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‘That’s enough,’ says Barry, turning to him now. ‘Just remember who pays the bills round here.’
Jamie laughs. ‘Well, it ain’t you, for a start.’
‘I pay my whack.’
‘Whenyou’re working. Which is, like,never.’
‘That’s as maybe. But it was me who let you stay here in the first place, you ungrateful little shit. In lockdown when your mum threw you out and you had nowhere else to go?’
Dunlop pulls a packet of fags from her shorts pocket. ‘It wasme, actually,’ she says, flicking open a lighter. ‘Not that I had much bleedin’ choice.’
Jamie gestures at Gis with the carton; juice slops out on to the floor. ‘Hang on, I do remember you. You were on the Daisy thing, right?’
‘The Daisy thing’. Well, that’s one way of putting it.
‘She’s come back,’ says Barry sullenly, staring at his tinnie now. ‘She’s not dead. Never was.’
Jamie stares at him and then at Gis. ‘Like, what the fuck?’
‘Her DNA has been found,’ says Gis. ‘At a crime scene.’
‘Fuck me,’ says Jamie, dropping into a chair. ‘The clever little cow.’
‘Interesting,’ says Stillwell coolly.
He eyes her. ‘How’s that, then?’
‘That that was your first reaction. Not “blimey” or “that’s great news” or “poor Sharon, in prison all this time for no reason”, but “clever little cow”.’
Jamie reaches a hand to Dunlop, who gives him a fag.
‘You didn’t know her,’ he says, lighting it and taking a deep draw. ‘She’d have doneanything to get out of there. Trust me, I know.’ He blows smoke at Stillwell. ‘Guess she found a way after all.’
‘We’re working on the assumption she found aperson,’ says Stillwell. ‘You have any idea who that might have been?’
He shakes his head. ‘Nope. Certainly wasn’t me.’
‘He had an alibi,’ says Barry quickly.
‘We know. We’re just wondering if there was anyone else Jamie could suggest. Someone she might have mentioned to him – someone with access to transport.’
Jamie shrugs. ‘Nah, no idea. Sorry.’
Definitely a #sorrynotsorry, that one, but Stillwell is not deterred.
‘What about that mate of yours – Azeem?’
Jamie splutters into laughter. ‘Azeem?You have to be joking. He couldn’t fuckingstandher. He wouldn’t piss on her even if she was on fucking fire. She patronized the arse off him. And in any case, she thought she was some kind of fuckingprincess.She wouldn’t have been seen dead with the likes of him.’ He takes another draw. ‘That little bitch had nothing but shit for pretty much everyone in her life.’ He winks at Stillwell. ‘Apart from one.’
***
Adam Fawley
26 July 2024
11.56
‘So?’