Dead To Me - [3]

Janet went back to her screen, checking through her emails, clearing her actions completed, getting up to speed on work in progress.

‘So – you been here long?’ Rachel Bailey asked.

Janet was reminded of playground interrogations – what’s your name, where d’you live? All front and nerves shredding underneath.

‘Thirteen years, twenty-five on the job.’

Rachel froze, looked at her. ‘Straight up?’

Why would I lie? ‘Yeah.’

‘Never gone for promotion?’ Rachel said.

‘Yeah.’ Shaking her head slightly, tragic or what? Janet wasn’t bothered. She knew she was good at her job. She’d done a shedload of courses and got all the accreditations to prove it. She’d not the slightest interest in climbing the greasy pole. For what? Ulcers and politics and even more pressure? Promotion was a route away from the coalface, from the hands-on, face-to-face, stink-in-your-nose reality of catching killers. Gill Murray never got to so much as interview a suspect or a witness any more. She went to the scene and the post-mortem and she coordinated each investigation, managing her team, thinking about loopholes and implications, complications. Assessing evidence as they delivered it to her: was it robust enough for the CPS? Would it stand up in Crown Court? At appeal, in Europe? None of that pushed any buttons for Janet. She wanted to be eyeball-to-eyeball with the people who had done it, the people who had seen what was done. Making them sing.

‘Not long till retirement,’ Rachel observed, pegging Janet for Mrs Average, time-server. The girl clicked her mouse, began to peer at her monitor. ‘Kids?’ Rachel asked.

‘Two,’ Janet said, a little echo of sadness inside. Happy for the newcomer to pigeonhole her: working mum, not fully committed either way, never gone for promotion, not had the drive, the vision, the brains. Mediocre. Just hanging on for her pension. Shoot me now.

The girl gave her a pitying look, then, losing interest, swivelled in her chair, scoping the room again. No one else in yet. Quarter to eight. The kid sighed, pulled her hair – glossy brown and waved (an effect that would take Janet’s eldest, Elise, all morning to achieve) – up into a ponytail, let it drop.

‘What about you?’ Janet kept it civil.

‘God no. Not the maternal type.’

She sounded almost like a teenager, that practised disdain, but she must be in her late twenties, Janet guessed. ‘Where were you before?’ Teeth not quite gritted.

‘Sex Crimes, with Sutton,’ Rachel said.

‘John Sutton?’

Rachel nodded, glanced at her watch. ‘I need a fag. Is there…’ She whirled a finger in the air, asking for directions.

Janet toyed with the idea of sending her the wrong way, but only because the girl had got her back up. She’d never be that petty. ‘Along the corridor, down the stairs, side door on the ground floor.’

Rachel snatched her bag and swung herself to her feet.

Janet watched her go. Took a breath, lowered her shoulders and returned to her inbox.

The office was open-plan, not a large space, desks crammed together in pairs, each with its computer terminal and phone. There was a bigger meeting room off it, which they used for briefings. Gill had a room to herself, roughly two and a half paces from Janet’s desk. She was generally visible through the glass partition, unless she closed her blinds. It was a bad sign when the blinds went down. The team would wait, people trying to work more quietly, waiting to see who was in for a bollocking.

Gill was in before the others and Rachel was still off having her nicotine fix so Janet went straight into Gill’s office.

The DCI had barely got her coat off when Janet jumped in: ‘Why me?’

Gill froze, tilted her head to one side. ‘It’s an interesting philosophical question, kid, but you’re going to have to give me a bit more…’

‘Rachel Bailey.’

‘She’s here?’ Gill beamed.

‘I don’t want her,’ Janet said.

‘Reason?’

‘I’ve already got one teenager at home, and her sister’s in a permanent state of revolution, I can do without it at work. Why put her with me? Put her with Mitch.’

‘What’s she done to you?’ Gill was shifting through paperwork on her desk now, easing into her chair. ‘She’s only been here five minutes.’

‘Five minutes too long. Who sent her?’

‘I picked her.’

‘You picked her,’ Janet said, appalled. ‘Can’t you unpick her?’

‘She’s a bit rough around the edges,’ Gill allowed.

‘Dog rough,’ said Janet. A pit bull bitch, she thought but that seemed too harsh. Rude. ‘Give her to Pete or Lee, or any of them.’

Gill took her glasses from her case, set them down and stared at Janet for a moment, then slapped her palms on her desk. ‘She stays with you. That’s how I want it.’

‘Gill,’ Janet groaned.

‘End of.’ Gill held up her hands, brooking no further discussion.

‘Six weeks,’ Janet tried. ‘If I still feel the same…’

‘We’ll see.’

‘We’ll see!’ Janet mocked, laughing. ‘We’ll see? That’s what I say to the girls: “We’ll see.” It usually means, No, but I haven’t got the energy to argue with you now.’

‘You’ll be good for her.’ Gill slid her glasses on and began to open files on her computer.

‘Sounds like a parasitic relationship,’ Janet said.