Tell No Tales by Eva Dolan

into a pair of black brogues, squatted to tie them. ‘Which it might still be. We’re just not sure yet.’
    Anna handed him his shirt and when he’d slipped his arms into it she began to button it up.
    ‘And I thought you’d crept out to see me,’ she said, a slight smile touching the corners of her mouth as she brought it close to his. ‘We could lock the boys in the cupboard under the stairs so we’re not disturbed . . .’
    ‘Tempted, but I really haven’t got time.’
    ‘This is how it starts, you know? Middle age.’ She knotted his tie and folded his collar back down over it, stepped back to admire her handiwork with that glint still in her eye. ‘I forget how good you look in a suit. Very authoritative.’
    He laughed. ‘Seriously, I’ve got to go.’
    ‘You get a girl started then you run off.’
    He grabbed his jacket from the bed, kissed her quickly and bolted for the door before she stepped up her efforts. Milan was waiting for him in the kitchen, holding both hands behind his back, and he glanced around conspiratorially, checking Stefan wasn’t watching before he produced an orange lolly in a plastic wrapper which was sticking ominously to the sweet.
    ‘Thank you.’
    ‘I only had a bit of it,’ Milan said.
    Zigic tucked the lolly into his breast pocket and shouted his goodbyes.

12
    FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER he pulled into the station car park, struggled to find a space and eventually tucked in behind Ferreira’s red Golf. Another news van had arrived, its side panel open while the crew hauled out their equipment to take upstairs. A couple of local print hacks he recognised were standing smoking on the steps, laughing over their war stories, and he walked in without acknowledging them, feeling the nerves stirring in his stomach.
    Upstairs Wahlia was swearing at the vending machine in the hallway, squaring up to it like his gym-toned bulk would do any good. Ferreira shouted at him from the office, ‘You want to hear what it said about your mum.’
    Zigic tried to block them out, checked on Grieves and Parr, discovered nothing new had happened during his absence. He went to the murder board and looked at the scant progress they had made in the last ten hours, wishing he had something more significant to take to the Media Room with him.
    He paced into his office and out again, poured a coffee he didn’t drink and watched the comings and goings in the car park, thinking about Sofia Krasic lying to him from her hospital bed and whether she might have cost them the most important hours of the investigation by pushing her own agenda.
    If Gilbert wasn’t driving the car, if this wasn’t about him and Jelena, then the person they were actually looking for could be long gone by now.
    Then it was time and he was moving through the doors into a dull blue room full of cameras and lights and the babble of low chatter, rows of chairs lined up facing a long table with the force’s logo on the wall behind it, more of the chairs occupied than not, a larger gathering than he’d ever had to face in here. He recognised a few of them, the ones in the front row, but beyond that they were indistinct, blurred by his nerves. Nearby he saw DCS Riggott standing talking to a veteran in a bad suit, the press officer peeling away from them, heading in his direction. Riggott patted the old guy on the back and followed.
    The press officer shoved a sheet of paper into Zigic’s hand and retreated, replaced at his elbow by Riggott who nudged him in the direction of the table.
    The chatter subsided as they took their seats and Riggott cleared his throat noisily to silence them completely, moved the microphone in front of him a touch closer before he spoke, his usually abrasive Belfast accent tempered in deference to the occasion.
    ‘Ladies and gentleman, thank you for coming this afternoon. I’d like to introduce Detective Inspector Dushan Zigic. Dushan is the senior investigating officer in this case. He will be giving a