Katerina Diamond - The Secret - The brand new thriller from the bestselling author of The Teacher

She turned to him with a consolatory smile and put her hand on his shoulder.

‘Miley, I am OK, but I really don’t want to look at that poor woman in the bathtub again. We should talk to the neighbours.’

‘Fine with me.’

After hours of no useful responses from the neighbours, Imogen drove Adrian back to the station. She was happy to have his familiar presence in the passenger seat again. It had been a long time since Imogen had felt that level of trust with someone – she didn’t think she’d ever have it again after the way she’d left her old force in Plymouth. She swallowed hard, touched her stomach surreptitiously. She could still feel the scar. Adrian looked over and smiled at her; in spite of herself, she grinned back. Adrian was one of the good ones; she looked forward to getting into more morally ambiguous situations with him, as crazy as that sounded.

Talking of moral ambiguity – as they walked into the station, Imogen was met with a bad taste in her mouth as she saw who was sitting in her chair, no doubt waiting to speak to her. The one person she thought she’d left behind.

Imogen’s old police partner, DI Sam Brown, was persistent if nothing else. Before being transferred to Exeter, Imogen had been partnered with him in Plymouth. She had moved to the other side of the county just to get away from him, had had to leave Plymouth after everything that had happened. How could he be here now? On her first day back at work she was being confronted by the duplicitous shit-bag who had sent her into one of the most horrific situations she had ever encountered. He was the reason for her trust issues. They had been friends, real friends, but then he had betrayed her. He was at least partially responsible for the giant scar on her torso. Coupled with the bullet mark she’d sustained in the Exeter schoolteacher case, she was building up quite a nice collection.

‘Are you …’ Adrian said. He trailed off before finishing the sentence, obviously thinking better of it.

‘I’m glad you didn’t finish that thought, Miley,’ she said, just about ready to punch anyone who asked her if she was ‘all right’.

‘What are you doing here?’ Adrian called across the room to Sam.

‘I need to talk to you both.’

‘This is not happening right now, come back some other time.’ Imogen slammed her bag down on the desk and pointed at the man who had the effrontery to sit in her chair.

DCI Fraser walked over with a big smile on his face. He always had been hopeless at reading social indicators.

‘I just realised you guys are called Brown and Grey and you were partners. That’s pretty funny.’ Fraser laughed.

‘Can we talk in private?’ Sam asked.

‘No, you absolutely cannot,’ Adrian interjected.

‘Keep your knickers on, I need to speak to you too, Detective.’ He turned to Adrian.

‘You should go with him. It pertains to the murder case,’ Fraser said.

‘A woman turns up with her insides hanging out … should’ve guessed you would have something to do with it.’ Imogen sneered.

‘Please,’ Sam implored. ‘I have some important information about your triple homicide.’

‘Fine,’ Imogen said.

She walked to the family liaison office, followed by both Adrian and Sam. Adrian slammed the door and Imogen stood with her arms folded. She was aware of the prying eyes from around the office, all staring at the large glass window, clearly trying to discern what the conversation was about.

‘Come on, guys, sit down, please.’

‘I’m just dandy standing up.’

‘Look, I’m not going to bring out all of the excuses but there are a few things you aren’t privy to here. I was given clearance to tell you this morning when all this shit went down.’

‘Clearance? What are you talking about?’

‘Imogen, I was undercover in Plymouth. I was investigating the department. You’ve got it all wrong.’

‘I repeat: what are you talking about?’

‘I know you’re angry with me about what happened. But there’s so much you don’t know. I’m sure after everything else that’s happened here lately, you can appreciate what I’m talking about.’ He glanced from Imogen to Adrian. ‘I heard about Harry Morris. The schoolteacher case.’

Adrian shook his head. ‘We’re not talking about that now, DI Brown. That case is closed. Finished. Get to the point.’

Sam held his hands up, a gesture of mock-surrender.

‘There were things happening in Plymouth, Imogen. Things you weren’t aware of, things that went on back then which are still going on. A whole world we didn’t uncover at the time. I had to get on the inside and see who was a part of it. I’ve been working on it for the last year.’

‘Were you investigating me? While I was there?’

‘A little, yeah. We had to know who was involved.’

‘Involved in what?’

‘At any one time in the UK, there are four thousand trafficked human beings in the country. We had it on good intel that there were members of the Plymouth police force who were not only complicit in these dealings, but actively running some of the operations.’

‘Are you serious?’

‘Women and kids, brought into the country illegally, sold into slavery, prostitution, pornography, we still don’t know all the details. This investigation has been pretty hard to get a hold on without blowing our cover and getting a bunch of innocent people killed. It’s a delicate situation.’

‘What’s that got to do with our homicide case?’ Adrian asked.

‘The girls you found dead. The girl that’s missing is an undercover, her real name is DS Bridget Reid. Ford is a pseudonym. She’s been working as a pro for the last six months in that brothel.’

‘She’s been working as a pro?’

‘Not a real one, her clients were all set up. Anyway, she was there the night the other girls were killed, she was on the scene but she managed to get out. She left me a message. I gave it to DCI Fraser already and he’s looking into it.’

‘Did she see the killer?’

‘She said she didn’t. I lost contact with her. I was supposed to meet her down at the pub by the locks but she never showed.’

‘Do you think she’s dead?’

A look passed across Sam’s face. ‘I don’t know. I need you to find her, please. I can’t look, it would blow my cover.’

‘Wouldn’t want to do that, now would we?’ Adrian was staring Sam down. ‘We’re going to need everything you have on her operation.’

‘It’s all here.’ Sam looked more concerned than Imogen had ever seen him before.

‘Is she smart?’ Imogen asked.

‘She is. She’s important, OK? This isn’t like her. If she hasn’t been in contact, it’s because she can’t.’

‘She’s your girl?’ Adrian raised his eyebrows at Sam, who nodded.

‘She is. She’s a good officer, too.’

‘Why me? After what you did, what makes you think I would help you?’ Imogen asked, stepping forward, facing up to her former partner.

‘Because what you think you know is not what happened, Imogen! I tried to warn you over and over to keep away from certain things, but you just couldn’t help yourself, could you?’

‘Well, I’m a detective, that’s kind of my job.’

‘You have no idea how big this is, Imogen. Every name leads to another name, and it takes time to find out who exactly is doing what. We just didn’t know if it was a genuine lead or not; it’s taken us this long to find out.’

‘You could have told me at the time!’ Imogen pushed back the tears. ‘You could have told me when I was still in Plymouth!’

‘I tried to tell you. That’s why I got myself assigned to this place when they made the call for extra cops. I wanted to look out for you, but you wouldn’t let me. We were friends once – I thought you might hear me out.’