by A. J. Cross
The grin vanished. ‘Dead boring. Brophy’s got me on some trauma resilience training. I told him I wasn’t interested.’
‘Bet you did.’
‘He still insisted.’
‘That’s Chief Inspector Brophy doing what he ought to do, looking after your welfare, so you don’t suffer work-related stress.’
She shot him a peeved glance. ‘How’s that work, to be forced into re-enactments of critical incidents, one of them an armed robbery where we got paintballed. It was really stressing, Sarge. I’ve still got the bruise.’ She looked up at him. ‘What have you got on?’
‘A minor crime-wave.’
She brightened. ‘Really?’
‘Not in the sense you’re thinking. Fifteen burglaries committed by two twelve-year-olds.’
She sighed, shook her head. ‘Bloody kids. Any chance of me being on your team again?’
‘All’s possible.’
‘Yeah, right. I know a fobbing off when I hear one.’
He reached for the door, held it open for her. ‘There’s still some things of yours in my office.’
‘Like, what?’
‘Some bags of crisps, a mascara—’
‘Mascara? You sure it’s mine?’
He eye-rolled. ‘I’ve just remembered, it’s mine.’
They walked the corridor to his office, went inside. She looked around. ‘Have you heard from Will?’
‘We met up a couple of weeks back, had dinner,’ he said, leaving Chong’s name out of it. ‘He’s all right. He’s getting there.’
‘Good.’ Several seconds slipped by. ‘Do you think you’ll ever work with him again?’
‘That feels like fifteen questions you’ve asked me in the last five minutes. The answer is, I don’t know. It depends.’
‘On?’
He sighed. ‘I was full of energy when I arrived. All kinds of things. The kind of case we might get. Whether Traynor’s available. Whether he’s interested. Does he think he can contribute?’ He handed her a small box. ‘Your stuff. I seem to recall you had imminent plans to move on from here.’
She took the box, removed the packets of crisps, the mascara, dropped them into her bag. ‘I’ll give it a bit longer. Unless Brophy sends me on more waste-of-time courses, in which case I’ll be off.’ At the door she turned, giving his neat hair and smart suit a quick once-over. ‘Got a date later, Sarge?’
‘What’s it to you?’
‘Just asking. You can ask me stuff like that ’cos we’re colleagues and it’s sociable.’
He glanced at her. ‘Anything for a quiet life: what you up to later?’
She grinned at him, pulled open the door. ‘What’s it to you? Say “Hi” to Dr Chong for me.’
Several hours later
In the dark squad room, the answering machine clicked to an automated message and a light, female voice drifting around it.
‘Hello? We’ve just got back from honeymoon in Mauritius and … sorry, I’m a bit jetlagged. My name’s Lucy Travis. My number is … I just wanted to let somebody know that Hugo and I were at that place where a woman runner was murdered. We were there fairly late on the day we got married, Saturday, the thirteenth of August. We sneaked away from our reception and … I just wanted to tell somebody that there was an odd man there that evening. We didn’t actually see him but he sounded like he was in trouble, or upset, shouting at some people. He sounded really angry towards them, but we didn’t see them either. He shouted some names. The only one I remember is “Justin”, because it’s my brother’s name. That’s it, really … We thought you ought to know … I hope it helps …’