Page 79 of The Final Vow

Bradshaw snorted. ‘As if you could arrange a conference call, Poe. I asked you to mute your phone last week and you ended up sending a voicemail to my dad. It was just a load of tommyrot about why things had to be so eff-word complicated and how your eff-word pager didn’t need an eff-word mute button. EvenIdon’t know how you managed to do that.’

‘Maybe you can Ask Jeeves.’

Bradshaw gave him a look. She shook her head and said, ‘“Ask Jeeves”? Wowsers trousers, Poe. Do you still use puddles as mirrors? Ask Jeeves had the worst search engine technology in the history of the world. No wonder Google destroyed it.’

Poe grinned and winked at Doyle. ‘And what is—’

Flynn called again. Bradshaw pressed accept. Mathers’s voice filled the room, just as tinny and distant as Flynn’s had been, but hers had an edge. Poe recognised it as the pressures of being forced into a mistake.

‘First of all, I’m not apologising,’ she said. ‘While sitting on Ezekiel Puck’s name and his E-FIT might have been the smart tactical move, it was not adefensiblemove. The public had a right to know.’

‘Was this your decision or the commissioner’s, ma’am?’

‘It was mine.’

‘You’re a fibber, Commander Mathers,’ Bradshaw said. ‘There was a micro-pause before you answered. Poe might not have noticed, but I—’

‘I noticed,’ Poe said. ‘It was almost long enough for you to cross your fingers.’

‘Fuck you, Poe!’ Mathers snapped. ‘And fuck you too, Tilly! I brought in SCAS to advise. Consider me advised.’

The phone went dead.

Flynn called back immediately. ‘That went well,’ she said. ‘And don’t worry about Commander Mathers shouting, Tilly. She’s under an incredible amount of stress.’

‘I wasn’t going to. I only worry when you and Poe shout at me.’

‘We never shout at you, Tilly.’

‘You shouted at me yesterday, DCI Flynn.’

‘That was because you asked me if I was perimenopausal again.’

‘And I still think you—’

‘Is that us off the case?’ Poe cut in, anxious to avoid yet another Bradshaw/Flynn stand-off. ‘Because I’ve only just stopped smelling of fish.’

No one replied. Doyle sniggered.

‘Piss off,’ Poe said. ‘I donotstill smell of fish.’

‘You do a little bit, Poe,’ Bradshaw said.

‘I can smell you over the phone, mate,’ Flynn said.

Poe scowled. ‘Regardless, are we going to keep working this or not?’

‘We work for the NCA, not the Met,’ Flynn said. ‘Until our director orders us off the case, we’ll keep working it. We’ll just keep it to ourselves for now.’

Poe thought it through.

‘Poe?’

‘Why did Mathers call?’ he asked.

‘Because she wanted to explain why she went public with the E-FIT.’

‘Bullshit,’ Poe said. ‘Mathers is a commander in the biggest police force in the country. She doesn’t owe us an explanation and we have no right to expect one. As she said, we’re there in an advisory role only.’