Page 1 of A Game of Lies

PART ONE

ONE

MONDAY | DC FFION MORGAN

The smell is sour and sweet at the same time, like fruit left to rot. Ffion breathes through her mouth but the stink’s so bad, she can almost taste it.

‘Was that you?’ DC Alun Whitaker speaks without looking up from his paperwork. He’s too vain to wear reading glasses, and deep grooves form at the corners of his eyes as he squints at the file.

‘No, it bloody well wasn’t.’ Ffion shuts down the witness statement she’s been reading and opens Rightmove. She needs the calming influence only five minutes of property porn can bring.

‘Women aren’t supposed to fart.’ Alun looks across the bank of desks and raises his voice. ‘I bet Georgina doesn’t.’

Georgina shrugs back at him, pointing to the noise-cancelling headphones she wears over her dark, cropped hair.Just a podcast, she always says, if anyone asks. Ffion has long suspected that Georgina isn’t listening to anything at all – the woman’s quick enough to say yes to apanedwhen the kettle goes on – but is selective about what she wants to hear.

‘I couldn’t be with a woman who farts,’ says Alun. As though he had a choice in the matter. Alun’s last foray into the dating world had resulted in a bank transfer to an untraceable account and a computer virus that emailed out the last ten photos from Alun’s camera roll, three of which had made Ffion want to bleach her eyes.

‘Farting’s for blokes,’ he adds. ‘It’s not ladylike.’

Ffion contemplates trying to squeeze one out, just to be contrary.

Alun spins his chair to face her. He has long, thin limbs, and when he rests his hands on his knees, as he’s doing now, he puts Ffion in mind of some kind of insect. ‘Do you know where the case summary is for the Proctor GBH? I can’t find it on the central drive.’

‘That’s because it’s on my laptop.’

‘Your personal laptop?’ Alun raises an eyebrow and folds his arms. Ffion tries to remember if it’s crickets that rub their legs together, or grasshoppers. ‘You’re supposed to save them directly on to the shared drive.’

Ffion doesn’t know what sound Alun’s arms would make if he rubbed them together, but it would no doubt be fucking annoying. She frowns at her screen, as though she’s trying to solve a complex formula, instead of expanding her Rightmove search by another ten miles. ‘I’ll save it on to the drive when it’s finished.’

‘Imagine if all my files were on my personal laptop. What would you do if I got hit by a bus?’

‘Throw a party?’ Ffion clicks on a two-bedroomed apartment, five miles from Cwm Coed. Her rented cottage is perfect – and a blessed relief after a year living at home with Mam and Seren – but now her landlord wants it back.Sorry, Ffion, but I can get twice as much for it as a holiday let, and times are hard …

No shit, Ffion thought, when she started looking for a new place, discovering that prices had practically doubled in the past year. Living outside the village would mean no more easy strolls back from the pub after a lock-in, or popping round to Ceri’s for a coffee. On the other hand, it would be nice to leave the house without having her every move reported back to Mam.Your Ffion’s looking tired … did I see her at the doctor last week? I did wonder if she was pregnant …

This apartment looks perfect, though. Brand new, affordable—

—and for over-sixties only.

‘Fuck’s sake.’ Ffion clicks away from the bedroom balcony with views over the river. She wrinkles her nose as the noxious smell wafts her way with renewed vigour.

‘And ifyou’rehit by a bus, we won’t know what’s happening in the case.’ Alun is refusing to let it go. ‘We could lose crucial evidence.’

‘When you make sergeant,’ Ffion says, ‘you can tell me what to do. Till then, back off. You’re not my boss.’

‘Quite right,’ comes a cheerful voice from the door. ‘I am.’

Detective Inspector Malik is resolutely jovial. Even when issuing a dressing-down – something of which Ffion has been on the receiving end a number of times – there’s an avuncular tone to his voice, as though the subject of his lecture has been caught scrumping apples, instead of taking a riot van to collect a sofa from IKEA.

Malik takes a step forward, then sniffs the air. ‘It smells like someone died in here.’

‘It’s Ffion,’ Alun says.

‘It’s horrific. Open a window.’ The DI is wearing his favourite waistcoat – a chessboard, complete with game in play. Ffion imagines there’s a subliminal message in the checkmate or stalemate or whatever is happening by the top button.

Georgina’s already jumped to her feet to do the DI’s bidding. Ffion narrows her eyes. Heard that alright, didn’t she? Georgina Kent is what bosses calldiligentand Ffion calls a try-hard. First to arrive, last to leave, and treats social invitations as though she’s robotically programmed to decline. Neither Georgina nor Ffion wear much make-up, but Ffion imagines this is an intentional decision on Georgina’s part, and not – as it is in Ffion’s case – because she can’t be arsed. Georgina has the sort of olive skin that tans in five minutes, whereas Ffion’s skin is the colour of skimmed milk.

Malik holds up a printout. ‘I need someone to check out some bones in Cwm Coed. Could be a moody one.’

---