Trust No One by Alex Walters

Kerridge and Boyle and their crowd. That was the saddest thing – that Jake probably really thought he was doing a public duty by grassing up Boyle.
    She’d known that. She’d judged it just right, known that when they came along with the offer he’d be ripe for the picking. That was what the job was about: spotting the talent. And it didn’t always go right. Sometimes there were casualties.
    And sometimes the casualties were lovers.
    She knew that at any moment Joe or Darren would glance in this direction and that, when they did, she had to appear normal. A businesswoman struggling with nothing more traumatic than keeping this bloody enterprise afloat in the face of a howling recession.
    Calmer now, her mind focused on the image she wanted to project, she opened the office door. Joe nodded and walked across to her, leaving Darren fumbling, apparently aimlessly, with the controls of the machine.
    â€˜Kid’s bloody useless,’ he murmured under his breath. ‘You know that, don’t you? We should cut our losses and sack him before it’s too late.’
    â€˜He’s just a boy, Joe. Give him a chance.’
    Joe shrugged. ‘You’re the boss. But you can be too soft, you know?’
    â€˜Take it from me, Joe,’ she said, ‘that’s not one of my failings.’

Chapter 4
    From somewhere in the next room, Marie could hear the shrill sound of her mobile.
    She eased her body down into the hot water and tried to ignore the insistent tone. She contemplated, just for a moment, allowing her head to dip below the surface to enjoy the underwater silence. She fought the temptation to stay down there, hold her breath, let the silence become permanent – though the truth was she could think of worse ways to end it all.
    It was a strange bloody paradox, this. Here she was, supposedly out on her own, cut off from all contacts. And she still couldn’t get any peace and quiet.
    She closed her eyes and breathed out as the phone finally fell silent. It was a temporary respite, she knew. The call would have gone to voicemail. Liam would leave a message. And then the voicemail would begin its automatic callback, another three bloody blasts of that impossible-to-ignore sodding ringtone.
    That was Liam as well, that bloody ringtone. He’d set it up as a supposed joke, a couple of months back during one of her weekends at home. Some pop hit that she hadn’t recognized. She’d no idea what it was and hadn’t taken the trouble to find out, but she assumed – based on previous experience – that it represented some private joke at her expense. Her more knowledgeable work colleagues – possibly even Darren in this instance – no doubt amused themselves whenever her phone rang.
    Liam knew he wasn’t supposed to call her on this number. That it wasn’t secure and that his calls could compromise her position. But of course it had been Liam calling. It was always Liam at this time of the evening, and that was another problem.
    Every evening, she shut the shop at six, spent half an hour or so catching up with the paperwork, or perhaps redoing whatever task had been allocated to Darren that afternoon. Then she headed back to her flat, getting in at around seven or so. Whatever else she might have planned for the evening – and that was generally work of one sort or another – she tried to create some space for herself, an hour or so without commitments.
    Very often, as tonight, that involved running herself a very hot bath, pouring herself a large glass of red wine and digging out some not-too-demanding book or magazine in which she could briefly lose herself. And almost equally often, again as tonight, as soon as she lowered herself into the scalding, scented water, she heard the insistent sound of the mobile from the next room.
    She closed her eyes as the ringtone sounded once more. Tonight, of all nights, Liam was the last person she wanted