Page 41 of Skin In the Game (The BlackWater)

Maddie sat there sipping coffee looking at the faces on the screen. There weren’t many, ten in total, and three were dead.

She didn’t recognise any of them and from what the rest of her new team had said not all of them were 100% confirmed as involved. Maddie wondered if any of them were also stitched up too, like her, the wrong place, the wrong time.

“We should probably go through all your background.” Jamie said and she frowned.

“What do you mean?” She asked.

“Starting from the beginning, growing up, your parents, maybe there’s something there, something that connects you to our target.” He said.

“Seriously? You want me to just bare my life to you all?” She snapped before she could stop herself.

“No. I think we just focus on the cases you were running, let’s focus on Homewell and everything from there. I doubt whatever this is has anything to do with what GCSE’s you sat or who you kissed behind the bikesheds.” Cole said with a look on his face that she couldn’t read.

She nodded, feeling relieved because she wasn’t just going to start ripping out all the god damn skeletons for them no matter how much of team they all were now.

“Becky you sit down with Maddie after this and you can work through the cases together.” Cole said and Brandon glanced across at him but said nothing.

“Right let’s leave it there. Douglas I want you to go through the file with Maddie and then Becky you can figure out if there are any links.”

They both nodded and everyone got up.

By the time Douglas had finished going through only part of the file Maddie felt exhausted and her head hurt. It wasn’t that she was expecting it to be glamourous because she wasn’t but somehow she thought it’d be a bit more exciting. It felt like the Anderson case all over again.

“Wait, there was something.” She said looking at Douglas as he was in the midst of a sentence.

“With what?” He asked.

“The Anderson Case.” She said.

“What?” Becky said confused because the name meant nothing to her.

“The case I was on. I realised something, right before they caught me and shoved all those damn pills down my throat.” She said looking from Douglas to Becky.

“Realised what?” He asked.

“That McCullough messaged the whole address of that warehouse. Not just the street address but the name of the building too, the company.”

“You mean Lankeit Holdings?” Becky stated.

“Yes that was it. But there isn’t a name above the place, there’s nothing there that says it.” Maddie said.

“You’re sure?” Douglas asked.

“Certain.” Maddie stated.

“So what does that mean?” Becky asked and Maddie looked from her to Douglas.

“Maybe it wasn’t McCullough that sent the message? Or maybe he heard the name from somewhere…”

“…Or maybe he was in on it.” Brandon said behind her and it was all she could do not to jump. How did they keep sneaking up on her she wondered. Maybe they could teach her that trick.

“I’m not sure. The guy was...” She shook her head. “I don’t want to speak ill of the dead but honestly, he wasn’t really cutting it. He was assigned to me as a punishment for what happened with Clarence Street. He’d only been an agent two months.”

“What’s his background, who did he work for before?” Cole asked and she shrugged.

“He was new to it. From what everyone said his uncle had connections.” Maddie stated.

“Look that up Becky.” Brandon said and she nodded before tapping away on her keyboard.

“He did have connections.” She muttered before looking back at them. “His Uncle by marriage is the Scottish Defence Minister.”

“What?” Maddie gasped.

---