Heated Beat 02 - Lucky Man (15 page)

“Harsh.”

Danny shrugged. “She knows where to find me if it matters.”

And it never did. It never had.

“So… can I?”

“Hmm?” Danny came out of his room to find Sara slumped on his couch, feet up on the coffee table. “Can you what?”

“Spend Christmas with you.”

“Sis, I’m working all week.”

“I know, but I can just hang around here, can’t I? You have to come home sometimes, Danny. Please? I don’t want to go home and watch her make Dad miserable.”

Danny sighed. How could he refuse? He hadn’t spent Christmas at home in years for that very reason. “You’ll be bored.”

“Won’t.”

“You will.”

“When are you working today?”

She had him there. Barring any significant developments Danny wasn’t due back until dawn the following morning. “I’m off.”

Sara’s face brightened, and for a moment, though they were like night and day, her sunny smile reminded him of Finn. “Can we go shopping?”

Or maybe not. Danny couldn’t imagine those four evil words ever coming out of Finn’s mouth. “Shopping? Really?”

“Unless you’ve already bought my present?”

Oops. Christmas tended to pass Danny by, and the best Sara usually got was fifty quid in a card in January. Unbidden Danny’s mind flashed back to Bigsy’s house, all lit up with life and laughter. Danny had conducted more death notifications than he cared to remember, and Bigsy’s reaction had been muted given the horrific circumstances of his sister’s death, but watching that cloud descend over Bigsy’s vibrant family would stay with him forever.

“
Danny!
”

“All right, all right. I’m coming.”

They left Danny’s flat and drove into the city to do battle with the crowds of last-minute shoppers. Sara hustled Danny straight into Punkyfish and held up a dress held together with rubber and string.

“What do you think?”

Danny glared. “No”

Sara put the dress back. “What about this?”

“No.”

“This?”

“Are you taking the piss?”

“Finally… he gives a shit.” Sara rolled her eyes and drifted to another rail.

Danny trailed after her. “I give a shit.”

“Right. So what have you been up to?”

“Working, the usual. What’s with all the PVC crap?”

Sara eyed Danny over an item of clothing Danny couldn’t even identify. “I’m going to a goth night on New Year’s Eve. I need something vampy.”

“Vampy, not trampy.” Danny pried the hanger from Sara’s hands. “If I take you to River Island, will you pick something that doesn’t look like a melted bin bag?”

“Are you paying?”

“Fifty quid.” Danny pointed at the door. “Let’s go.”

M
UCH
,
MUCH
later and seventy quid lighter, Danny took Sara to the pub for lunch. Student life had left her slimmer and paler than he was used to, and though he felt like the worst big brother in the world, buying her a plate of pie and chips was easy. Shame having a conversation was anything but.

“So what would you be doing if I hadn’t turned up on your doorstep?”

Danny shrugged, still not altogether sure why Sara had shown up in Nottingham when she should’ve been at their family home in Cardiff. “It wasn’t my doorstep. It was Kev’s.”

“How was I supposed to know that?”

“You want to row about that again?”

“No.” Sara’s tone turned sullen. She pushed her remaining food around her plate, and Danny took a moment to remind himself of the twelve years between them. Their parents had Danny’s address, but Sara was eighteen and wrapped up in her first year at uni. Besides, it wasn’t like he’d even thought to tell Sara he’d moved.

Danny took a breath to apologize, but Sara spoke first.

“Why are you always like this?”

“Like what?”

“So bloody vague when I take an interest in your life?”

“I’m not vague.”

“Yes, you are.” Sara pushed her plate away. “I ask where you’ve been, you say ‘nowhere.’ I ask what you’ve been doing, you say ‘nothing,’ and when I ask who you’ve been seeing, you say ‘no one.’ What the fuck, Danny? Is there nothing in your life you want to tell me about?”

“Tell you about? What do you want me to say? I’m an adult. I have a job, and when I’m not working, I’m doing boring shit like paying bills and getting my car serviced. There’s nothing to tell.”

“Bollocks. You just don’t give a shit, do you? Well, you know what? Fuck you. If you’re not bothered, neither am I.”

Sara shoved her chair back and stormed out of the café. Danny rolled his eyes, knowing he’d find her sniffling on the bench outside. Sara had always had a temper. Danny remembered studying for his GCSE exams with her slamming her Barbie doll beach set into his bedroom wall, enraged at being sent to bed early for throwing a plate at their mother. In hindsight she’d had a point, but life had moved on… hadn’t it?

He paid the bill and drifted outside. Sara met his gaze with red-rimmed eyes.

“Are you really happy here, Danny? Or did you come here just to hide from Mum?”

Danny didn’t know what to say. He
hadn’t
been happy in Nottingham until he’d met Finn, but he hadn’t realized the depth of his loneliness either. And how did he explain that to his baby sister? A girl, in truth, he hardly knew. “What do you want from me?”

“I want you to tell me about your life.” Sara stopped, eyes shining with those stubborn tears she’d never let fall, even as the tiny toddler Danny still remembered her being. “I just want to know you.”

“I—” Danny’s phone cut him off. He pulled it out of his pocket and eyed the screen with a healthy amount of trepidation, but it wasn’t work—it was Finn.

Thinking of you.

Danny sighed. He knew the scene at Bigsy’s house had hurt Finn, scared him, and it cut Danny deeply that he hadn’t been able to put his arms around Finn and tell him he wouldn’t rest until Gemma’s killer had been caught. For the past few days, sporadic texts had been all they’d had.

“Who’s that?”

“Hmm?” Danny looked up, startled to be caught staring at his phone, half forgetting he’d pushed his baby sister so far away she was screaming in the street to get him to hear her.

I just want to know you.
Her words haunted him. He couldn’t tell her even half of what was going on in his life, but Finn was playing a gig a few streets away, headlining Nottingham’s biggest winter festival with just his guitar and his shy grin. He could tell her that, couldn’t he? “Come on. I’ll show you.”

They walked to the city center Christmas carnival. By Finn’s standards the gig was low-key, but the streets were rammed and the queue for the free event stretched all the way down one side of the main street.

Sara eyed the posters and billboards, curious and puzzled. “Is this the festival Noel Gallagher turned up and busked at last year?”

“Yep.”

“Who have they got this year?”

Danny grinned. “No idea. Nottingham’s best-kept secret.”

It was true. Danny only knew Finn was playing because he was in the loop, and he’d got the feeling Finn liked it that way. The Lamps were a big deal, but Finn seemed shy about his solo work, like it was more personal… intimate… and Danny supposed it was.

They made it into the festival and grabbed a couple of beers. The sight of Sara with a pint of ale in each hand was slightly perturbing, but Danny ignored it and searched out the music tent, knowing Finn’s headline acoustic set was just a few minutes away.

He spotted Finn’s guitar before the man himself. Finn’s beloved old Gibson was in its stand, resting beside a stool and a mic. Danny’s heart quickened. He loved the Lamps and was even growing to dig Jack’s eclectic dance beats, but there was something enchanting about Finn and his guitar, and judging by the teeming throng around the small stage, he wasn’t the only one who thought so.

Danny found a spot to the side of the big marquee. The gig, though packed, was mellow, and the tent was strewn with cushions and beanbags. He guided Sara to a cozy area and pushed her down. “Sit.”

Sara sat. “You’re being very mysterious.”

“No, I’m not. There’s someone I want you to meet after the show.”

“
After
the show?” Sara craned her neck to see the stage just as the lights dimmed. “Why after… are they coming to watch—oh my God, is that the singer from the Lamps? Bloody hell. I
love
their stuff.”

“You do?” Last Danny knew Sara had been dancing around her room to Justin Timberlake. “Who else do you like?”

Sara ignored him and rose up on her knees to get a better look at the stage. “This is so awesome. They played the corn exchange in Leeds in fresher’s week. I had to blag the cash from Dad to go, but it was so worth it. They smashed it.”

Danny did a quick calculation in his head. Fresher’s week would’ve been back in September, and he hadn’t met Finn until late October. Not that it mattered. It just felt a little odd to know Sara had seen Finn in the flesh before he had. “They play the Hayloft here every few months or so. Finn lives in Nottingham.”

“Finn?” Sara shot him a wide-eyed glance. “You mean, Finn McGovern? You know him?”

“A little. We’re, uh, kind of together.” Danny struggled to contain his smirk. It felt strange to be talking about Finn with anyone outside of Finn’s close-knit circle, let alone Sara, but at the same time, it felt… good—liberating, in a way—and he suddenly found he could breathe a little easier.

Sara’s megawatt grin and squeal of excitement helped. “He’s your boyfriend?”

“Erm.” Boyfriend. Danny had avoided the term since his last relationship had ended on an unpleasantly damp squib, but as the stage lit up and he met Finn’s surprised gaze head-on, despite all the shadow of death and heartache around them, everything felt right. “Yeah… yeah, that’s him.”

Finn’s forty-five-minute set flew by in a blur. Danny found himself, as ever, hypnotized by Finn’s melancholy jam, and it seemed like no time at all had passed before Finn wrapped up his Nina Simone encore and dropped discreetly onto the cushion beside him with a curious, tentative smile.

“You brought a friend?”

Danny grinned. He felt oddly relaxed, given the weight of the investigation hanging over him. “This is my sister, Sara.”

“Your sister? Wow, but she’s so much prettier than you.”

Finn reached for Sara and pulled her into a hug. She was glowing when he let her go.

“I’ve never met any of Danny’s boyfriends before,” she said.

Something changed in Finn, shifted… opened, and his grin widened enough to make Danny feel warm all over. “You live in Leeds, right? So we can crash with you next time we play the union?”

“The Lamps are going to play at the union?”

“I’d imagine so. We did last year.”

“How did I not know this?” Sara clambered across Danny and inserted herself neatly between them.

Danny rolled his eyes, but on the inside it felt like yet another aspect of his personal life was clicking unexpectedly into place. He sat back and watched them talk for a while. Finn was buzzing from his gig, the agitation that often plagued him absent, and at his best no one could resist his charm, least of all Sara.

Danny let his mind drift. Sara’s appearance had caught him off guard and yanked him back into a reality that had been all but obliterated by the ongoing murder investigation. He hardly knew the spunky young woman, so deep in conversation with the man he was growing to love, but watching Sara with Finn, it felt like she’d always been there… like they both had. So why did Danny feel such a heavy sense of foreboding?

Danny’s phone vibrated in his pocket. He jumped on it before its pealing ring could disturb the serene postgig glow of the music tent. “Lanes?”

“Can you talk?”

“Hang on.” Danny caught Finn’s gaze and scrambled to his feet. He stepped over the sea of bodies lounging around the tent and made for the exit, pushing through the crowd until he found a quiet spot. “What is it?”

“The DNA results came back.”

“And?” They’d been waiting on the results from the fourth crime scene—the layby where Gemma Biggs’s body had been dumped—for a couple of days. The other scenes had turned up little of any use, but the forensic team had been more hopeful of the fourth.

“I’ve found a match in the system. We’ve got him, Danny. We’ve fucking got him.”

Danny’s blood ran cold. “I’m on my way.”

He hung up and pushed his way back into the tent. Finn read him in an instant.

“You need to go?”

“Yeah. Sara, get your shit together. I need to drop you at Kev’s on my way.”

Sara frowned. “What? But—”

“She can stay with me,” Finn said. “I’ll take her back to the house with the boys.”

Danny held Finn’s gaze. He didn’t have time to negotiate, but in that moment, something stopped him from running out on Finn without pulling him close and whispering, “Take care of her.”

Finn squeezed Danny in a death grip. “I will, Danny. I promise. Just do what you need to do and come back to us.”

Chapter Thirteen

D
ANNY
DASHED
across the city and made it to the station just as the DCI was gearing up to launch a raid.

Lanes passed Danny the suspect’s file. “Take a look at this shit.”

The buzz of the department faded away. Danny sank into the DCI’s chair and got his first look at the monster they’d been chasing all these weeks: Bill Hughes, a nomadic lorry mechanic from Liverpool with a long history of petty crime. His DNA was on file from a fencing charge ten years ago. On the surface he looked fairly innocuous. Without the decade-old conviction, they’d never have noticed him. “Fuck. It’s him, isn’t it?”

Lanes met his gaze with haunted eyes. “I think so. He doesn’t look the type, but this feels….”

She didn’t have to finish. Danny knew, and as he looked around at the band of officers gathered for the swoop, he realized they all did. Royal fuckups notwithstanding, they had their man.

After an update from Lanes and the DCI, Danny assembled the raiding team. As the lead detective on the case, this was his show. He tooled up—stab vest, Taser, cuffs—and swapped his coat for a police-issue jacket. It had been a few months since he’d been on a major sting, and he’d never led an operation quite like this.