it an expansion of your already impressive burden,’ she said, waving his reluctance away. ‘Tell me, how long have we been in the force?’
She knew the answer to this. She knew everything. Where he’d been to school, his bench press PB, and the name of his first pet. Not for the first time, it occurred to him she probably even knew about the dark years after his mum disappeared, even though he’d always managed to keep a half-step ahead of the law.
‘Eight years, Ma’am.’
She pulled the keyboard back over. ‘I’ve had some applications. Some of your colleagues putting themselves forwards for inspector.’ She was looking at her screen now, scrutinizing it for his benefit. ‘But I’m not seeing your name here.’
‘I’m happy where I am.’ He glanced at the uniform, wondering where this was going.
Ignoring him, McCulloch folded her arms and leaned back in her chair, addressing the ceiling. ‘You see, Ben, when we rank people up, we like to see people proving themselves as leaders. Showing managerial qualities.’
‘I’m not looking to rank up. Sergeant suits me fine.’
‘I see. Well anyway. Detective Sergeant Mae, this,’ she said, gesturing at the mystery uniform, ‘is DC Catherine Ziegler.’
‘Right.’
‘And she,’ McCulloch went on with a twinkle of the eyes, ‘is going to be your new TI.’
Mae took the hand extended towards him, met her eyes, and briefly returned a rough approximation of the broad, open smile she gave him. Thinking, shit. Trainee Investigator meant a shadow. Constant company.
‘Hate to say it, Ma’am—’ Mae started, but he was silenced with a finger held aloft.
‘Then don’t.’ McCulloch folded her arms across her chest, assessing the two of them like a mother at a playdate. ‘I understand that Catherine—’
‘Kit,’ the younger woman put in.
‘I understand that Kit passed her NIE with stand-out results,’ McCulloch was saying. ‘So when HR asked me for a mentor, I looked around the floor and I thought to myself, Colleen, who have you got with the kind of skills and characteristics to drive a talent like that? I thought, who’s willing to take the time to make opportunities for a new generation of detectives?’
My arse you did, Mae thought. Try, who have I got who’s been coasting for getting on for half a decade, without a foot of movement in any direction? Who have I got spare? Not that he could begrudge it. If it had been DCI Anyone Else, this would have been a punitive move. But she’d called it right, he couldn’t deny it. Sure, he’d sat the exams and taken the promotion to sergeant when he came back from his absence, even though he was fairly sure she’d swung it for him. After that, he’d kept his head down. He’d gone where he was sent, done the courses, gone through the motions. But it didn’t take an HR review to see he’d been treading water since … since before … since before it had all gone wrong. He pumped his fists tight and loose, tight and loose at his sides, dispelling it.
‘I thought Missing would give Kit a nice easy start,’ McCulloch told him, ‘and you can get her used to the juggling.’ Turning, she added, ‘Ignore the grumpy exterior, Kit. They’re all the same: like to pretend they’re brooding mavericks but buy them a bacon roll and they’re anyone’s.’
DC Catherine Ziegler glanced at him to gauge his reaction, and he conceded a reluctant twitch at the corners of his mouth. Might as well be decent, because he could see he wasn’t going to win this.
‘Squirt of HP and we can talk.’
‘Then that’s sorted,’ the boss said. ‘And don’t forget your camel.’
McCulloch was already pulling the keyboard close, on to the next thing. She started typing, then looked up. ‘What are you waiting for, lollies? Run along.’
But he could tell from the meaningful, encouraging look on his boss’s face as she shooed them out of the door that there was nothing malicious about this. He wasn’t despised, he was pitied. This was intended to aid his personal development. She thought this was what he needed.
And as Mae left the office, with his new TI following behind like a rugby-shouldered Valkyrie, he hated McCulloch for always being right.
Mum’s outline was distorted through the bumpy glass as she bent to retrieve the dropped key. She cursed, but it was the weakness in her voice that made me certain that something was not good.
She came inside, her hair stuck across her face in muddy streaks as she unbuttoned her coat.
I took it from her and asked, ‘Did you find him?’
‘I’m sorry, baby,’ she said. ‘No luck.’
‘So where have you been?’
‘Just down to the boat, but he’s not there. I thought I’d get a run in on the way back.’ She started stripping off, moving quickly, her T-shirt slopping to the floor where she dropped it. Leggings going the same way; socks, the tube-bandage support she used on her dodgy knee. The bare wet flesh of her arms and torso was paling from the cold and stiffened with goosebumps, ropes of muscle tensing underneath as she moved.
She found a plastic bag and shoved the clothes inside. ‘Don’t look so worried, love. He’ll be … I don’t know. Out for a walk? Or out taking pictures?’
‘He’s supposed to be at work. They called, Mum. He’s not there.’
She was suddenly serious. ‘What did you tell them?’
I shrugged. ‘Nothing.’
‘You didn’t say …’ she started, her eyes drifting down the hall, to my bedroom door.
‘That I smashed my way out of my room in the middle of the night and I don’t remember it, and I’ve woken up covered in bruises? No. I kept that to myself.’
‘OK. Stupid question. I’m sorry.’
I followed her into her room. She unlocked the box beside her bed where she kept tools, matches, things she couldn’t leave lying around. She removed a pair of nail scissors and started cutting her nails down.
‘So where is he?’
She sighed. ‘I don’t know, Ellie.’ Finishing her own no-nonsense manicure, she gestured for my hand, which I gave her. ‘There’s nothing to say you had anything to do with it,’ she said, trimming the white from the tops of my nails.
I tried to pull away. ‘Mum, if you found something—’
‘I didn’t. It’s nothing.’
‘But it’s not, is it?’ I said, disentangling. ‘What if Siggy … what if it’s happened again?’
‘Don’t. Please. Just don’t think about it.’ Mum took a deep breath, held it, as if bracing for something. ‘And even if something has happened. We should definitely sit tight,’ she said at last.
I broke free, stood up, went into my room.
‘Where are you going?’ she called.
‘I’m calling the police.’
It took her about half a second to come after me. ‘No.’ She grabbed the phone out of my hand. ‘No. That’s not the right play. Not at all.’
I stared at her. ‘Play? He could be—’ I stopped myself from saying it.
‘But