They weren’t going to fire him, were they? They couldn’t. Professional Standards hadn’t even questioned him yet. They couldn’t fire him till after that, surely?
Or maybe they could.
Callum took one last look around the miserable little office – with all its stains and dusty surfaces – then followed McAdams out into the corridor, across the hall, and in through the door opposite. The one with a small brass plaque on it, marked: ‘DETECTIVE INSPECTOR MALCOLMSON ~ DIVISIONAL INVESTIGATIVE SUPPORT TEAM’.
Mother’s office was a bit nicer than her team’s, but not by much. It was just big enough for a scarred Formica desk, a line of filing cabinets down one wall, a whiteboard on the other surrounded by pictures of cats cut out of an old calendar, and a single chair for visitors.
Mother was behind her desk, sooking on the end of a biro, but a uniformed PC stood in the middle of the room, at attention: black trousers; big black boots; black fleece with her ID number on the epaulettes; black, police-issue bowler under one arm. Her curly black hair was pulled back in a bun, exposing the dark skin at the nape of her neck.
OK … Maybe they weren’t going to fire him. Maybe they were going to arrest him instead.
Mother wrinkled her mouth around the pen and stared at Callum. ‘Is this it?’
McAdams propped himself up against a filing cabinet. ‘Everyone else is out.’
‘Suppose he’ll have to do.’ She turned. ‘Constable Franklin, this is Detective Constable Callum MacGregor. Not the brightest spade in the undertaker’s, but he’s all ours. For our sins.’ Another grimace. ‘Callum, this is Constable Franklin. She’s joining us from E Division. That means you’re no longer the new boy. You will show her the ropes. You will be nice to her. And most of all,’ Mother poked the desk with the sooked end of her pen, ‘you will not lead her astray. Are we crystal?’
Babysitting. Even more joy.
‘Yes, Boss.’
‘Good.’ Mother plucked a sheet of paper from her in-tray and held it out. ‘Now, if neither of you have anything better to do—’
Callum stuck up his hand. ‘Actually, Boss, I—’
‘—and I know for a fact that you don’t, you can chase this up.’
Constable Franklin took the piece of paper. ‘Ma’am.’ The word was forced out, resentment dripping from that one syllable like burning pus.
‘Tell me, Constable, do you have a fighting suit?’
‘A fighting …?’ It must have dawned, because she nodded. ‘Yes, ma’am.’
‘Good. You’re a DC now: change out of that uniform. You look like you’re about to arrest someone.’
A twitch, a tightening of the hands into fists. A breath. Then: ‘Ma’am.’
Oh yeah, babysitting this one was going to be bags of fun.
‘Off you go then.’
Franklin turned on her heel, face all pinched and flushed. Narrowed her dark-brown eyes and bared her teeth at Callum. ‘Do we have a problem, Detective Constable?’ Voice like a silk-covered razorblade.
Wow. She was just … wow. Completely … like a model or something. Not just pretty, but totally—
‘I asked you a question.’ She curled her top lip, exposing more perfect teeth. ‘What’s the matter, never seen a black woman before?’
‘I … It … No.’ He blinked. Stood up straighter. ‘I mean: no. No problem. Welcome on board.’ He stuck out his hand for shaking, but she just pushed past and marched from the room, slamming the door behind her.
‘Bloody hell …’ Callum leaned against the wall.
‘I know. Magnificent, isn’t she?’ McAdams grinned at the closed door, then laid a hand against his chest. ‘Skin like warm midnight. Her eyes are moonlit rubies. Her heart: frozen steel.’ A sniff. ‘See if I hadn’t already ticked “threesome” off my bucket list?’
Mother smiled. ‘Congratulations. Anyone I know?’
‘Nah: Beth got someone from her work. Miranda. Nice lady. Presbyterian, but very open minded.’ He frowned at Callum. ‘Still here, Constable? Haven’t you got an angry detective constable to babysit?’
‘Yes, Sarge.’
Sodding hell.
Bright yellow diggers and tipper trucks lumbered about on the massive Camburn Roundabout, rearranging it’s grass and earth into swathes of rutted mud. The Vauxhall’s windscreen wipers made dying-squid noises as Callum took the first exit. He snuck a glance out the corner of his eye at the simmering lump of resentment sitting in the passenger seat.
She’d ditched the uniform in favour of a black suit with weird puffy shoulders, a white shirt, and thin black tie. As if she was on the way to someone’s funeral. ‘What the hell are you staring at?’
He snapped his eyes front again. ‘Nothing.’ Yellow-brick cookie-cutter houses stretched out on either side of the road. Bland, safe, and predictable. ‘Actually …’ He bit his lip. ‘If you don’t mind my asking …’ Deep breath. ‘What did you do?’
She turned and gave him the kind of look that could strip flesh from the bone.
‘I mean, you know, to end up working for DI Malcolmson?’
DC Franklin faced front again.
‘Only, it’s not usually—’
‘Do you always talk this much?’
‘Just thought, if we’re going to be working together, we—’
‘Let’s get something perfectly clear, Detective Constable MacGregor: I am not your friend. I am not your colleague. I am someone who will be out of here very, very soon.’ She shot her cuffs, making them exactly the same length where they stuck out of the sleeves of her shoulder-padded jacket. ‘I don’t intend to spend the remainder of my career lumbered with a bunch of dropouts, has-beens, and never-weres.’
The houses gave way to greying fields and austere drystane dykes. All hard edges softened by the incessant drizzle.
Franklin pulled out her phone and poked away at the screen. Glowering down at it in silence. Ignoring him.
OK, well no one could say he hadn’t tried.
About three miles south of Shortstaine, a pair of dark lines swooped out from the tarmac, dug through the roadside verge and punched a hole through a barbed-wire fence. A patrol car sat twenty yards further down, parked up on the side with its flashers going.
Callum indicated and pulled in behind it. ‘There’s a couple of high-viz jackets in the boot, if you want to … OK.’
She was already out of the car, stalking her way across the verge and down into the field beyond.
‘Fine. Catch your death of cold, see if I care.’ He helped himself to one of the fluorescent-yellow monstrosities and followed her. Arms out to keep his balance on the slippery grass slope.
A hatchback sat about a hundred yards into the field, on the other side of the fence, at the end of those curling dark lines. Its front end had made friends with a chunk of rock, leaving the bonnet twisted like a sneer.
Franklin was halfway there already, back straight and rigid. Presumably because the stick rammed up her backside was of the extra-large variety.
Callum picked his way down the hill until he stood beside her.
The hatchback was an old Kia Picanto – the kind that looked like a roller-skate on steroids. Originally blue, it was now a muddy grey, with deep scratches along both sides where