Page 31 of A Game of Lies

Ffion looks at Zee, who is taking a card from theSunreporter. ‘What’s she doing here?’

‘She’s got some kind of press ID.’ Caleb shrugs. ‘You know what Miles is like. No proper briefing – just shoved me in here and told me to babysit. Too tight to pay a press officer,’ he scoffs, a far cry from the sycophantic Caleb Ffion saw at Mam’s house three days ago.

‘Turn it up,’ someone says.

An Australian voice cuts through the kitchen. ‘We were so young. I mean, like, eighteen? It was a mad summer.’ The speaker laughs. Curious, Ffion moves so she can see the screen. The Australian woman is tanned and lithe, with caramel hair and deep chocolate eyes. ‘I loved Jason, though. I haven’t seen him for twenty years, but maybe this is God’s way of telling us to give it another shot.’ She flashes perfect white teeth at the camera. ‘Hey, Jason, if you’re watching – what do you reckon?’

Jason puts his head in his hands and lets out a long moan.

‘How do you feel about that?’ The magazine journalist pushes her recording device closer to Jason. ‘Do you still love Addison?’

‘No! Christ!’ Jason rubs his face, then looks up as though he’d hoped to discover he’d been dreaming. ‘I didn’t even know what love was back then. I’d known her for three weeks and we were off our heads the whole time. After we got hitched, we sobered up and realised it was never going to work. We went our separate ways and …’ He tails off miserably.

‘You never thought about getting divorced?’

‘Not till later, when I met Kat. Only by then I didn’t know how to get in touch with Addison. I convinced myself it wasn’t a proper marriage, it didn’t count …’ He looks around the room. ‘I’m not a bigamist!’

‘I mean, technically, you literally are,’ Zee says.

‘Kat wants a divorce.’ Jason is bitter. ‘She won’t even take my calls. Says if I turn up at the house she’ll call the police.’

The female journalist pats his arm. ‘I’m sure she’ll come around.’

‘I hate to say it,’ Zee says, ‘but you did bring this on yourself.’

Jason stands with such force that his chair crashes to the floor. Ffion hears a series of clicks as the photographer captures the moment. ‘My entire world has fallen apart, and it’s all down to Miles Young. The second he comes near me, I’m going to fucking kill him.’

There’s little chance of that happening, Ffion reasons, because Miles has locked himself in the editing suite. He answers only after she has hammered at the door for a full minute.

‘What is it?’ Miles is in his running clothes, the vibrant yellow jacket adding an unhealthy tinge to his already pale skin. ‘Ah – do you have my crime number? I need it for the insurers. Your superior officer said someone would—’

‘Sorry, my what?’

‘Detective Sergeant Brady, is it? He said—’

‘No, I don’t have your crime number.’

‘But I need it.’ Miles glares at her.

‘And I need somewhere to live, a pay rise that matches inflation and a dog who doesn’t eat his way out of a room in order to find me. I guess we’re both out of luck.’

‘I’ve had to request new cameras right away, but the insurance company won’t pay up till it confirms the old ones have been damaged, and that won’t happen till I have a crime number, so I’m out of pocket to the tune of several thousand pounds.’

‘Ryan Francis has been missing for two days,’ Ffion says. ‘I think that’s more important than a criminal damage report, don’t you?’

The door slammed in Ffion’s face suggests Miles disagrees.

Your superior officer. What does that make her – inferior? ‘Inferior, my arse,’ she mutters.

From within the editing suite comes a strident North Wales accent Ffion instantly recognises.Enough with the praying! Every time I come back to camp, you’re on your bloody knees. Ffion can’t help but smile. Ceri’s a laugh on a night out, but you wouldn’t want to get on the wrong side of her. Ffion saw that first-hand last year.

‘Rhywbeth ti isio’i ddweud wrthon, Ffion?’ Efan Howells had called, from the other side of the pub.Something you want to tell us?

It was a few days after they’d put the Rhys Lloyd case to bed. Efan was wearing blue overalls, the arms tied around his waist, and his expression was sly and knowing.

‘Been hearing a few things about the Morgan family. About thatsisterof yours, in particular.’

‘If I wanted to hear from an asshole, Efan Howells, I’d fart.’ Ffion had carried two pints across to the table Ceri had nabbed. She hadn’t cared that people were still talking about whether the rumours were true – whether Seren really was Ffion’s daughter. Let them talk. Ffion would neither confirm nor deny it.

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