‘Yeah, and I’d like you to use my full title, which is “acting detective inspector for the least amount of time possible or until the real boss comes back”, if you don’t mind.’
In spite of his irritation, Dawson laughed. Added authority did not sit well on Bryant’s shoulders. It wasn’t a rank he’d ever aspired to or sought. It was time to give the guy a break but the odd needle wouldn’t hurt. Just for sport.
Bryant sighed and reached for his phone. ‘Suppose we’d better start trying to track down our favourite local crime—’
Dawson cut him off. ‘She was on the phone to the boss at midnight. You really think we’re gonna have to go running to her,’ he said, just as his phone started to ring.
He looked at the screen and smiled when he saw the contact name ‘Frosty’ flashing at him. ‘Talk of the devil and she is sure to appear,’ he said, pressing the button. ‘Frost, we were just talking about you,’ he said, pleasantly.
‘Taking your bloody time, aren’t you?’ she barked in response.
He opened his mouth to respond.
‘I mean, it was you and Bryant that attended the crime scene of my colleague up on the railway tracks almost ten hours ago now, wasn’t it?’
‘Calm down, Frost, we were just—’
‘If this is the speed you’re working at without your boss no wonder Bubba was—’
‘Bubba was what, Frost?’ Dawson asked.
‘Nothing, never mind,’ she snapped. ‘I’m gonna be at Costa top of Merry Hill for the next twenty minutes. I suggest you get here before I’m done with my coffee and panini, or you guys are gonna regret it.’
The line went dead in his ear and he growled out loud. Dawson couldn’t stomach the woman at the best of times but to him that had sounded like a definite threat.
FORTY-TWO
Stacey breathed a sigh of relief once she was away from Dawson and Bryant. On one hand she was pleased that the boss had checked in with them and had treated her like the police officer she was, instead of the intimidated black woman that Dawson thought she was. The change was refreshing. This wasn’t her first interview, but it was her first time taking the lead. And yet her boss’s faith and support gnawed at Stacey’s guilt that she hadn’t been honest about looking further into Justin Reynolds’s suicide. Especially after her reaction to being left out of the loop on Bubba Jones.
Realistically she hadn’t lied but omission felt just as grubby on her skin right now.
‘All set?’ she asked Sergeant Denny Rudd. Currently deskbound following an ankle injury, he’d been volunteered to assist in the interview.
He was a tall, thin, humourless man with a set expression that never changed.
‘Yep,’ he answered, nodding towards the door of interview room one.
Stacey pushed down the door handle and strode into the room.
God help her, the first thought into her head was that he absolutely did not look like a racist. And she knew better than anyone that racism didn’t carry a badge and had no uniform.
But there was an element of safety in the assumption that hatred and bigotry came from predictable sources. Skinheads sporting swastika tattoos and crude knuckle lettering were one thing, but reasonable, educated people with such foul values was another thing entirely.
She suddenly thought of the films like Borat and Four Lions. It was acceptable to enjoy the humour in these films, as the opinions were always presented from the viewpoint of an ignorant, stupid, uneducated person.
She placed her folder on the desk and caught his wry smile. As though she’d been sent in here just to aggravate him.
‘I am Detective Constable Stacey Wood, and I’d like to ask you a few questions.’
‘About what? I’ve been charged, bailed and should now be free to go.’
‘The details of your bail conditions are just being finalised. My questions are not related specifically to the messages you sent to the Kowalski family. It concerns a comment you made to my colleagues when they placed you under arrest.’
He sat back in his chair, draped his right arm lazily across the back of the vacant chair beside him.
‘Oh yeah, what’s that?’
There was a playfulness in his eyes that stoked the nausea inside her.
Oh, how she wished he had been held in custody, but the bastard had calmly and rationally admitted his guilt to the judge and had been remanded on bail until his trial. Stacey guessed that no trial would take place. There was barely enough room in the prisons for people who committed violence, never mind the sickos that just threatened it.
‘It’s a pity you have to find somewhere else to live,’ Stacey said, trying not to respond to his arrogance. One of his bail conditions was to stay at least 500 feet from the Kowalski family.
He shrugged and Stacey knew even this wasn’t a major inconvenience to him. The house was rented, and he’d soon find another.
‘The street had gone downhill anyway,’ he said, meaningfully.
‘Excuse me?’ she said.
‘Too many new families, foreign families,’ he said, pointedly. ‘Where are you from?’ he goaded.
‘Dudley,’ she replied.
‘No, I mean, where are you really from?’
‘Now just a—’
‘It’s okay,’ Stacey said, silencing the sergeant’s protests beside her.
‘As I said, Dudley,’ she repeated, pointedly. For the first thirty seconds of entering the room even she had wondered if this was a good idea but the more she looked at this man the more he diminished before her eyes.
She was not sitting in this room as a cowed black woman.
She suddenly remembered her first day at infant school. She had been one of the first in the classroom to take a seat. Other kids had filed in and seated themselves at the tables furthest away. As more children entered the room she could see them being guided towards the table she occupied alone. She had felt the heat in her cheeks as her excitement at school had ebbed away.
As kids had struggled to fit two to a chair before being instructed by the teacher on where to sit, Stacey had found herself smiling apologetically that they’d been forced to move.
It wasn’t the only time she had found herself apologising for being black.
She was not apologising any more.
She was a police officer and a detective. And a good one at that.
‘Mr Flint, much as your views appear to be very important to you, they are of no consequence to me and have no bearing on our discussion today.’
She was surprised at the strength in her own voice.
‘What really interests me is the comment you made to my colleagues about something bigger. What did you mean?’
Again the shrug.
‘Nothing in particular,’ he said.
‘I doubt that, Mr Flint. You don’t seem too big on idle chat.’
‘Let’s just say that some people don’t stop at text messages to get their point across.’
‘You’re talking more violence?’
He leaned across the table. ‘I’m not talking about anything, except the fact there’s a lot of hate out there to be exploited.’