Page 102 of Making a Killing

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‘You think it’s him?’

Roberts nods slowly. ‘I reckon so. He’s a teacher, and Belfast isn’t so big a place.’

The man on the screen is just as dull-looking as Baxter predicted. A little pudgy, a little pasty, smiling too wide. And it’s hard to imagine why anyone would choose a lumberjack shirt and too-long shorts for their profile pics, but at least you couldn’t accuse Finn O’Brien of sexing up his dossier.

Baxter turns to Morris. ‘What more do we know about him?’

‘Geography teacher, divorced with a kid who lives in the UK with her mother. He has an address in Laganbank, though apparently he’s not there at the moment – I spoke to that woman Ryan at the PSNI, and she got someone to check. Judging by his Facebook page, he’s been over here visiting his daughter. School holidays and all that. We’re getting an address for the ex-wife. It’s somewhere in Warwickshire so Asante’s going to pick up on that one.’

‘Have you told Fawley? He’s going to want to get back if this Finn isn’t even in Belfast.’

‘They’ll be landing around now. They were on the first flight.’

***

Importance: High

Date:Mon 29/07/2024, 12.06

From:[email protected]

To:[email protected]

CC:[email protected],

[email protected]

Subject: Robin Tierney

I spoke to Mackenzie Stirling this morning. Her sister was doing research for a TV production company called Dry Riser. I’ve onlydone a quick web search but they’re the outfit responsible for theInfamousfranchise, and given that series they did on Camilla Rowan I suspect I don’t need to say any more.

Apparently the project Robin was working on was ‘a UK case’, and she’d unearthed something new, something potentially ‘explosive’. Sounds to me like we may have found the missing link between Robin Tierney and Daisy Mason, but over to the Oxford team on that.

www.dryriserfilms.com

TB

***

‘Here we go,’ says Stillwell, sliding the tray on to the table. As usual the café on St Aldate’s is packed out downstairs, but up on the first floor there’s a view over Christ Church and it’s quiet enough to hear yourself speak. ‘One Chicken Caesar, one lasagne and a tuna niçoise. And a large bottle of fizzy water.’

‘Holy shit,’ says Everett, staring at her phone. She looks up to see the other two looking at her quizzically.

‘Sorry, my bad.’ They have a rule that they don’t look at work emails over lunch.

Sargent raises an eyebrow. ‘You can’t just leave us hanging, not now you’ve said that …’

‘It’s from Triona Bradley, the DS in Gloucester. Looks like Robin Tierney was working for Dry Riser.’

Sargent’s eyes widen. ‘Bloody hell.’

Stillwell looks from one to the other. ‘Sorry, am I missing something?’

‘They’re the ones who makeInfamous.That Luke Ryder thing that was all over TikTok last year?’

Stillwell smiles. ‘Ohthat.My mum bloody loved that show – we used to watch it together. She got the killer way before I did, which was a bit embarrassing, in the circs.’

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