Page 29 of We Chase Shadows

Georgie waves it away. ‘Stage-managed. The cops found something from when we were together. We chatted, agreed that if we both blamed the other, threw a few accusations around, they’d be chasing their tails working out which one of us was guilty. And it worked a dream. We’re both free, eh?’

‘You stayed in the business though?’ Steve asks. ‘You’re still in the business now?’

Georgie nods. ‘More hardware now really. You know, LED face masks, all that? That’s a bit of me. You can have one if you like, Rosie?’

‘I have plenty of LED face masks,’ says Rosie. ‘Are you saying they don’t work?’

‘Oh, they work,’ says Georgie. ‘Mine don’t, but real ones do.’

‘But they still sell? How does that work?’ Vern had said this too, fake products but no complaints. ‘Don’t they just send them back when their skin doesn’t improve?’

‘If you’re buying an LED face mask for your skin,’ says Georgie, ‘then it’s not the only thing you’re doing, is it? If you’re making that investment, then you’re making sure you moisturize, you hydrate, you stay out of the sun, am I right?’

‘Well, I don’t do any of those things,’ says Rosie.

‘But a normal person does?’ says Georgie.

‘Oh, a normal person does, yes,’ concedes Rosie.

‘And so their skin gets better anyway. Who’s to know my mask is just a bleached Darth Vader mask and some lights from a Chinese toy factory? Everybody’s happy.’

‘It sounds,’ Steve says, ‘if you don’t mind me saying, like Vern isn’t happy. Cards on the table, he suggested we come and see you. Suggested you might have something to do with the murder of his bodyguard. Said you’d been asking him for money?’

Georgie laughs. ‘I don’t need Vern’s money.’

‘But you must resent him a tiny bit?’ says Rosie.

‘Not me,’ says Georgie. ‘I’m a simple woman, living a simple life, with simple needs.’

Georgie gives Steve a slow wink. Why be subtle, Rosie supposes. You have to shoot your shot sometimes.

‘I mean, doesn’t he have any better suspects?’ says Georgie.

Rosie looks at Steve. Speaking of which.

‘I want to show you a photograph,’ says Rosie. Might as well break the seal, now they’re all chatting.

She takes out the photo Ernesto had sent them yesterday after they’d met on the tarmac. The bald man. She hands it to Georgie. ‘I don’t suppose you know this man? He’s called Jakob Eriksson.’

Georgie leaves an almost imperceptible pause, then shakes her head. ‘Sort of face you’d remember, isn’t it?’

Almost imperceptible, but not quite. Rosie clocks it, and tucks it away.

‘And the name?’ Rosie asks.

‘I thought Jakob Eriksson was one of the dancers on Strictly,’ says Georgie.

She hands the photo back to Rosie with a tight smile. ‘They ever asked you to do Strictly?’

‘They have,’ says Rosie. ‘I told them I didn’t have the time to do all the training and have the affair.’

‘Who is he, then?’ Georgie asks. ‘This Eriksson?’

‘He’s in Vern’s business,’ says Rosie. ‘And yours. But if Vern’s a multimillionaire, this man must be a billionaire.’

Georgie looks at the photo again. For a little longer this time. ‘Billionaire? He doesn’t look like one, does he?’

‘You’re absolutely certain you don’t know him?’ asks Rosie.