An explosion of reds and browns.

Then there is just the sight of crimson petals, falling soft as snow.

PART TWO

TWENTY-FIVE

9.46 a.m.
Humber Street, Hull

‘Do they pay you extra to listen to this?’ asks Pharaoh, closing her eyes and wishing, not for the first time, that evolution had seen fit to provide the human ear with protective lids.

‘“… and the sunlight hits the daffodils like milk … sourness in my gut, my thighs are rippling silk …”’

‘Fucking hell,’ mutters Pharaoh. She’s not a fan of wistful acoustic folk-jazz. She hadn’t known it existed until she walked in to the coffee shop. She envies her former self her blissful ignorance.

‘Not a fan?’ asks the barista, a little snippily. ‘We don’t get any complaints.’

‘I don’t doubt it. They’re probably too busy attacking their wrists with a spork. Got to get themselves down to the waterfront and jump in the river.’

‘Sorry?’

‘I should bloody hope so.’

She taps an unlit cigarette against her teeth. Considers taking a bite. She needs a nicotine hit. She finds vaping machines ridiculous and patches only work if she puts them over her eyes and asks the kids to hide her fags.

‘Come on, Wilma,’ she grumbles, flicking her eyes to her phone. She’s got plenty of missed calls but none from anybody she wants to speak to. The assistant chief constable’s secretary has left three increasingly irritated voicemails, but Pharaoh wants to have a cover story in place should word have reached him that her number two did a runner from the crime scene.

One finger in her ear, she replays the last voicemail. It’s the ACC herself, voice terse. ‘Trish, I know you’re up to your eyeballs but this really is important. We need to speak to Sergeant McAvoy. There’s a notice to be served. The legal representative will be here for eleven thirty and I’ll pencil you in for attendance. I need to know that you’ve got this. It’s a TTL issue. An Osman. I can’t go into detail. This has all been rather dropped on us …’

Pharaoh closes her eyes. A TTL is a Threat to Life warning: something that used to be known as an ‘Osman’ warning. It is served on named individuals when intelligence is received by a police service or a security force somewhere within the European Union, which indicates somebody is at immediate risk of serious harm. Pharaoh has received several herself. McAvoy is no stranger to physical threat. She has no doubt that it’s some administrative box-ticking exercise rather than a genuine reason to worry, but it’s something else for her to mull over when she’s supposed to be solving a murder and overseeing half a dozen other active cases.

Her heart clenches like a fist as she thinks of him. He never ignores her calls. Always replies to her texts the moment Roisin pops out of the room. When he’s out of contact she feels rudderless; adrift. She sometimes wonders when the balance of power shifted: when their relationship went from being that of mentor and apprentice, to this eerie, symbiotic thing. She feels wrong without him. Scared for him. And fear makes her angry.