Page 14 of Shout Out To My Ex

‘She’s waiting for us in there,’ says Nasrin, nodding towards the screening room. I drop my handbag at my desk, collect my tablet, and follow her in.

‘She must get up at the crack of dawn,’ I say. ‘It’s barely gone eight.’

‘I don’t think she sleeps.’

‘This was way faster than expected, right?’

‘Must be why we pay her the big bucks,’ Nasrin quips as we reach the doorway.

‘Pay who the big bucks?’ Marie, the agency’s investigator, is already seated in the front row of the plush cinema-style seats.

‘You,’ says Nas, heading down the short aisle. ‘Because you’re fast.’ She takes the seat next to Marie and I sit next to her.

‘Fast, yes. But I’m also the best.’

Marie (pronounced Mah-ree, as she’s French) Maillot could play Lisbeth Salander inThe Girl with the Dragon Tattooif she weren’t nearing seventy –Retiree with the Dragon Tattoo? She’s petite, lean and wiry, has jet-black hair cropped short, tattoo sleeves up both arms, wears enough black eyeliner to sinka gothic battleship, and is dressed (as she always is) head-to-toe in black – most of it leather.

She’s also ‘smoking’ an unlit cigarette – her way of observing the ‘archaic’ laws banning smoking inside. She once told me she can’t quit, either smoking or sucking on unlit cigarettes, because she took up the habit when she was eleven. But the latter is about more than the nicotine – she also has a strong oral fixation, something I diagnosed long before her revelation. Actually, a first-year psychology student could have determined that – in their third week of uni.

‘Where is the client?’ she asks in her pronounced French accent, looking towards the door.

‘On her way,’ says Nasrin. ‘You barely gave us any notice.’

Marie shrugs and draws in noisily through her cigarette.

‘Wanna talk us through the highlights?’ Nasrin prods.

‘Non. We will wait.’

Nasrin glances at me, her eye roll conveying ‘what’s her deal?’, then unlocks her phone and starts scrolling.

I stifle a smirk and turn on my tablet so I can review the case notes while we wait. How the next phase of this case plays out – reuniting Elle with Leo (if that’s even a possibility) – will depend entirely on Marie’s findings. Though, I have mapped out some approximations.

Nearly thirty minutes later, I’ve wandered down the rabbit hole and am wholly absorbed in my notes when Anita’s voice cuts through my thoughts.

‘Poppy, Nasrin, Ms Bliss is here.’

The three of us turn in unison and I stand so I can properly welcome Cassie. ‘Thanks, Anita. Hello, Cassie, come on in.’

‘Hi, Cassie,’ adds Nasrin over her shoulder.

‘Sorry it took me so long to get here.’

‘No worries,’ I say to reassure her. ‘We’re sorry we couldn’t give you more notice, but we wanted to bring you in as soon as we had news.’

‘That’s brilliant – and perfect timing. Elle had a real wobble this morning.’ She looks past me to Marie, curious.

‘Cassie, this is our investigator, Marie Maillot. Marie, Cassie Bliss, our client.’

Marie nods at Cassie solemnly, and I indicate for Cassie to sit next to me.

‘We begin,’ says Marie with a dramatic gesture. Au fait with the agency’s AV system after years as our investigator, she presses a button on a large remote, and the screening room goes dark. Two seconds later, the slideshow begins and a low-resolution photo of Leo and Elle fills the screen. This was the sole photo of Leo that Cassie was able to provide us, mined from the archives of her social media.

‘Et voilà, Leo Jones,’ says Marie, ‘born in the early nineties in Dallas, Texas.’

Cassie shifts in her seat – excitement, perhaps.

The photo vanishes and is replaced by a photo of a man and a woman who appear to be in their sixties.

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