Page 11 of A Game of Lies

As the credits roll, Elen, Seren and Ffion look at each other in stunned silence.

Ffion whistles. ‘Poor Ceri. Do you think she had any idea?’

‘I doubt it,’ Elen says. ‘I get the impression no one knew. Is that right, Caleb?’

But Caleb is intent on the screen, looking for the credit that will kickstart his career in television. He blinks rapidly as the music finishes, then turns to Seren in confusion. ‘It wasn’t there. My name wasn’t there.’

Seren’s mouth drops open. ‘The bastard.’

Elen doesn’t admonish her. She looks at Ffion, and she knows they’re both thinking the same thing. They’re thinking about how they’d feel if their own secrets were exposed; they’re imagining how those men and women on Pen y Ddraig feel at the prospect of public humiliation.

‘He promised me.’ Caleb is almost in tears. ‘He said there wasn’t a budget to put me on the payroll, but I’d be in the credits as production assistant.’

‘Absolute c—’

‘Diolch yn fawr, Seren Morgan, that’s quite enough.’ Elen crosses the room and snaps off the TV. ‘Well, no one will be tuning in to watchthatdrivel tomorrow, if they’ve got a shred of decency about them—’

Ffion gives a bark of laughter. ‘But they haven’t, Mam. Reality TV is the modern-day equivalent of taking your knitting to an execution. Half the UK will be watching this tomorrow, desperate to see someone’s life torn apart.’ She shakes herself, as though the thought makes her feel dirty. ‘I’ll tell you one thing: finding a pile of old bones is going to be the least of their troubles.’

FOUR

TUESDAY | FFION

Sure enough, DI Malik calls Ffion at ten-thirty the following morning. ‘Where the hell are you?’

‘At home.’

‘Please tell me you’re not still in bed.’

Ffion looks at Dave, who is sprawled at her feet across her duvet. ‘I’m not still in bed.’ Beingonthe bed, she reasons, is not at all the same thing. ‘I’m finishing up the case summary on the Proctor job. I thought I’d do a better job on it if I worked without interruptions.’ She does, in fact, have the summary on her screen; right behind the email she’s drafting to her landlord, offering to meet him halfway between her current monthly rent, and what he’d get renting to holidaymakers.

‘I need you back at the farmhouse. Georgina’s already on her way.’

‘Boss, if those bones are human, I’ll eat my—’

‘AnExposurecontestant is missing.’

A few drops of rain hit Ffion’s windscreen as she drives to Felingwm Isaf, and as she turns on to the single track road leading to Carreg Plas it begins to drizzle. Georgina is waiting on the drive with a takeaway coffee in one hand and Ffion looks in vain for a second one. She and Leo had established an unwritten rule when they were working on the Rhys Lloyd murder investigation last year: first on scene brings the brews.

Georgina clearly works to a different set of rules.

Dammit – now she’s thinking about Leo. Ffion tries very hard not to think about Leo Brady. It had all been going so well, till she messed things up. Ffion doesn’t believe in ‘The One’ – how can there only be one perfect match, in a world with eight billion people? – but she and Leo had fitted together in a way Ffion hadn’t thought possible. It had scared her. It’d felt so big, so important that she didn’t fuck up. When the job was over, Leo had messaged to sayWill you have dinner with me?and she’d stared at it for so long her vision blurred. She knew what she wanted, but she couldn’t say it, and the longer she didn’t say it, the harder it became to say anything at all. He never messaged her again. That was it, her one-shot chance. And she blew it.

‘The MisPer is Ryan Francis,’ Georgina says, walking towards the house.

‘Morning,’ Ffion says pointedly.

Georgina had landed in Ffion’s department three months ago, tight-lipped about her reasons for leaving a busy Major Crime office for the relative quiet of Bryndare Criminal Investigation Department.

‘What’s her story, then?’ Ffion asked DI Malik, after he’d told her about the incoming team member.

‘Not everyone has astory, Ffion,’ Malik said. Ffion didn’t buy it. Everyone had a story, and, if Malik wouldn’t share it, Ffion would have to go straight to the horse’s mouth.

‘How come you left Major Crime, then?’ She’d planned to soften her interrogation by shouting the new girl lunch in the canteen, but Georgina had brought a sandwich from home and was eating at her desk.

‘Just fancied a change.’

‘Hell of a commute.’

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