Page 4 of Cruel Hearts

“We’re going to have a wee chat,” he said. “Off the record. And if you give me the information I want, I can make this problem go away.”

“What’s this about?” I asked.

“Why did you return to Scotland? To deal cocaine, or is there another reason?”

Intimidation. An annoyed breath huffed out from my nostrils. Nothing I said right now would be admissible in court, but they were looking for intelligence.

Leaning forward, I met the man’s piggy, brown eyes. “What is this? An attempt to make me snitch so you can make a bigger arrest?”

“You tell me,” he replied.

“Here’s what I can tell you,” I spat. “A bunch of assholes from my academy placed a packet of goodness-knows-what in my wardrobe and called the police.”

His brows rose. “‘Goodness-knows-what’ is the technical term for?”

“I’ll be fucked if I know.” And I’d be fucked if I told him it was cocaine. Even if one of the arresting officers had identified it as such, making an admission was halfway to a confession.

He rocked forward on the chair’s back legs, practically leaning across the table. “What was William Hancock doing in the Glasgow City Chambers?”

I raised a shoulder.

“Nicola Sturgeon, Iain Livingstone, and Camden Liddell were in attendance,” he said.

“I know the last name is the Archbishop of Scotland, but I don’t know the others.”

DCI Cromar bared his teeth. “Camden Liddell is the Deputy Chief Constable of Police Scotland.”

All the bravado drained out of me along with all the blood in my face. Elizabeth was connected. With a relative so high up in the police, it was no wonder she had been able to dig up dirt about me. This cat-and-mouse-game now felt like the spring had already triggered and trapped me under the bar.

Shifting uncomfortably on the plastic seat, I asked, “Have you finished with me, Detective?”

A muscle ticked on the side of his jaw. “It’s Detective Chief Inspector.”

I gave him my blandest stare. This conversation wasn’t about the cocaine planted in my room. He wanted me to turn informant on a bunch of people who already thirsted for my blood. If I gave evidence against Billy Hancock in court, I may as well order my own coffin.

DCI Cromar stared at me for several moments, and I stared back. This informal chat was over, and I was ready to go to my cell. He eased himself off the chair and strolled to the door, where a different female police officer from the one in the van waited. From the worry lines on the woman’s face, she had fretted about the breakdown in police protocol.

I chewed the inside of my lip. Maybe I could use that to my advantage if the duty solicitor was any good.

* * *

The new policewoman led me to the custody suite, a magnolia hallway of heavy, teal doors. She unlocked mine with a set of keys and pushed it open, revealing a room barely large enough to house a cot and a seatless toilet. A woman sat on the cot, staring at the hole in her sagging stockings. She wore a three-layered, denim skirt and a matching bolero that did nothing to cover the red bra showing under her blue camisole top.

I stepped inside, bristling at not being able to get my own cell.

As soon as the door clicked shut, the woman raised her head and stared at me through mascara-smeared eyes. “I’m in for soliciting.” She scratched her arms, apparently suffering the early stages of withdrawal. “What are you in for?”

Some of the girls at the Richley Juvenile Detention Center had talked about undercover police hanging out in cells to gather ‘intelligence’ on those arrested for crimes difficult to crack.

My gaze raked down the woman’s outfit. The circles under her eyes looked like they’d been applied with an angled shadow brush, and no amount of pale foundation could disguise her perfect skin. She was too healthy and robust to rock the drug-addicted hooker look. Friday-night clubber might have worked better but I wasn’t about to give her pointers.

“A school prank gone wrong.” I leaned against the wall.

“What happened?”

I told her the truth.

She leaned forward, listening to me with a level of concentration unprecedented for a woman who needed to sleep with men to get her next fix of drugs. Not a single raised blood vessel marred the whites of her eyes, and not a scrap of tobacco stained her teeth. Miraculous.