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CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

T he lawyer was talking. Apparently, Robert had dug her further into the ground, saying she’d conned him.

After his words from that morning, Nina honestly hadn’t thought her heart could break further.

It was stupid. She’d been intimate with men before who’d turned out to be arseholes. She’d never grown attached or had her heart broken. Hell, she’d walked away from her boyfriend without a second thought. And yet one night with Robert had altered her heart’s structure. In that moment when Dickheadson had been carting her away, she’d turned to Robert for help – and until the lawyer’s arrival believed Robert would do something for her, despite what he’d said.

Stupid – and, as it turned out, extremely naive.

Perhaps it was his good-person act that had drawn her in. He was good, inherently good to people. Just not to her. Or any woman he shared a bed with.

Nina dropped her head into her hands and massaged her forehead. ‘What evidence do they have against me?’

The lawyer sighed. ‘You saw it. The picture of you holding the bloody knife. They’ve got your phone pinging at the towers in that area. Plus, they have a warrant to search your things including your devices, so anything on them will be used as evidence.’

Nina dropped her hands to the table with a clank. Technology was a bitch. She shouldn’t have accessed that camera at all. The police had Jonas’s laptop, found after a missing person’s report from his landlord when he’d failed to pay rent. And the pictures had synced, giving the police access to the evidence she’d wanted to keep hidden.

‘The crime scene is in the city centre. My phone pinging in that area hardly matters.’

The lawyer, some stiff collar they’d found for her, shrugged. ‘Aye, but the images don’t lie. They haven’t been doctored. Forensics confirmed that.’

Nina had seen those pictures, and not one of them proved the simple piece of evidence the police wanted. ‘None of them show me plunging that knife into anyone. They don’t show the victims either. And I… I don’t recall killing anyone.’

‘That blackout certainly doesn’t help your case. But I think if you plead guilty, your sentence?—’

Fuck this. Nina held up a hand to shut him up. ‘I think you’ve done enough. They’ve no proof I’ve done anything. They can’t hold me here if they can’t prove it. That building has a nightclub. I was there, so yes, they found my DNA. However, as the pictures show, I wasn’t the only person there. All they have are a few images that don’t actually prove I did anything. I’m not going to confess to a crime I didn’t commit. So do your damned job or I’ll replace you.’

The lawyer shrugged and said, ‘I’ll call them in.’

By ‘them’ he meant Dickheadson and his crony, a middle-aged DI with a penchant for sticking biscuits into his mouth and not dusting off the crumbs.

A couple of minutes later, Dickheadson smacked the file on the desk and plopped his arse down in front of Nina. ‘Ready to confess?’

‘No,’ the lawyer said. ‘She isn’t going to confess to a crime she didn’t commit.’

Dickheadson waved his hands as if it were nothing. ‘Not remembering is one thing. Not committing a crime is another. We have pictures, we have your phone in that area, and we know you were researching a new article.’

‘So?’ Nina tilted her head. ‘What has that got to do with your case?’

The crony pulled out a paper from the thin file on the desk and placed it so Nina could see what it was. She’d recognise that document anywhere. It was an outline of her article on sham marriages.

Dickheadson tapped a finger on the paper. ‘You began working on this document early last year. And your outline seems a bit…’

‘Threadbare,’ the crony supplied. ‘Besides, your notes are also very scant, especially for someone who’s been researching a topic for this long.’

‘You were desperate.’ Dickheadson took up the thread. ‘Your camera guy wasn’t helping. And any lead you could find… well, you jumped at it. But that night turned sour real quick. You didn’t get what you wanted, so you lashed out. At your lead and at your camera guy.’

‘I didn’t,’ Nina muttered.

The lawyer placed a hand on hers to stop her from speaking then pushed the papers away from Nina. ‘This is all hypothetical. Do you have any actual proof?’

Dickheadson produced another piece of paper, this one a picture of a beautiful woman – blond, a glorious smile on her face, her blue eyes bright with laughter. She belonged on the cover of a magazine.

Nina raised her eyebrows. ‘Who’s that?’

The crony chuckled. ‘Don’t recognise one of your own victims?’

Dickheadson smirked. ‘Oh aye, the blackout, aye. This is Anne Muller. You’re well acquainted with her husband, aren’t you?’

That was a blow Nina hadn’t expected. This was Robert’s wife? The woman was beautiful, with a delicate bone structure and a face that would make the most celibate man fall to his knees to save her.

How could Nina compare to that? She was no beauty, though she didn’t much care. She’d focused on her job and building a career instead.

Yet once again, Robert had her thinking of things she never would have previously. What did he see in her? Where had that hunger for her come from?

It was probably just that he’d been starved of human touch, and she’d been there.

Nina joined her hands together as if she was pleading. For men like Dickheadson, that was a pleasure trigger. ‘I’ve never met Anne Muller.’

Dickheadson chuckled. ‘Didn’t you?’

He flapped another image on the table. What was this, a presentation?

The image was a logo of Malcolm and Associates, the solicitors. ‘Anne Muller was a receptionist for them. You visited Malcolm and Associates – it’s in your calendar. You met her there.’

Had she? Nina couldn’t remember. That day, she’d been pissed at Jonas. He’d turned up fifteen minutes late to their appointment and forgotten his camera. Who forgot the one thing that helped them do their job?

When they’d finally made it to the law office, she’d hurried along to the conference room where she’d been asked to conduct her interviews. But even so, Nina wouldn’t have forgotten that face. There was something compelling about Anne Muller. ‘I don’t remember seeing her. And I certainly wasn’t introduced to her.’

The crony snorted. ‘Really? Given your penchant for memory lapses, are you sure?’

‘I don’t have lapses in memory!’

‘Just that night then?’ Dickheadson shared a smile with his colleague. ‘Tell me, why did you black out just that night?’

The lawyer finally interrupted their merry party. ‘Please stick to the facts.’

Dickheadson pointed to the papers he’d scattered on the table. ‘They’re all there.’

‘Yet they don’t say that my client committed the crimes you’re accusing her of.’

Apparently her lawyer had finally woken from his defeated slumber. Nina relaxed her muscles a little, hoping the man could now do his job.

The crony pointed at Anne’s image. ‘She worked for this firm. We have reason to believe the solicitors were involved in some underhand activities as they have since gone to ground. Their website, for example, was taken down the night before Anne Muller was killed. They also surrendered their offices the next day.

‘Now for a journalist working so hard on this case, when a major lead like these lawyers go missing and then Anne Muller comes forward with evidence… Ms Banerjee took the bait, went to see Anne Muller above that club. But when Anne had nothing to give Ms Banerjee, she lashed out, killing both Anne and Jonas.’

Dickheadson nodded. ‘The fire was a ruse to cover your tracks.’

Nina turned to her lawyer, waiting for him to call their bluff. The man turned to her and shrugged.

Seriously? Fucking men!

Nina smacked the table hard enough to startle Dickheadson. When he saw her face, his smirk evaporated. ‘Those are not all of my notes. As an investigative journalist, I’ve worked on enough cases to know how to protect my data and my leads. Some things are better off recorded with pen and paper. So yes, that file looks threadbare . And it includes no names of any of my leads.’

She pointed to the law office’s logo. ‘I had an appointment with them, yes, to understand the legalities of immigration law. I had no reason to believe they were involved in any manner with sham marriages – the topic of my article. And this lead you mentioned – I didn’t know their name, their gender or who they were. They contacted me via phone, the voice modified.’

‘And you agreed to meet such a lead in a building like that?’ the crony butted in. ‘That’s hardly safe.’

Nina rolled her eyes. ‘As I said, I’ve been an investigative journalist long enough to know who’s faking it and who’s genuine. The person on the line knew facts, names and key information someone on the outside wouldn’t. My camera guy was spooked and refused to come with me. I wasn’t expecting the lead to want to appear on camera anyway. But then Jonas showed up after all.’

‘And made a mess of your little meeting?’ Dickheadson narrowed his eyes.

Nina shook her head. ‘It was a surprise to see him there, but I certainly didn’t want him dead because of it. And you still haven’t proved I did it.’

Dickheadson let out a curse then shared a look with his crony. The crony gathered up all their papers back into the file and sighed.

When the lawyer just sat there, mum, Nina elbowed him in the side. ‘Tell them to let me go!’ she muttered.

‘Aye.’ He cleared his throat. ‘If that is all you’ve got, it isn’t sufficient to prove Ms Banerjee committed the crimes you’re accusing her of…’

Thirty minutes later, Nina was outside, breathing the fresh air, her lawyer fired and a sour Dickheadson shooting her an ‘I’ll get you next time’ glare. Fuck them.

Nina didn’t care. She was free.