‘Now then,’ he said, picking the protesting Mims up off the floor and guiding her to her office and into the chair behind the desk, ‘I think you have something that belongs to a friend of mine.’

Chapter 42

Chapter 42

Twice, the blue-haired girl tried to break for it and twice Priest had to haul her back and deposit her in the desk chair, the latter time with enough force to let her know that fighting him wasn’t an option.

Georgie looked pale under the gym’s lights and Priest noticed a slight tremble in her voice as she pleaded with Mims not to run again. He shouldn’t have sent her in alone but he had to have the back covered – he knew how fast Mims could run. Breaking through the back door had been pretty simple; the lock hadn’t been updated in decades and was warped around the edges.

‘All right!’ Mims spat in the end, holding up her hands, her chest heaving. ‘What the fuck do you want?’

‘I want my friend’s phone back,’ Priest explained calmly.

‘Your friend? That was Simeon’s phone!’

Priest exchanged a quizzical look with Georgie. ‘You knew Simeon?’

‘Of course I fucking do,’ she growled. ‘Wait. What do you mean knew?’

Priest hesitated – he could see she didn’t know. Her face changed from one of utter contempt to anxiousness in a beat, her eyes were no longer ablaze but searching his face for an answer. She cared, that was clear. But she didn’t know. She was intelligent, too. The blue hair and nose and ear studs were a facade for something else. Had Priest misjudged her?

‘I’m very sorry,’ he told her. ‘Simeon Ali is dead.’

Mims looked at the floor, her mouth agape. Her eyelids fluttered and Priest thought that she might cry until she wiped her face with the back of her hand. It seemed to be a display of defiance rather than grief, but that was perhaps her way of dealing with it.

‘How did you know Simeon had a phone here?’ she asked quietly.

Priest evaded the question. ‘It doesn’t matter. They call you Mims, right?’

Mims nodded her head and tucked her legs underneath her on the chair before leaning her elbow on the desk. Georgie indicated that she would find Mims a glass of water and disappeared while Priest took a chair from the corner of the room and sat opposite her.

‘You’re that lawyer, aren’t you?’ said Mims. ‘The one that’s representing the magazine.’

‘That’s right. My name is Priest.’

‘Where’d you learn to fight like that?’

‘I used to be in the police force.’

‘They kick you out?’

Priest smiled weakly. Mims’s hostility had evaporated; she sat crumpled up on the chair staring glumly ahead. She didn’t acknowledge the water Georgie placed on the desk in front of her.