping that he was able to find something more on the yacht. He explained that he needed time to build Hayley’s trust so that she didn’t see him as someone trying to take advantage of her.

“I appreciate that you are trying to rise up in her estimates,” Heaton noted in a patronising tone. “But we need results sharpish, especially if this Lauter decides to leave Newquay at the last minute. And if you feel that you cannot deliver what we need in due time, then maybe I should look at putting somebody more results-oriented into the field.”

“I promise you I will find out what I can,” Dean insisted, having spent so long building up Hayley’s trust that he was worried how she’d react to a complete stranger confronting her with requests for knowledge.

DI Collins later spoke to Dean in private. It occurred to Dean that the inspector only ever seemed to come up to him when it was just the two of them around, never when Heaton or Melissa was in earshot.

“I take it everything’s aboveboard with this woman?” Collins asked when Dean had excused himself to get a coffee. “You haven’t got any reason to think she might be involved in any capacity?”

“Sir, you didn’t see the way she was shaking,” Dean said, abandoning his drink. “That kind of fear, you can’t fake. Believe me, I know.”

Collins decided not to press further on what was clearly a difficult subject for the younger detective. “Look, she’s clearly a vulnerable young woman in this situation. And if this Lauter is who we think he is, then it could all get ugly quite quickly. If I were you, I would focus on making sure she’s protected in case things go wrong. She’s at the eye of the storm, and we need to get her out of there.”

It was during one of their latest rendezvouses that it all started to unravel.

When she arrived to their meetup at the bar, she was different, looking paler, and for a moment, Dean wondered if she’d gone on some kind of crash diet.

“You okay?” he asked, his voice full of concern.

“Perfectly fine,” she replied sharply, not making direct eye contact with him. There was no warmth, but then again there was no hatred either, mainly… discomfort.

She didn’t take her seat, and she didn’t pick up the drink he’d ordered for her. Instead, she simply stood next to the table and looked away, unable to meet his eyes.

“Hayley, look, I want to protect you, okay?” he said, deciding honesty was the best policy, and he should lay all his cards on the table. “I know that you’re stuck in a difficult situation, and believe me, I want to help you through it. But I need you to tell me about…”

“There’s nothing to tell!” she snapped, slamming her hands on the table, stunning everyone in the cafe.

Suddenly, she doubled over, clutching her stomach. “Is something wrong?” Dean asked, concerned.

“It’s fine!” she said, waving him away and heading to the toilet.

Dean paused, trying to make out what’d happened before his eyes fell to the spot where she’d been standing and saw a spot of blood.

Concern overwhelming him, he rushed to the ladies room and looked inside the door.

Hayley was clutching onto the sink as though it were a lifeline… and blood was running down her legs.

24

“You manage to find anything, Clara?” Liv asked, figuring that while DCI Brown was still trying to move mountains and look at getting Heaton transferred to home arrest, they might as well see if Clara had made any progress in the case.

“Well, I’ve been looking through the phone, and so far, there’ve been a few calls to the same number,” the technician explained. “Obviously, I’m not stupid enough to go trying to call the number, but it’s probably the same person who hired Farrell. I checked the call log, and he was first contacted by that number four days before your house was bombed. No prior contact, no texts, no nothing.”

“Well, I think it’s safe to assume the killer didn’t pull him out of a Google search,” Dean surmised. “Which means that he would have had to have prior knowledge of the man…”

“...which means that a police officer could have pulled that off the company database,” Liv continued. Normally, she would refrain from making such grand leaps, but she was sure that only a few people could have known about Lewis Farrell’s reputation as a firebug.

There was a pause, and Clara faced the screen without looking at the two inspectors. “Liv… you don’t think I’ve got anything to do with what’s happening, do you?”

Liv’s eyes went wide. “What!?”

“Because it feels like I’m just looking at people going back and forth, and I can’t help wondering if I got any of them wrong.” Clara looked down, embarrassed by her admission. “And I was worried if you guys thought the same as me… or Diana.”

“Clara,” Liv stated, placing her hand on the technician’s shoulder. “You’re not just a colleague. You’re one of my best and closest friends and the biggest reason I’ve solved as many cases as I have. The idea that you could be corrupt never once crossed my mind. You, Diana, Tim, Andrew, Collins, Archie, Nikki… we’re not just a team, we’re a family. I’m second-guessing a lot of things right now, but our team is definitely not one of them.”

Clara nodded at this, feeling reassured. “Thanks, guys…”

But the peaceful moment was interrupted by a text from Archie. Journalist infestation in reception area. Need help.

Liv grumbled, but knowing the last thing they needed was the press sniffing around, she quickly darted out of the room and towards the building’s reception. When she got there, she was surprised by who Archie was trying to hold back.

It was Greg Dawson, editor for the local paper. Liv suddenly found herself fending off volatile feelings for the man who’d originally sent Katie Gibson into the service as an undercover journalist with the intent of running an expose on the failings of the police. That story had brought up a great deal of negative feelings and suspicion amongst the team and had set in motion the events that led to Nikki Harding leaving her life behind for a new one in Derby. They hadn’t been able to bring any charges against the paper, but Dawson’s own reputation had clearly taken a nosedive.

“What are you doing here?” Liv asked, ready to send the editor flying with a boot up the arse.

“I want to know what’s happened to Katie Gibson,” he exclaimed. “She’s disappeared off the face of the earth. No calls, no note, nothing. And I want to know what that’s all about.”

“And this is because of your overwhelming concern for her?” Liv asked with a raised eyebrow. “Nothing to do with a juicy exclusive?” I really should be more careful with my words. I don’t want to say anything that he can run later.

“I know that you two were on better terms and she had this ridiculous idea of becoming a PI, and then she goes missing,” Greg continued. “So, you’re definitely keeping that one close to your chest.”

Liv shot Archie a warning look to not say anything.

“We have no idea what you’re talking about, Mr Dawson,” Liv stated. “We haven’t had contact with Katie for a while, so we can’t say what she’s doing.”

“I’m pretty sure I will find something on you,” Greg said, straightening his jacket and heading off, leaving Liv very worried.

25

“Great, that’s all we need,” Liv muttered in one of the break rooms. “A journalist sniffing around while we’re investigating police corruption.”

“I’ve been in touch with a few colleagues from some of the neighbouring services,” Archie said, sitting down, clearly exhausted from the effort. “They’re launching their own investigations into the corruption claims. Seems we’ve set off a chain reaction.”

“I’m pretty sure a few people are going to come gunning for us for making their wallets a bit lighter,” Liv noted bitterly, wondering if any other nutcases were going to come crawling out of the woodworks as a result. Might as well put them on the guest list for the wedding at this rate.

“We do need to find a way to plug this journo problem,” Archie advised. “I know Dawson, and he’s going to keep digging until he finds something he can use.”

“Well, the address is only known to a select people,” Liv replied confidently, having handpicked the team herself. “And they can’t be swayed by money. They know that if they did, they’d have to pay with their bollocks.”

“That’s all well and good,” the sergeant murmured, not looking in the least bit reassured, “but he is going to keep looking, and I don’t think he’s giving up any time soon. We need a solution, something to throw his way.”

“Well, there’s one person we can call on,” she said, praying it wouldn’t backfire.

“Greg’s a shit, but he’s a tenacious shit,” Katie said when she, Liv, Archie, and Nikki were all sat in the living room of the safe house. “There are a few angles he could try, not just bribery. Maybe see if he could get anything over one of the other officers, and he could have one of you followed to the location.” She looked directly at Nikki, the regular visitor.

“Don’t look at me, I’ve practically got eyes in the back of my head,” Nikki retorted indignantly. “I would see people coming a mile off.”

Given that Nikki had the subtlety of a brick through a window at the best of times, Liv questioned that statement, realising how much the sergeant stuck out like a sore thumb.

“What about having Katie send him a message?” Nikki suggested, gesturing to the former journalist. “Saying that you’re out of town for a few days, and you don’t want to be bothered.”

Katie looked at the other woman blankly. “‘Out of town for a few days?’ Really? That’s the best you could come up with?”

“Well, I don’t know!” the hot-tempered sergeant fired back. “You’re the one who makes up stories for a living.”

“That’s an author you’re thinking of,” Katie retorted, and Liv was suddenly conscious of the whole conversation turning ugly. Luckily, Archie stepped in.

“Before we start pulling each other’s hair out, I think it might be more productive to think about how to keep Dawson off the trail altogether. And I’m pretty sure there are going to be more people who are wondering where you’ve gone, Miss Gibson.”

“Don’t worry, I’ve not got close friends or family looking for me,” Katie explained, prompting a snort from Nikki.

“So, Katie,” Liv said, sat across from her. “What do you propose we do?”

“I’ll need to think about it,” Katie responded earnestly. “He knows something is up, so anything you chuck his way is probably going to get him suspicious. You might have to offer something big up. He’s like a dog with a bone between his teeth. The only way to make him let go is to get him an even bigger bone.”

“Well, don’t spend too long thinking about him,” Nikki muttered. “I’m not ending up on the front page as part of some tabloid shit.”

Liv was about to contemplate banging their heads together when she got a text notification from DCI Brown. Great, just when I think this day can’t get any worse.

“Liv, what’s the matter?” Archie asked, catching her changing mood.

“It’s just been confirmed that given the circumstances and in light of preservation of life, they’re going to move him to a secure location and pump him for information from there. Which means I’ve got to babysit him.”

26

The drive from the prison had been unbelievably uneasy.

Heaton had sat in between two officers and hadn’t said a word for much of the journey, but Dean knew that he was relishing the fact that his request had gone through and was waiting for the chance to rub it in their faces.

They drove to a small terraced house, Liv taking the time to make sure there were no cars following them, her heart skipping a beat at any sign of a vehicle following them for more than two streets.

They walked up to the house, but not before it was confirmed that there was nobody else coming up or down the streets. They walked into the house, and Heaton took a long look around the room. His breathing became a lot more ragged, and Liv and Dean remembered that it’d been years since he’d seen the inside of a house. But then they remembered why, and the sympathy quickly evaporated.

He fell onto the sofa, taking in the feeling of the cushions. “This is nice,” he said without a hint of sarcasm.

“Well, don’t get too comfortable yet,” Dean said, gesturing to the ankle monitor on his left leg. “That is only going to count as long as you keep feeding us useful information. If we think you’re lying about anything, you’re going back inside where I know the other inmates will be more than happy to throw a welcome back party.”

Liv was beginning to wonder whether it would have been a wiser decision to give the job of babysitting Heaton to someone other than Dean, given their shared history. But then again, nobody knew the way Heaton operated like Dean did.

“Okay…” Heaton nodded slowly, weighing up his options. “But could you ask these two to wait outside?” When the two didn’t budge, Heaton growled in frustration.

Liv signalled to them both to leave the room, leaving her standing with Dean and Heaton. There was a moment’s silence as the trio struggled to adjust to their new reality.

“Just to be clear, there are no bugs in here, right?” Heaton asked, checking under the cushions and looking disappointed when he couldn’t find any.

“What do you think this is, spycraft?” Dean asked. “You’re the only person we’ve got here. Unless you plan on talking to yourself.”

“If I tell you, I want your word that I’ll have your full protection?” he asked, and Dean had to stop himself from bursting into laughter.

“Wait, so you actually expect us to protect you?” Dean chortled. “And you are telling us, why? Isn’t there anyone else who can be your confessor?”

“Because I know you buy too much into your holier-than-thou act to just let me die,” the former copper replied, and Dean silently conceded the point. “But I need an ironclad guarantee that once I tell you what I know, you’re not going to throw me to the wolves.”

“Depends on how good the information is,” Liv replied, though she knew they had to keep him alive at all costs, long enough to get him on the record.

“There is someone in Newquay who's running things. They've been doing it from a distance for the most part. They only got involved recently after your fiancé here forced their hand over the Georgia Madsen case,” Heaton explained, sending chills down Liv's spine as he recounted details he should not be privy to. “You need stay one step ahead or you're going get to the same treatment as Collins.”

“Just stop pussyfooting around and tell us who we’re supposed to be looking for,” Liv demanded, losing patience.

“She’s been maintaining control of the investigation, hiding in plain sight,” Heaton continued, gearing himself up for the revelation.

“What do you mean ‘she’?” Liv asked, but her mind was already whirring, the pieces starting to fall into place.

“It’s Collins’ replacement,” he declared with a hint of relish. “Your new DCI, Steph Brown.”

27

Liv blinked a little, the words not quite sinking in. “No,” she finally replied. “No way,”

Heaton looked between the two, and there was something new in his eyes: fear. Either he was a better actor than the two gave him credit for, or he was sitting on an explosive bombshell. “I can assure you I’m telling the truth.”

“You really expect us to believe that?” Dean asked incredulously, getting up and pacing the room. He knew of Steph Brown’s reputation as a careerist, always on the lookout for the next position, but he never imagined her as someone who’d break every regulation to get there.

“Trust me, the bitch is as bent as they come,” Heaton insisted. “She knew exactly how to play the system. She’s cottoned on that the corrupt officers are normally the ones making the loudest noise. Weren’t you surprised when Collins got replaced within hours of getting attacked? I may not have been in the game for a while, but you and I both know that nobody gets replaced that quickly. The body wasn’t even cold.”

Liv tried to shut out his words, but there was a twisted logic to them that even she couldn’t deny. But still, she was willing to push back. “You do realise that she’s been fighting tooth and nail to get you out of prison?” she noted. “So, this feels a bit like biting the hand that feeds you.”

“She could have had me killed in the prison any time she wanted. And we all knew she could twist a few arms to get me out of prison, simply because she has to be seen as trying to clean up the service,” he explained, leaning back on the sofa, wincing as the pain in his arm flared up. “She couldn’t be seen to keep me in there, not without looking like she has something to hide.”

“So, how did she get involved in it?” Liv asked, not sure whether she believed Heaton but willing to indulge him just to see where it led.

“We worked together for a long time,” Heaton explained. “I help her make all the right moves regarding her career, and she makes sure I lead a comfy life in prison. Everyone’s a winner.”

“It sounds like you two were as thick as thieves,” Dean retorted. “So I’m a little surprised that you’re looking to turn on her now.”

“That’s down to your fiancé,” Heaton said, shooting an accusing look in Olivia’s direction. “She rocked the boat with the discovery of the safe house that the coppers used for certain… events.”

“That’s a generous way of describing false imprisonment and sexual extortion,” Liv fired back with disgust, but Heaton seemingly brushed the comment aside.

“After that, it became less about propping me up and more covering her own arse,” Heaton explained. “I was the biggest name linked to police corruption, and she was worried about me turning on her. So, she tried to make life difficult for me by arranging to have a lot of my privileges taken away with a few words here and there to the guards.”

“So, you’ve been building up this hatred of the woman for a few months now, and you’re only choosing now to tell us? Why?” Liv asked, still feeling like there was a piece of the puzzle that she wasn’t seeing.

“If I had tried speaking to you and giving you all the details while I was inside, she could have easily had me killed,” Heaton explained. “I had to make a point of showing that I was cooperating with her and going along with her diva routine.”

“Does she have any reason to believe that you’re going to try and rat her out?” Dean asked, suddenly thinking about how precarious their situation was.

“I don’t know, but whatever move I make next, I would rather it be between two people I trust rather than having enemies in all corners,” he replied.

Dean didn't say anything, but he was seriously enjoying the irony of the situation, especially considering how Heaton had tried to dissuade him from getting involved in a similar situation with Hayley.

And then Dean’s heart hardened as he thought about everything that the woman had gone through.

28

Thirteen years earlier…

Dean had wanted to take Hayley to the hospital, but she had been vehemently against it, fearful of it getting back to Lauter. So, he did what every single procedure told him not to do and took her back to his flat and cleaned her up with a T-shirt and a spare pair of shoes he’d bought along the way.

And that was when Hayley told Dean the whole story—how Chuck Lauter had taken her onboard and promised her all the highs of the world… before putting Hayley to work as a drug mule and forcing her to transport drugs to different locations, often being forced to hide them on her person. She recounted a painful memory in which Lauter had been impatient to get the drugs out of her, leading to a violent decrutching.

Dean was horrified by the story, and as soon as her young woman was done speaking, he reached over and wrapped his arms around her, promising that it was all going to be all right and that he was going to make everything better. He didn’t know how, but he’d keep to that promise or die trying.

Now was the time to call it in.

“Jesus Christ,” Collins exclaimed, his hand over his mouth. “That’s disgusting.”

The man looked gaunt, like he was going to throw up.

But Heaton and Baldwin had different expressions on their faces. Not revulsion, more… morbid curiosity.

“So, he’s been using her to smuggle drugs?” Heaton said with surprise. “That’s not what I expected. Where is she now?”

“She’s somewhere safe,” Dean replied, knowing that Hayley would be reluctant to talk to anybody that wasn’t him.

“We need her to come in and make a statement,” Heaton declared. “If she’s got inside information on this case, then she will be the one that helps us put Lauter away.”

“She’s too terrified to talk to anybody,” Dean responded. “She was barely able to talk to me. It took me a long time to build up her trust, and I only found out by accident.”

Heaton was about to protest further when Collins interjected. “I think that DC Lawrence has a point, guv. She’s a vulnerable young woman who has not got many people she can trust. We can’t force her to come in and give a statement.”

“That’s right, we can’t,” Melissa suggested. “But maybe you can, Dean.”

“Me?” Dean asked, completely taken aback. “But I don’t think…”

“You’ve built up a good rapport with her, and you are clearly someone that she trusts with the truth,” Melissa continued. “If I went in there and did it, I imagine I would blunder it, and she’d close up. And to be honest, we’re on a ticking timer. Lauter is going to realise that she’s missing, and for all we know, he could be cleaning up after himself, making sure there’s nothing he can be prosecuted for.”

Dean felt the weight of the world on his shoulders.

“Take some time to think about it, Dean,” Heaton said as he went out for his scheduled lunch break. “But don’t take too long.” He walked out with Melissa, leaving Dean wondering if anything was going on between them.

“DI Lawrence, a word, if you will,” Collins said as he stayed behind.

Dean walked over to the inspector, having tried and failed to get a read on the man, only knowing that he blew hot and cold at different moments.

“Listen, whatever you do, you cannot bring that woman into the station,” Collins explained sharply, taking Dean by surprise.

“But the guv said…” He could only imagine the DCI’s response if he refused.

“I know exactly what Heaton said,” the inspector interrupted, his voice full of disgust. “But trust me, you do that, you’ll be playing into his hands.”

“How am I going to do that?” he asked, not sure where this was all going.

“Heaton’s not looking to shut down Lauter’s operation. He wants to take it over.”

29

“So, what do you make of it?” Dean asked once they’d stepped outside the house, not wanting to have any conversation with Heaton in earshot.

“Well, I’ve got to say, if I was going to suspect anybody in our station, Steph would be at the top of my list,” she responded. “Everyone else I’ve worked with for years. I know they’re not bent. But this woman just rocks up out of nowhere and starts giving instructions and handling the case?”

“Liv, I hope you’re not entertaining any of that bullshit,” he insisted, pacing up and down in the street, leaving Liv conscious that he was going to draw more attention to himself. “The man is a liar who will play fastball with the truth to get what he wants.”

“What evidence do we have that he’s lying?” Liv asked. “I’ve known plenty of cases of good people going bad, even people as good as us.”

“Come on, we all know DCI Brown’s record,” Dean replied. “She spent most of her earlier career brown-nosing all the top brass. She was too focused on making Superintendent to be getting involved in petty crimes.”

“So why give her name?” she queried, trying to find a way forward to the investigation. “Of all the names he could have given out, why hers? And why now?”

“Be honest, he wouldn’t have said anything if he was still inside, not when she was one of the biggest drivers in getting him out. Now that he’s out, he can say whatever he wants.”

“But surely he knows that would backfire on him and he’d be sent back to the prison,” she interjected, her head numb from all the tailspins.

“He’s fucking lying through his teeth,” Dean snapped, holding his head in his hands.

“Are you sure this is your judgment and not just your grudge against Heaton rearing up at the worst time?” Liv asked, wishing she could take back the words as soon as they left her mouth.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked, turning on her.

“Oh, come on, Dean. We both know that you’re not exactly objective when it comes to Neil Heaton,” she exclaimed. “I’ve seen the way you flare up every time his name comes up in conversation. Do you not think that there’s a part of you that is unreasonably prejudiced against anything he says?”

Dean went silent as he considered her words. “I think you’ve been spending too much time around Dr Pike,” he said, trying to sound good-humoured, but there was a shakiness to his voice. “That man has done unspeakable things over the course of his life, and some of those things he almost made me complicit in. He’s attempted to frame me for corruption and murder, and he killed my former fiancé. So yes, maybe I am feeling a little prejudiced against him, and maybe I am a little bit quick to think the worst of him. But given everything he’s done to me, can you honestly blame me? Are you telling me that if he’d done even half of the shit to you that he’s done to me, you wouldn’t be of a similar mindset? That you wouldn’t be baying for blood?”

“Point taken,” she said, knowing how many times her own family history had interfered with her police work. “So, where do we go from here? Technically, a serious allegation has been made, so we have to say something.”

“You realise that could disrupt the entire investigation?” Dean noted angrily. “That would be exactly what he wants! And I can tell you now that if we did raise the alarm, if they start looking at Brown, they aren’t just going to settle for her. They’re going to be taking a look at all of us. We’re all going to be scrutinised.”

“So, what exactly is the alternative?” Liv asked. She was getting to the point where she was more concerned about wrapping the case up than the outcome, with little regard for how they went about it.

“I suggest we keep it close to our chest,” Dean responded. “Do a little digging and see if there’s any truth in what she’s saying. If there is, then we have what we need to take her down. And if there isn’t anything and it really is just Heaton talking out of his arse… then we all know how much I like to say ‘I told you so.’”

30

Thirteen years earlier

Collins took Dean to an old cafe on the edge of Newquay. “How do you know that no one is going to see us here?” he asked.

Collins ran a hand along the table, collecting a layer of grease. “I don’t think anybody would be caught dead coming here,” he responded.

“So, you’re what, Anti-Corruption?” Dean asked.

“Not exactly. You’ve heard about Neil Heaton?” the inspector asked, getting down to business. “Golden boy, the one that everybody loves, always bringing in the big cases?”

“Hard to think of anybody who hasn’t,” Dean replied, not sure where this was going.

“It’s all a deceptive facade, I can assure you.” Collins said confidently. “It was first noticed when a local dealer was detained in the area. A certain sum of money was taken into custody, and yet later, the money went AWOL. Now, nobody knows where it is supposed to have gone, and people have been tying themselves up in knots trying to find it.”

“And what does that have to do with Heaton?”

“If you were the Senior Investigating Officer on a case and a load of money went missing under your watch, you’d be working a little bit harder to try and find it, wouldn’t you?”

Dean silently conceded the point.

“Unfortunately, no one has been able to find any evidence to indicate any wrongdoing, and believe me, people have tried,” Collins continued. “There was a string of robberies about a year ago, all committed by local criminals. So far, no real arrests. One of the robbers was caught, and he suggested that there was someone working inside. Later—and believe me, I’m still trying to work this out just as much as you—that same robber was able to break out of police custody and escape into the night. He turned up again… with a bullet in the head. Police think it was a professional killing, an execution.”

“And who found him?” Dean asked, already suspecting the answer.

“DS Baldwin,” he explained. “Now, whether she put the bullet in there herself or got somebody else to do it for her, I don’t know. I certainly wouldn’t put it past her.”

“So why isn’t this being investigated more thoroughly?” he queried, wondering what he’d got himself caught up in.

“Nobody wants to be seen investigating one of CID’s best and brightest. They’d be stuck directing traffic for the rest of their careers,” Collins explained matter-of-factly. “Especially when there isn’t any tangible evidence. A copper like Heaton wouldn’t leave clues, but if you look at all the cases, they all make sense if Heaton is the one leading the charge.”

“What does this have to do with the current case?” Dean asked.

“There was a drug bust a few months ago, and it was found out that the guy they arrested had kids selling drugs for him,” he explained. “Later on, after the guy had been sent down, it was later found out that the same kids were again selling drugs. But when they were asked who it was for, they refused to say. Later on, Melissa Baldwin stepped in under the grounds of them ‘just being kids’ and that was it, they were released. I think somebody let them go because they didn’t want anybody talking to them. That seems to be the MO. They arrest the people making the crime waves and then use the people who were forced to carry out the crimes…”

“...like Hayley,” Dean finished, feeling sick.

“Exactly. Assuming they follow the same MO as they have done before, I would imagine that they’re going to arrest her and then threaten her with even more criminal charges if she doesn’t carry on transporting drugs.”

Dean covered his mouth instinctively, unable to hear any more. He saw the distress that Hayley had endured and knew that he couldn’t see her put through that again.

“In that case, she’s got to disappear,” Dean concluded, anxious to keep her out of Heaton’s clutches.

31

“How is Heaton enjoying his new abode?” DCI Brown asked once Liv returned to the office, the sound of her voice suspicious in light of Heaton’s supposed revelation.

Liv moved to speak with her, trying to stop her body language from coming across as rigid. “Well, it’s a step up from prison, that’s for sure.”

“And how is DI Lawrence coping with it all?” she asked, sounding full of concern. “I know that it’s not easy having to go in and face that man all the time.”

“Well, they’ve been able to stand in the same room for at least an hour without tearing strips off each other,” Liv noted, feeling that it wasn’t much of a victory, but it was still better than nothing.

“Has he given up anything tangible?” she asked, and Liv winced at hearing the one question she hoped she'd never have to answer.

“Nothing that we can back up with evidence,” she replied, which was technically true. “Probably need to give him a day or two to consider his options.” In truth, the extra time was so that she could look into any claims about DCI Brown’s corruption.

“Well, don’t take too long,” the DCI responded. “And don’t let him get too comfy. If he thinks he’s getting something for nothing, I’ll be more than happy to remind him what prison food tastes like.” There was no hint that she had any personal stake in the game beyond giving Heaton a stick to beat them with.

Once she was done, Liv made her way to the workstation where Clara was going over a few items. God, I can’t believe I’m doing this again.

Only a few weeks ago, she’d gone and asked Clara to plant a bug on a house that Diana and Andrew were monitoring. It was something that’d been done completely under DCI Brown’s nose, and she was pretty sure that there’d be repercussions if it ever came out. Now, she was about to take another dive into those murky waters.

“I need you to do a bit of digging for me,” Liv requested. “And I need you to keep this between you and me for now. Nobody else can know. Not even Archie.”

Most people would have balked at the idea of having to operate with such secrecy, but Clara’s loyalty to Liv ran so deep that she turned around and asked, “What do you need?”

“I need you to run a few checks on our new DCI,” Liv requested. “Nothing major, just let me know if you find anything that stands out, some of the cases she’s worked on, the approach she’s taken.” She knew that it probably wouldn’t mean much to the average copper, but Clara Fitzroy had proven herself to have no end of skill in spotting patterns that everyone else missed.

“I’m on it, Liv,” she said, immediately going about bringing up Steph Brown’s police file and looking over her history within the service.

Liv’s phone rang, and she saw Dean’s number come up. “Hi, Dean, everything all right?”

“Yeah, no real signs of improvement,” he responded, and she could hear the weariness in his voice. “It’s all a mess, isn’t it?”

“You think!?” she asked suddenly, her rise in volume alerting Clara. She lowered her voice, particularly given what the next sentence involved. “We’re either accused of corruption, or we keep quiet to avoid being accused.”

“That’s pretty much the crux of it,” he said, and he’d clearly had had the same thought going through his head for the past few hours. “Listen, Liv, this is probably going to go on for a little while longer, so I’m going to suggest that you head out with Mills.”

“What about you?” she asked.

“I’m going to be fine,” he said before immediately backtracking. “I think we’re both facing a burnout, and there’s no point in us both being worn down. You go out and see your sister. You need something to take your mind off the case, and then tomorrow, we’ll look at this again with fresh eyes.”

“Thank you,” Liv said, feeling that no matter what storms they faced, they could always help each other find a way through.

32

Dean paced up and down in front of Heaton who was sat on the sofa with a microwave meal. Dean could see how he was relishing every single bite, given what he’d had to endure for over a decade. Heaton’s eyes followed Dean’s moving form with curiosity. “I thought I’d be the one bouncing from wall to wall.”

“Oh, shut up,” Dean responded, not breaking his stride.

“Dean, can we at least talk, man to man?” he pleaded, dialing back the pretense, prompting Dean to stop moving.

“Do you know what your problem is, Neil?” Dean asked, emphasising the first name as an insult as much as possible. “You still act like you’re in control of everyone.”

“We could have been an effective team, you and me,” Heaton said, folding his hands. “Most coppers I knew were in it for the pension and were content to get by with doing as little as possible. But you were different. I knew that the moment I first laid eyes on you. I saw a young man with determination and tenacity. You shouldn’t have been spending your time rounding up drunkards. You were far too good for that.”

“No job is supposed to be too small in this line of work,” Dean responded.

“I thought that we could do a lot of great work together, you and me,” he continued, already off on a tangent. “That maybe we could make a difference to Newquay. All we had to do was prop each other up…”

“You seriously going to hide behind that sanctimonious crap,” Dean spat, his accent emerging at his most enraged. “See, if you bend the rules to take rapists or murders or drug dealers off the street, then I’m right behind you. But when you do it to line your own pocket, that’s when you’re on your own.”

“So, you decided to turn on me?” Heaton asked, not so much looking betrayed but hurt. “Me, who gave you opportunities, encouraged you to excel, made sure that you could sit the exam. Hell, you know any officers who gave their team that much encouragement? You never gave it a chance, and I cannot for the life of me understand why.”

Dean sighed heavily. Even after thirteen years, after having time to look back on his actions, he still didn’t understand. “I guess you could say I wasn’t cut from the same cloth as you. I thought you were bringing me up in the world, but instead, you were just bringing me down to your level.” He sat opposite the man who’d once been a colleague, a mentor, a friend. “Has there ever been a part of you that just stopped and thought to yourself, maybe I was wrong, maybe I took it a little too far? I mean, was it ever worth it?”

Heaton pondered the question, giving it some serious thought. “Well, I’ve certainly paid the price… because I’ve lost thirteen years of my life. But in all honesty, I think about all those moments. If I was given a second chance in any of those moments, I would do it all over again, consequences be damned. I certainly gave you a push in the right direction.”

Dean couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

“I know it’s easy for you to demonise me, Dean, but I was a good copper.”

“Excuse me?” Dean asked, almost bursting out laughing.

“Do you know how many people I put away?”

“The ones you thought you could replace?” Dean asked, happy to shut him down.

“I was trying to do honest police work with both hands tied behind my back.”

“‘Honest?’” Dean leaned in close. “You know, if you were to spin me some shit about how you were keeping the bad guys off the street, that you running the gangs and the deals was a case of ‘better the devil you know’, then maybe, just maybe, I could have understood that, in a self-involved kind of way. But then I think about what you were going to do to Hayley. On top of everything else she’s been through?” He stood up again. “You know, you really thought you were going to be the making of me. That I wouldn’t get anywhere without your help. But thirteen years without your influence, I’m a Detective Inspector, and I’ve got the love of a good woman soon to be my wife. Everything that I have in my life is in spite of you, not because, Neil. And I didn’t have to sell my soul along the way. And I know that when my time is done, I’ll at least have a decent legacy to leave behind.”

33

Given that she’d spent the last few days going on flights of fancy about people, it was nice to have a wholesome fantasy at hand. The sun was still high in the sky, and Liv had taken the time to change into a pair of white shorts, a T-shirt, and sandals befitting the atmosphere. Her sister Mills was accompanying her, having left the children with her husband Max. The outing was good for her sister too, as it gave her the chance to get out of the house more.

Liv hadn’t been to Lusty Gaze Beach as much as she would have liked, but looking at the area, at the restaurant in the distance, she could imagine guests pouring in and out of the venue, chatting amongst themselves. Everyone who wanted to see her happy would be there.

“I’ve already had a word with the caterers,” Mills said, who’d be stepping into the role as maid of honour. “And I’ve got a cake sorted. I tell you, I’m starting to regret that one. I was playing Jenga with Ru this morning, and it reminded me of that.”

Liv smiled as she tried to imagine the toppling cake. She and Dean had started looking through some pictures, but as the investigation into police corruption had gone on, she found herself having less and less time for any of the wedding prep. It was only because of Mills that so many things had been sorted in time for the following month. Liv felt a pang of guilt that Mills had had to step in and organise so much, especially when she was looking after a baby girl. She didn’t think she’d ever be able to repay her.

“No offence, sis, but when most girls have the happiest day of their life to look forward to, they don’t look like a deer in the headlights,” Mills observed as she took off her sandals and enjoyed the sensation of sand between her toes.

“Sorry, just been swamped with work,” Liv said, and once again, she found herself thinking about Collins’ offer of making her Detective Chief Inspector. There was a time when Liv would have given her left leg to attain that rank. Now she wasn’t so sure.

“My gaffer was thinking of making me DCI,” she explained, and Mills was about to burst into the standard ‘congratulations’, but the crestfallen look on her sister’s face stopped her short. “I know that I need to find a decent work-life balance. I know that I can’t keep on doing what I’m doing and saying that I’m ‘living the dream.’ But I really enjoy this job, and I don’t know what I would do without it.”

“Start a book club, maybe?” Mills joked. “We’ve had this conversation so many times, I know exactly how it’s going to go.” She paused, trying to chip away at her sister’s barriers. “You’re actually lucky to have a partner who is in the same boat as you. There’s no risk of double-standards in your house, Liv, I promise you. But it’s not about that. You remember why you originally took up this job?”

The answer was obvious to Liv. “Because of Alex.” She felt the spray of the sea in her face as the tide started to come in, erasing the footprints of the day

“Exactly. I remember the day you said you were going to go into police training. You told me that you were doing this because you hated that our family never got any closure over what happened. And, if I’m being brutally honest, I think that you thought you’d have a better chance of finding out what happened to Alex than anyone else. I didn’t have the heart to tell you that it probably wasn’t going to pan out.”

Liv couldn’t hold that against her sister. So many times, she’d nearly lost hope of finding Alex. “But I did,” she whispered, remembering the moment she saw him again for the first time in years. Not as a memory or a photograph, but the real him.

“Yes, you did,” Mills said softly, taking Liv’s hand. “You pulled it off. But I think after you got Alex back, that pull wasn’t as big as it used to be. You let yourself be open to romance, the idea of a life with Dean. You were willing to let yourself be happy again.”

“Why are you telling me all this?” Liv asked dubiously.

“I’m not going to tell you what you should or shouldn’t do,” Mills insisted. “All I can say to you is try to think of why you joined in the first place and weigh that up against what you have in your personal life.”

Liv didn’t offer a reply as the two sisters watched the setting sun together.

34

Thirteen years earlier…

Dean had gone back to his flat to check on Hayley, who’d grown increasingly restless in his absence. “I was scared that you were going to be gone before I got back,” he declared.

“With what?” Hayley replied. “I’ve got nothing. No money, no one to go to, just the clothes on my back. And I can’t go to my mum. I know how dangerous these people are, and I can’t risk her being dragged into this.”

Dean couldn’t help but admire Hayley’s dedication to keeping her mother safe… even if it meant isolating herself from any friends or family.

“Listen,” he said, trying to pace himself. “I thought you should know that I’ve been talking with some of my colleagues about your situation…”

“What!?” Hayley roared. “No, I can’t do that. I can’t go up in a court.”

“Look, don’t worry, no one’s going to put you on the spot, I swear,” Dean pleaded, trying to persuade her of his intentions. “I will not let that happen. I want to help you get away, Hayley. Out of this lifestyle…” Thinking about how to soothe her, he suddenly remembered a question Gabi would ask him during bouts of extreme stress back in Italy. “If you could be anywhere but here, where would you be?”

Hayley raised an eyebrow, her tension forgotten. “That’s a child’s question.”

“Well, I’m sure you can find an adult answer.”

Hayley considered it. “You’re probably going to laugh… but I wanted to open a florist shop. I loved flower arranging but was used to being teased over it.”

“That sounds quite lovely,” Dean responded with a soft smile. “Hold on to that, and maybe it will happen. Not today or tomorrow, but it will happen.”

She smiled weakly at him, more for his benefit than for hers. He could tell that it wasn’t that she didn’t know if things could get better. She didn’t believe they could.

There was a knock on the door, and Dean spun around. “You expecting anyone?” At the shake of his head, Dean edged towards the door. “Who is it?”

“It’s Melissa. You going to let me in?” Dean froze. Part of him wanted to barricade the door, but he couldn’t risk doing anything that indicated he knew all about their side hustles.

Finally, he opened the door, and Melissa strode into the apartment as though she owned the place. “Look, I’ve got no time for small talk, so I’ll get straight to the point. The guv is having it out with Lauter and we’re looking at putting the finishes touches on him. No way he’s going to walk away after this.”

“Well, what about DI Collins?” Dean asked, wondering if Collins had been successful in covering his suspicions.

“He’s currently down there with Heaton reading Lauter the riot act,” Melissa said, before looking reluctantly at Hayley. “Unfortunately, we’re still missing a few pieces of the puzzle. And without them, Lauter could walk away scot-free.”

“Like what?” Dean asked, looking protectively to Hayley.

“We need Hayley’s testimonial,” Melissa stated plainly. “We know what he did to you, Hayley, and we need your witness statement to help convict him. So, I’m going to need you to come with me.” She stepped forward, prompting Hayley to move away.

“Do you need me to come too?” Dean asked, wondering if he should position himself between the two women, but he remembered what Collins had said about alerting the wrong people. Hayley looked pleadingly at him, not sure what happening with her, but knowing it was good.

Dean nodded to Melissa before turning back to Hayley and saying, “Trust me. It’s going to be all right.”

Hayley nodded slowly as Melissa began to lead her out of the door… before turning back to Dean and saying, “Well done, DC Lawrence. You’re definitely going to go far.”

There was a time when Dean would have loved hearing those words, but instead, they left him filled with dread as he wondered what kind of man he’d have to become.

But it wasn’t over yet. He waited a few minutes before he followed them out the door.

35

Steph Brown had always been conscious about home security.

Once she started making proper money from her police salary, she had made a point of investing in home-security cameras, trigger alarms, and motion sensors. No one dared going anywhere near the house, not since a neighbour’s dog had veered too close to the lawn and left everyone in the vicinity thinking that World War III was coming.

It was late when she tried to settle in for the night, already having had to go back and forth between several meetings. She was hoping to get her full eight hours before the next bit of chaos dumped itself on her doorstep.

As she lay down to sleep, she heard the sound of the dog barking in the distance. Sometimes, she was tempted to head over there in the dead of night and strangling the mutt.

Suddenly, there was the sound of a high-pitched whine and then… nothing.

Steph wasn’t sure what had quieted the animal but wasn’t about to question her good luck. Instead, she settled down to sleep.

And then there was another sound, the likes of which shouldn’t have been possible, but she heard it anyway… The sound of breaking glass… from inside the house.

Steph immediately threw the covers off, reached into the bedside drawer where she kept a spare kitchen knife, and walked downstairs.

She’d faced danger a fair few times, but she had learned by now never to hide away when it came her way. She wasn’t going to sit quaking in her bedroom.

At the same time, she shouldn’t have had to face such danger. The security systems should have kept them out. So how the hell did they get in?

She wondered if she could put in a claim to the security company for malfunctioning equipment, but then she stopped by the dining room.

The back door had been nearly completely shattered, with glass scattered everywhere over the floor. Steph took a step back so as not to cut her bare feet.

Steph knelt down to look at some of the shards. She’d brought reinforced glass. Somebody would break their hands trying to crack it. So, the only other thing could be…

The answer came in the form of a shotgun blast creating a small hole in the wall, sending plaster spraying everywhere. Steph ducked to the ground as the debris fell on her. She glanced around the room, looking for any signs of an assailant.

She saw a pair of boots suddenly fast approaching the area where she was lying, but just as they were right on top of her, Steph rose up, gripping the kitchen knife and plunging it into the gunman’s side, causing him to step back, gurgling blood as the blade punctured an organ. She got a good look at his face in the moonlight. He was alarmingly young, possibly no older than twenty. He wasn’t just shocked but frightened at the prospect of dying.

But the gunman was determined not to go down without a fight. He lifted his shotgun, which suddenly felt all too heavy in his weakening hands.

It didn’t take much for Steph to push it aside just as another shot went off and yank it out of his hands and turn it on him. But when she pulled the trigger… there was a click. It didn’t matter. He was dead anyway. His relief at the empty barrel quickly evaporated as he remembered the seeping wound in his side and collapsed to the floor, sharing one last look of bewilderment at his victim-turned-killer before falling facedown to the floor, dead.

Steph let the shotgun fall to her side, the adrenaline coursing through her. She had hoped that ascending to the rank of Detective Chief Inspector would mean she didn’t have to worry about getting up close with the criminal element.

She looked over the body of the home invader. There was a clear attempt at professionalism, but if memory served, there were often more than two to get the job done.

She heard the sound of a click and whipped around to find herself facing another intruder, but this one had the drop on her. There was no way they could get the shotgun up in time. She and the attacker shared a long hard look at one another as the second intruder considered the options. Finally, they raised the weapon and fired a single shot, hitting Steph and sending her flying backwards and landing alongside the first intruder.

The second intruder looked over their handiwork and then ran for the door.

36

Thirteen years earlier

Dean didn’t follow Hayley and Melissa in his own car. Instead, he trailed them in an Uber. It was a gamble, giving the driver the address. But as they followed at a safe distance, staying hidden behind the traffic, Dean became more and more convinced as to where they were headed. He wondered whether he should call for backup or try to make contact with Collins, who would be down there right now with Heaton. But then he’d be putting the inspector in harm’s way. It looked like he was on his own.

They went into the boatyard and Dean had the driver drop him off a short distance away. He watched as Melissa and Hayley exited the car, the pretense discarded. The sergeant was gripping Hayley by the arm roughly and almost dragging her along.

Dean stayed to the side, trying to keep out of sight, and for the most part succeeding. Just before the two women boarded the yacht, Hayley turned in Dean's direction, but he ducked out of the way. Though he wanted her to know that he was coming for her, he couldn't risk Melissa cottoning on. It occurred to Dean that he had no idea what his one-time partner was capable of, and he was almost afraid to find out.

Dean continued walking forward when his phone started ringing. It was Hayley. He answered it, but he didn't respond to the guttural sound of Lauter’s voice on the other side.

“So, you rounded up the little bitch?” he asked, and Dean wished he could reach through the phone and strangle the drug trafficker.

She must have been keeping the phone hidden so that Dean could catch the entire conversation. “Wasn’t too hard. Our new boy knows which side he wants to be on.”

“I told you he was worth having around,” Heaton’s voice chortled. “Give him a few more months and we’ll be able to trust him with some of the edgier stuff.”

Dean was disgusted to hear the kind of man they assumed him to be.

“So, it seems you’ve got me at a disadvantage,” Lauter’s voice filtered through, a little bit muffled but still audible. “Why would a copper want to take over my venture?”

“For the same reason anyone does anything,” Heaton replied. “For the money. Now, we could just arrest you and take all the money for ourselves. God knows we have enough evidence to put you away. And just in case you’re thinking of dobbing us in it as well, just remember that it’s going to be our word against yours, and that’s the beauty of the badge. No one ever doubts the word of a police officer.”

Lauter sighed. “So, what exactly are your terms?”

“You keep doing what you’re doing. You can make use of this lovely lady right here for transporting the goods, and we’ll put you in with the right contacts, make sure you can get in and out of Newquay with minimal fuss. Hell, your enterprise will probably thrive even more now we’re involved. So I think… 75% going our way seems fair.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Lauter snapped. “That’s barely anything left over for me. So basically, I put in all of the work, and you collect when it pays off?”

“I don’t know how good your maths is, Mr Lauter,” Melissa chimed in, clearly enjoying the hold she had over the man. ”But I would have thought that 25% of something was better than 100% of nothing. And besides, we’ve actually done a lot to keep you out of trouble.”

“And how do you work that one out?” Lauter asked, as Dean started looking for a possible way onto the boat without being seen.

“Because we’ve taken care of a whistleblower for you,” Heaton explained, prompting Dean to stop in his tracks. “One of our own came here earlier today to ask you questions, and it’s a good thing we got here when we did, otherwise he would have arrested you.”

Dean went cold as he imagined exactly who they were talking about.

“Can’t you just buy him off or something?” Lauter suggested, clearly not having the stomach for full-blown murder.

“That’s not possible with this guy,” Heaton responded. “Of course, there is another use for that, and this boat will probably be a good place to hide his body once he’s out of the picture.”

37

Liv and Dean awoke the next morning to the dreadful news.

When they heard that a member of their own team had been attacked in their own home, Liv started mentally reeling through the people it could possibly be. When it was confirmed to be DCI Steph Brown, she felt guilty for the wave of relief that it wasn’t one of her own teammates that she’d worked alongside for years.

She and Dean made it to the crime scene where an ambulance had been called to the scene, and Liv walked inside to survey the damage.

“Be careful where you step,” the forensic coordinator, Sam, called out. “Apparently, the guv installed every type of home security known to man.”

“And yet none of them were in place when the intruders came calling?” Liv asked as she went through the list of security devices. Technically, the intruders shouldn’t have been able to get halfway down the road without setting something off.

“No idea. Maybe the intruders had them deactivated before they stepped inside,” Sam called back.

“Got to say, Liv,” Archie chimed in, clad in forensic gear. “Two senior officers in a matter of months. Anyone is going to think that that chair is cursed.”

“Thanks for the observation, Archie,” Liv replied, thinking about how Collins had been recommending the top position to her. Now i feels like I’d be setting myself up for slaughter.

“I suppose this does away with the theory that Steph Brown was the bent bitch Heaton made her out to be,” Dean hissed under his breath.

Liv wanted to give a response, but even she couldn’t argue with the logic of a senior corrupt officer being targeted in her own home.

They came into the dining room to observe the sight of the woman who’d only been their boss for a few weeks, broken, beaten… and still alive.

The shotgun blast had hit her in the shoulder, and she was in the process of being patched up by the paramedics as she was lifted onto a stretcher.

“Guv!” Liv commanded, kneeling over the injured woman. “Do you have any idea who might have done this?”

“Can you give us some space?” one of the paramedics snapped indignantly.

But Liv swatted him away, determined to get the words out. “Steph, please?”

Using her good arm, Steph pulled down the oxygen mask and whispered in a hoarse voice. “...Heaton…” And then her eyes glazed over. The paramedics shoved Liv aside as they wheeled the injured detective out of the room towards the ambulance.

“Bloody hell,” Dean muttered, watching the woman leave. “Here’s hoping she can keep that arm. Looks like it should have been blown clean off.”

“Well, at least she managed to take one of them down with her,” Liv retorted, gesturing to the young man lying on the ground, taken aback by his age. “Christ, how young do they start recruiting these people?”

“I guess you can tell you’re getting older when the criminals are getting younger,” Dean suggested bitterly. “Shame we couldn’t take him alive. We could have found out who hired him. Though I don’t think we have to look far to find the culprit.”

Liv’s eyes widened, not because she didn’t consider the possibility, but she was concerned about Dean running wild with the theory. “I know what Steph said, but come on, that’s reaching…”

“How many other people do you know that can organise that kind of hit?” Dean asked. “And be honest. He accuses her, and then not even a day later, she’s attacked in her own home? You can’t just put that down to coincidence.”

“Well, we could always go and ask him, see what he thinks,” Liv suggested. “Be interested in how he’s going to talk his way out of this one.”

“Is this the part where you say ‘I told you so?’” she asked, seeing the excitement in his eyes. “I should have listened to you about Heaton.”

“We’ll have time for that later. Let’s see how he feels about going back to prison. If that doesn’t force his cooperation, I don’t know what will.”

38

Thirteen years earlier…

Dean could feel the pressure building. This wasn’t just about saving Hayley. He also needed to save Collins, wherever he was.

He edged onto the boat, taking care to steer clear of all the windows. He was outnumbered three-to-one. But if he could find Collins, and assuming he wasn’t in too terrible shape, then maybe they would stand a chance.

He tried to maneuver himself around the edge of the boat, a task made more difficult as he clutched the phone, still trying to listen in to the conversation. And as he moved, he found himself slipping and gasped suddenly as he grabbed the railing for support.

“What the hell was that?” Melissa called out and Dean offered a silent prayer that they wouldn’t cotton on. But all hopes were dashed as he heard, “You little bitch!” And he heard what must be a slap across the face. “What do you want me to do with her, guv?”

“Stick her with Collins until we decide what to do with them both,” Heaton instructed. “If she’s been talking to Lawrence, then maybe he isn’t as onboard as we thought. Go and check to see if he’s about after you’ve dumped her.”

Then, the phone went dead.

Dean braced himself against the door as it opened, and Melissa stepped out holding a gun. She was about to move it in his direction when he caught her at the arm, wrestling the weapon from her and pointing it at the sergeant.

“You know, it doesn’t have to be like this,” Melissa said, keeping her cool even with a loaded gun pointed at her. “You can still profit from this.”

“Turn around,” Dean instructed, and she did as she was told, hands in the air… before he smacked her across the back of the head with the pistol.

With her out of action, he made his way into the boat where DC Heaton and Lauter were standing together. “Hands in the air!” he commanded.

Lauter immediately did as instructed, but Heaton kept his hands to his sides. “Come on, Dean. You’re a smart lad. You really want to use your head for this one.” Dean kept the gun raised, so Heaton continued speaking. “There’s a lot of money to be made here.”

Sirens sounded in the distance, and Heaton started panicking, “Shit, Collins must have called them.” He locked eyes with Dean, speaking urgently. “Listen, we can still find a way through this. I’ve got Collins locked in one of the cabins. You help me get rid of him, and I assure you you will be set up for life. But you need to decide now what you want out of life.”

That was the most insulting thing to Dean, Heaton thinking he needed time to decide what kind of man he wanted to be. Then he said, “No.”

Knowing he had no other option, Heaton lunged at Dean, who fired off a single shot, hitting Heaton in the shin. He stumbled to the floor of the cabin, clutching his bloodied leg. Dean kept the gun trained on Lauter. “Where is the girl?”

Lauter nodded and immediately led the young detective through to the spare room where Hayley was sat hunched over on a seat, her eyes red from crying. Collins was sat in a bloodied heap, several bruises on his face coming to the forefront.

“You okay?” Dean asked, helping the man to his feet.

“I’ll live,” he responded. “I was able to call for backup before they got to me.” He looked around. “Where’s Heaton?”

“He’s back there, taken care of,” Dean declared. “Do you want to arrest him?”

Collins got to his feet, impressed with the young man who’d risen to the occasion. “Actually, I think you should have the honour. There’s no way he’s slipping out of this.”

Feeling a heavy weight, Dean walked back through the boat to see Heaton writhing on the floor. He took out the cuffs and slapped them around Heaton’s wrists.

“Neil Heaton, I’m arresting you on suspicion of corrupt activity in a public office. You do not have to say anything, however it may harm your defence if you fail to mention something under questioning that you later go on to rely on in court. Anything you do say may be used as evidence.”

39

Liv and Dean drove up to the house, having rehearsed what they were going to say over and over. “So how do you think he’s going to get out of this?” Liv asked.

“I feel like something doesn’t quite add up,” Dean noted. “He goes and accuses Brown of being bent… and then organises a hit squad on her?”

It unnerved Liv that for as well as he knew Heaton, he was now unable to see through the man to his intentions. He’s playing a slippery game.

They pulled up outside the house and walked inside. Heaton was stood in the kitchen turning on the gas.

“Everything okay?” he asked in a blasé tone that irked Dean no end.

Dean tried to resist the temptation to pummel the man and let out thirteen years worth of frustration. “You lying piece of shit,” he spat.

“What are you talking about?” he asked.

“Steph Brown was attacked in her home last night,” Liv stated, causing Heaton’s face to fall like thunder. “Two gunmen, and she’s currently in hospital fighting for her life. So, unless you’re going to tell me that she ordered a hit on herself…”

“I didn’t realise she’d…” Heaton said softly, at a loss for words.

“You’ve been lying to us from day one,” Dean snapped, at the end of his patience. “Everything you’ve been saying is a lie, right back to the beginning. And to think I used to look up to you…” He grabbed Heaton by the scruff of the neck and dragged him through the house.

“What are you doing?” Heaton pleaded, but Dean wouldn’t be told. Heaton desperately turned to Liv. “Pull him off me, Austin!”

“I don’t know how,” Liv said plainly, almost enjoying the show.

“I’ll have you done for manhandling a witness,” Heaton protested, trying to find something to hide behind.

“You think anybody will care given what you’ve done?” Dean snarled, continuing to drag Heaton along. “You’re completely alone in the world, Neil. No friends, no family, and definitely no allies. And you’re going to go back to that prison even if I have to drag you there myself.” He hurled open the front door and prepared to step outside…

…when he saw masked people standing in the driveway, clearly hoping to have the element of surprise on their side.

They raised their weapons and instinctively, despite everything that’d happened between the two men, Dean tried to move Heaton out of the way, shoving him back into the house where the former copper landed on the floor.

Dean slammed the door shut and looked to Liv. “We need to call for backup.”

A series of bullets penetrated the door, causing splinters to go flying.

Heaton scrambled for cover as the gunmen kicked the door open.

Heaton held up his hands in surrender as the gunmen turned their attention to Dean and Liv, firing at them.

“Wait!” Heaton shouted, remembering what he’d been doing in the kitchen just before the two detectives barged in.

Liv and Dean immediately caught on as the gunmen continued firing, bullets flying past the kitchen which’d been slowly filling with gas.

The explosion ripped through the house, a massive inferno obliterating everything in sight. The pair felt like they were trying to literally outrun a fireball as they charged through the house and through the back door, bursting out into the open as the house went up in smoke behind them.

They lay on the ground for a moment, a dull ringing in their ears. Dean’s hands were all over Liv, checking for any injury. “Are you all right?” he asked and when she nodded, he got to his feet and started looking around for any sign of life coming through the flames. Surely, there was no way anyone could have survived that. And Dean was left wondering whether his hated nemesis had perished.

40

Thirteen years earlier…

Within twenty-four hours, Neil Heaton had gone from being the toast of the police service to one of its biggest pariahs. Now that he’d been caught trying to kill a serving police officer, people were no longer willing to let themselves be blinded by the lies.

All of a sudden, all of the officers that he’d worked with, the witnesses he’d interacted with, even some of the criminals he’d put away, had come out of the woodworks to describe their own sordid tales of corruption. And the evidence was more than damning. As the charges kept on stacking up against him, it was clear that it would be a very long time before Neil Heaton ever saw the outside of a prison cell again.

And Melissa Baldwin would be seen as going down, thanks in part to Hayley’s testimony. She’d acted as an accomplice to many of Heaton’s more questionable actions. It remained to be seen whether she’d testify against him in exchange for a lighter sentence or if she’d stick by him for the same of so-called loyalty.

In light of his actions and the role he’d played in bringing down Heaton, DI Collins had been promoted to the rank of Acting Detective Chief Inspector, a role that a lot of people were willing to make permanent.

The only loose end was that a large stash of money had gone missing from Chuck Lauter’s boat, money which he hadn’t been able to account for.

And there was one loose end for Dean to tie up.

He and Hayley walked along the beach together, Hayley smiling but clearly still shaken from her experience. Dean wondered whether she’d ever recover from the trauma she’d experienced or whether she’d have to compartmentalise it.

“Maybe you can start working towards that florist job you were talking about,” Dean suggested as they walked against the tide.

“Maybe one day,” Hayley said wistfully, looking out to the sea. “Mainly, I just want to get back to my mum and tell her I love her. She says she’s never letting me out of her sight again.” She bowed her head a little. “I haven’t told her the full story of everything that’s happened with me. Everything that was done to me. Everything I did…”

“You don’t need to,” Dean insisted. “I’m sure she’ll have a load of questions for you, but she’ll know when to ask them. For now, I think she’s just happy to have you back.”

“Thank you,” she said heartfully, stopping and turning to him. “You really are one of the good ones, DC Lawrence.”

“I did what anyone else would have done,” he said modestly.

“No, they wouldn’t have,” she responded. “Most people would have seen me as a piece of meat to be traded. You actually tried to help me. I can’t thank you enough for that. You made me feel like a person again. I hope you never forget that.”

Dean smiled stiffly, feeling the emotion catching in his throat. Hearing those words, knowing that the young woman would be much better off in life, gave him a fresh burst of energy, one that he hoped he would cherish for years to come.

“There’s one other thing,” Dean said, taking her by the hand and leading her up to the edge of the beach where his car was parked. He opened the boot where an overnight bag lay. “Look inside.”

She did, and she saw hundreds upon hundreds of pound notes. “Oh, my God,” she gasped, putting a hand to her mouth.

“That money is yours,” Dean told her. “It was taken from Lauter’s boat, and he’s definitely not going to need it.”

“No, I couldn’t possibly take this money,” she insisted. “Not after how it was made…”

“I know it didn’t come your way under the best circumstances,” Dean said, “but this is your chance to enjoy life. Do something you love. I know a lot of people who need that second chance but don’t have the means. Let this be yours.”

“What about you? Won’t you need the money?”

“No, you are my second chance. Make the most of it for both of us.”

41

The safe house explosion had had an unprecedented impact on the police service.

Journalists had been sniffing around, refusing to believe the story that it was a ‘gas leak’, which wasn’t technically untrue. Liv and Dean hadn’t required any medical attention… not that it’d stopped their families from fawning over them.

Steph Brown had discharged herself from the hospital to take control of the investigation and find the remaining gunman who nearly killed her.

As for the remains of the safe house, people had searched through the wreckage, but no bodies had been recovered, leaving open the open possibility that Neil Heaton was still out there.

“He planned this from the beginning,” Dean said as they sat on the beach, trying to find a moment of calm before the storm that followed. “He set up Brown, arranged for her to be attacked in her own home and then tried to fake his own death while taking us out along the way. He must be halfway across the country by now.”

“I think you’re overestimating his capabilities,” Liv offered. “His face is well known to everyone. He’s not going to get very far.”

“I want to believe that,” he said. “I can’t have him getting away with anything. You know it’s funny. If I hadn’t have come his way, I wouldn’t have doubled down on being the kind of man I want to be. And I wouldn’t have met Hayley.”

Liv took a deep breath as she realised he was finally ready to tell her about that part of his life.

Dean made sure to leave nothing out, from how he had met her to the clandestine meetings, the abuse she’d suffered, and how he’d saved her, the money he’d given her. Liv was particularly taken aback by the money. “You could have been dragged over the coals.”

“Maybe,” Dean shrugged. “I think Collins knows more than I let on. I never really asked him. But maybe he thought the same as me, that the money was better off in her hands. Sometimes, it’s not just about justice, it’s about karma.” He was thinking about regrets and what Heaton had told him a few days ago. “And I know that if I had a second chance in that moment… I’d do it all over again.”

“Did you ever see Hayley again?” Liv asked.

“No,” he replied. “And we should keep it that way. She’s moved forwards in life, and I don’t want to remind her about what she left behind to get there. But I still hear from her. She messages me every now and then. She opened up that florist shop she was talking about.” Dean took out his phone and showed her some pictures, scrolling through them. They revealed an older woman standing with a bouquet of flowers outside a shop called ‘The Brightest Blossom’. “She’s married now. Met someone eight years ago—a consultant hematologist—and they have two lovely children of their own, a boy and a girl.” He brought up a picture of the happy family having ice creams together, and Liv felt her love for Dean explode knowing what he’d done to put the smiles on their faces.

“They’re all better off because of you,” she said softly.

“She was only in my life for a few weeks at most,” Dean said, putting the phone away. “But her influence ricochets throughout. There are times when I don’t know if I can keep on doing this job. Whether it’s going to wear me down along the way. And when I feel weighed down, like it might be simpler to throw in the towel and do something different, I look at these pictures. I see Hayley living the best version of her life, the life she always deserved to have. And I know I’m exactly where I need to be. Sometimes, it’s about remembering why you got into this in the first place.”

Liv nodded, thinking about Mills’ words regarding her own motivation.

The couple said nothing else, watching the sunset and feeling comforted by the sound of the crashing waves, washing away any sense of anxiety as they thought about their upcoming union, the moment they would finally become man and wife.

EPILOGUE

Neil Heaton had to wait until the cover of darkness before he made his way to the car.

Even though the explosion had been unplanned, it brought up a lot of conveniences, giving him a way to cover his tracks. He knew people would be looking for him, but they were far too focused on the ruins of their own investigation. He’d come back, and when he did, he’d sort it all out. And he’d make Dean Lawrence pay slowly.

He stepped into the car where his partner was waiting for him.

“Didn’t expect to see you out and about so soon,” he said,

“Well, somebody had to clear up the mess that was made,” DCI Steph Brown said, her arm in a sling. “That was a risky move, giving them my name, especially considering that I’d already had the hitters arranged to turn up.”

“Well, it makes a nice double-bluff,” Heaton noted. “I accuse you then you get assassinated, or rather, they try, and you end up looking even more innocent. I still think you should have had them hit you somewhere more critical.”

“Well, thanks for the advice on sharpshooting,” DCI Brown muttered sarcastically. “If I was going to take on any injuries to make it look convincing, I wouldn’t want them doing any damage I couldn’t recover from.”

“So, what happens now?” Heaton asked anxiously.

“Well, there’s going to be an investigation into how DI Austin and DI Lawrence have handled everything,” Steph noted, looking out at the car park. “Obviously, I’ve got to make a show of being on their side, but… it’s not looking too good for them.”

While Heaton was grateful to have a shot at Dean Lawrence all over again, he said, “No, I meant, what happens to me?”

“Well, you’re still a wanted man. People are going to be looking for you, and the best thing you can do is disappear. And we’ve got a friend to help with that.”

The back door opened, and a second woman joined them. “Melissa!” Heaton smiled as he recognised his former DS thirteen years on. “Good to see you again.”

The woman’s face hardened. “You too, Neil.”

“Good to know you’re still in the game.”

Melissa shrugged. “Well, prison teaches you a few survival tactics. I’m called out whenever I’m needed, like with Lewis Farrell. And like you, I couldn’t resist the chance to get even with Dean.”

Something else crossed Heaton’s mind. “Listen, I want you to know that I really appreciate you not taking any deals at the time. I know what it meant for your sentence, but I admire the show of loyalty.”

“Oh, don’t worry about it,” Melissa said with the ghost of a smile. “I just put it on the tab. I figured you’d pay me back one day.”

“Of course,” Heaton insisted. “So, what kind of itinerary have I got? A passport? Cash? I can probably settle in the Midlands until the heat has died down.”

“Well, I didn’t think you needed to go that far,” Steph noted. “We have a destination in mind for you, but not just yet. See, the police know about you, but they don’t know about me and Melissa. So, if the trail stops with you…”

Heaton barely had time to comprehend what they were saying before Melissa took the knife she had used to kill Lewis Farrell on the beach and ran it across the man’s neck, drawing a line of red.

Heaton’s eyes went wide as he desperately trying to plug the gaping wound in his throat with his hands. He looked to Steph, who looked back at him passively, gurgling pathetically as the world slipped away from him. He must have known there was no point fighting. Neil Heaton slumped in his seat dead as the two women looked on, the blood on the blade glistening in the moonlight.

THE END

TO BE CONTINUED…

Find out more in Book Fifty here: Have And Hold - Olivia Austin Book 50

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Have And Hold - DI Austin Book Fifty

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Sins Evoked - DS Leah West Book One

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Find the Girl - DI Austin Book One

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

I’ve always had a passion for writing stories and loved being able to create a world and have my characters live inside it. Being able to do this has been a dream come true and I’m so grateful that you could join me on this journey .

I live in the United Kingdom with my Husband and four young children who keep me busy and who I wouldn’t ever be without.

I hope you enjoy reading my books and please feel free to join me on social media where I love to interact with my readers!

mrsrobertswrites@hotmail.com