"So, remind me, exactly how did my duties suddenly get extended from 'go on patrol' to 'working a club'?" Kelly asked as she returned to the crowded room.

  Pippa chuckled into her drink where she was sat at the bar. "Because the detectives needed the extra bodies," she replied.

  "Yeah, well, someone get me a double vodka before I have to deal with some of the guys who think the queue to the ladies is the place to chat up a prospective date."

  "No drinking on the job, Constable," Mariam cut in over their comm from the van. "No matter how justified."

  "Yes, Sarge," Kelly added, almost saluting.

  "You know, you guys really should be staying off the comm," Nabi added ruefully. "We're not gonna draw anyone out if they reckon you're wired."

  "Well I'm about to hit the dance floor, so it'll just look like I'm singing along," Kelly helpfully explained.

  "McCallister, Usmonov, either of you still got an angle on her?" Mariam checked.

  Pippa craned her neck to try and get a view of the dancefloor from her perch at the bar. "Negative."

  "I do," Nabi said from where was sat at a table on the balcony. "I get to judge her for this later, right?"

  "Video, please," Pippa added, looking at her phone as if she were waiting on someone.

  "I hate you both!"

  They both laughed at Kelly's far too exuberant exclamation, before Nabi's voice flared over their earpieces again, "Kaur, your five o'clock, tall dark and handsome approaching with a purpose."

  Kelly twirled as if it had always been her next intended dance move, got a good look at the guy Nabi had alerted to before carrying on as she had been. Despite the pounding music throughout the building, the silence of their comm was almost deafening as they waited to see if he'd initiate an encounter which would give them something to do other than pretend to drink and observe a room full of revelry.

  "Bust, he's left the dancefloor entirely."

  "Think he's headed my way, got someone fitting your description looking for another drink."

  "Then smile at him."

  Pippa had to resist rolling her eyes as she picked up her wine glass - unfortunately full of cranberry juice and not actual wine - as she eyed up the stranger who had just placed his order. He did glance her way and she smiled at him over the rim but he simply took his pair of pints back with him wherever he had come from.

  "He's already got company," Pippa whispered.

  From there they settled back into their surveillance, hoping to try and either lure a suspect out or to spot something out of the ordinary. They had been pulled in to help the detectives since they had identified this club as a hunting ground for one of their nastier perpetrators, but due to the number of rooms and floors they needed extra manpower to cover the whole place.

  Hence why she and Kelly had been made over to look like a sister to several victims with Mariam and Nabi in to help monitor and cover. Pippa resisted rubbing at the fake tattoo on her arm, that also nicely covered up her implant scar.

  Pippa was about to look at her phone again, to keep up her pretence that she was waiting on a no-show, when she heard a shout from the bathroom.

  "You guys heard that, right?" Pippa asked.

  "Usmonov, stay with Kaur, McCallister, go and check it out."

  "Shouldn't she have backup?" Kelly asked.

  Pippa was already out of her seat when Mariam replied, "I expect ex military to know when to radio in for backup."

  Pippa would much rather be in her old army gear than the heels and ridiculous skirt she was wearing when checking out what random shouts were coming from the bathroom of a club at almost midnight. She shouldered her bag properly so that she had her hands free - it wasn't like swinging it would make for any kind of useful weapon - as she hurried as quietly as she could towards the sound.

  It was simple enough to check the women's stalls, and a quick remark about someone spilling beer on her shoes and no paper was enough to tamper the curiosity of the ladies doing their make-up from what she was doing.

  The mens was a little tricker, if only because of the look of the guy using the urinal. Pippa just acted all innocent about having misplaced her friend and breezed in and out as if nothing were abnormal about the situation. She'd seen way worse on tour. And in other club bathrooms. When she left one of the men she assumed Kelly had been talking about tried to corner her, but she had several years of practise to perfect her best nonchalant 'yeah-and?' face which promptly made him move on to the smokers balcony. She rolled her eyes with a shake of her head and started walking back to the bar.

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  "Nothing amiss over here, probably just the normal kind of spat," she reported.

  "You dared brave the gents?" Kelly asked.

  Pippa chuckled. "Eyes on the prize, Kel, you're supposed to be trying to reel in a suspect."

  "Well, they ain't biting."

  "That's probably a good thing based on some of the -"

  "Nabi," Kelly interrupted.

  "Yeah?"

  "Shut up."

  Even Mariam couldn't quite help her laugh at that. Sometimes there was a time and a place to talk back to a superior officer, and she was going to allow them that one.

  ~-x-~

  "When are we calling it?" Nabi asked.

  There was a loaded silence on the other end as Mariam weighed up their options. She and Nabi were both sergeants but because of Mariam's length of service she was deferred to as senior. "I'll see what the detectives were planning, but unless they override me I'm tempted to say give it another half an hour and then get some shut-eye."

  "Aye, ma'am," Nabi agreed.

  "In which case I'm making another pitstop," Kelly decided as she started to leave the dancefloor again.

  "Usmonov, do a once over and keep an eye on her. McCallister keep and eye on everything else."

  Pippa could see Nabi get up to circle the room as Kelly headed back towards the ladies. As she scanned the booths everything looked like a perfectly normal nightclub, and for a second her eyes alighted on a man in a leather jacket that looked like he was on his own lookout. Before she could try and get a better look someone slipped into the seat next to her, and she offered the polite smile of a stranger who just became your neighbour. "Corporal McCallister?"

  Even as she willed herself not to she stiffened in surprise at the old rank, and turned back to the man next to her. "Not anymore," she replied as neutrally as she could. "And yourself?"

  "Just Lloyd."

  Pippa tried to shake the uneasy feeling that was settling into her stomach as she sipped her drink again, and decided not to continue the conversation. She didn't recognise either him or his name, but she was hoping he was just another vet who had sort of crossed paths with her enough to recall the name to go with the face and that he wasn't really here to talk to her.

  He shooed the bartender away when they came to ask what drink he wanted. So much for that plan, Pippa thought. She decided to go with plan B and stood up herself.

  "Yes, let's go somewhere we can talk more freely," he said as he stood up with her. "I think I know somewhere."

  "Actually I -"

  He leant into the ear that wasn't home to an electronic earwig, brushing her long brown hair out of his way as he did. "I know you have colleagues here, and you don't want them to find us right now."

  "Why not?"

  "Because you don't want them - or the bystanders - to get hurt," he replied as if it were obvious. "And I know, you're thinking the odds are in your favour. And you'd probably be right, but just maybe I have powers you aren't aware of."

  Pippa hated that he was right with every fibre of her being. "Lead the way."

  ~-x-~

  Pippa liked to think that she didn't have a habit of bad ideas, but as she considered whether or not this made the top of the list, she had to admit that she didn't have a great record either.

  Lloyd had plucked out her earwig as soon as it wouldn't have looked weird to any other club goers, so she'd lost her line to the others. Even if it had been a one way system for the last conversation. Now he was leading her down dark streets that she wasn't entirely sure she liked to use during the day, let alone at night.

  "How much further?"

  "Does it matter?"

  "In these heels?" She retorted, trying to keep her tone light. He glanced towards her footwear and simply made a non-committal noise but carried on, his hand still on her arm to prevent her from running.

  Presently they entered an apartment complex and he hit the button for the lift.

  Once the doors slid closed he turned to her and stooped to lean into her ear. "Once we get inside, you are going to tell me everything you know about Elis Lester."

  Pippa bit back her instinct to lie about knowing who that was. This man had clearly sought her out. That meant that he had done his homework. Or at least enough of it. "Why?"

  He simply smirked as he stood up straight again, and leant against the wall of the lift until it pinged to tell them they'd reached their floor. Then grabbed her arm and hauled her towards what she presumed to be his apartment - since he had a key.

  She almost retched from the almost physical wall of smell that hit her once the door swung open. Instead she brought the back of her free arm up to her nose and mouth as if she could temper the worst of the effects. "What died in here?" She half coughed before her brain could tell her mouth to shut up.

  "A great many things, actually," Lloyd replied as if they were discussing the weather, his grip on her arm tightening briefly before he shoved her hard then flipped the light switch.

  Pippa wasn't sure the light made things any better. She'd seen death. She'd seen corpses. But this was what serial killer dramas were made of. Makeshift hooks holding bodies and trays and tubes and she was trying not to look at what she was probably about to join. Whatever she told him, whatever information he managed to extract out of her, he clearly didn't plan on her leaving alive. And he wanted her to know that.

  "And I'm next?"

  He smirked. "Let me guess, you're about to explain that if you know you're dead that you'll be less inclined to tell me anything?"

  "Oh, no, I know you're using this to let me know there's nothing you won't do to get the information out of me."

  "So it will be easiest for all of us if you tell me what you know."

  Pippa swallowed as she tried to keep her breathing and heartrate as even as possible now the initial nausea had subsided to just plain disgust. "How the hell has no one come to look at what the hell is in here?"

  "Oh, the smell bothers you? Next time I'll put out some candles, really set the mood."

  "So these are your neighbours? Wouldn't someone come looking for them?"

  "Oh, no, this whole building was emptied years ago with intents to either gut and renovate or straight up demolish. They just haven't got around to it yet."

  "So you've borrowed it as - what? - slaughterhouse? Playground? What is this to you?"

  "Food."