‘Permission to just follow yow two around for the day?’ Stacey asked, smirking at them both.
‘Victim first,’ Bryant confirmed. ‘Need his full account of the incident so we know what needs corroborating.’
Dawson thought for a moment.
‘Okay, victim first,’ he agreed.
Bryant wondered if every minor decision was going to result in disagreement and debate.
He stood up and grabbed his jacket.
God help them when it came to deciding on lunch.
TEN
Kim pulled up at the address given to her by Woody, the day before. The semi-detached property, complete with box porch, lay on a small housing estate in Blakedown, an area between Hagley and Kidderminster. The house was as she’d expected it to be: bland and uninspiring; completely reflective of its owner, she decided grumpily.
The morning had not started well due to a sudden freeze during the night which had left her eleven-year-old Golf GTI wearing an ice jacket. Cars with a decade under their belts didn’t do anything automatically so she’d grabbed the scraper and de-icer and broke it free.
The pipes in her house had frozen as though this first freeze of the winter had taken them by surprise, and her last bottle of water had been poured into Barney’s bowl.
If she believed in kismet, she’d think the universe was preparing her for the day ahead with Detective Inspector Travis.
Their text conversation the previous evening had been brief and direct, the syllables counted on the fingers of one hand. Clearly, he was as excited as she was at the prospect of them working together. But like her, had probably been told there was no choice.
Travis’s familiar form stepped out, attired in black trousers, black tie, white shirt and navy fleece: the uniform that had followed him throughout his career as a detective.
Kim couldn’t help but feel that a fleece prevented any clothes from looking smart.
His height was similar to Bryant’s six foot, but Tom was much broader, more bear-like than her colleague. His hair was now more salt than pepper and the short beard almost white.
He turned his back on her as a woman appeared in the doorway. They hugged briefly before he turned her way.
There was no acknowledgment of her presence, and his face was set as he strolled down the path.
Kim sighed heavily.
He opened the car door and folded himself into the passenger seat.
Kim glanced his way. ‘Look, Tom, I’m sure we feel the same way about—’
‘Don’t speak to me about anything other than the case,’ he said, staring straight ahead.
‘I’d be happier not to speak to you at all,’ she retorted. ‘But I’m not sure that’s what our bosses had in mind.’
Happy that the olive branch had been well and truly snapped in her face, she put the car into gear and pulled away.
Yes, kismet had definitely been trying to give her the heads-up.
Kim decided to remain in her own head as she headed towards Kidderminster Police Station: a thin sliver of a building that was flat-faced, three storeys high and eighteen windows to its length.
West Mercia was the fourth largest force in the country. Covering 2,868 miles of Herefordshire, Shropshire and Worcestershire, serving a population of 1.19 million, with almost two and a half thousand officers.
It differed from her own force as it covered both densely populated areas, like Telford and Shrewsbury, as well as sparsely populated rural areas.
She parked the car and followed Travis into the station.
He stopped at the front desk to pick up her temporary identification, which she took without speaking and jammed into her pocket.
He offered a few nods as they worked their way through the building, pausing to introduce her to no one. The strange looks she received made her feel like a curiosity or a suspect at his side.
The low hum of conversation stopped completely as they entered the detective’s squad room.
Kim was immediately struck by the difference in layout to her own set-up.
For a start, the room was four times bigger than the one at Halesowen. The wall opposite the door held a total of eight wipe boards fixed together to make one long board. Two doorways were cut into the top wall like a pair of ears.
The left led to an office, and the right appeared to be a small kitchen.
But what she didn’t like was that the eight desks, four on each side of the room, all faced towards the front, like a classroom.
There were no prizes for guessing who stood beside the small square table at the top that was holding a single pot plant with purple blooms.
Five of the desks were occupied, and ten curious eyes rested on her as she followed Travis down the aisle that separated them.
‘Weird floor plan,’ she said, following him inside the solid walls from where he could see a whole lot of nothing.
‘All eyes focussed on the boards,’ he said, shortly.
Like detention, Kim thought.
Her own view was that if it took staring at a wipe board to keep their concentration they were in some bloody trouble.
‘Do you always?…’
‘Look, Stone. You run your team and I’ll run mine, okay?’ he snapped.
She’d only wanted to know if he always briefed at nine o’clock. It was beginning to feel like half the day was already gone.
She offered no reply and waited while he gathered papers and a clipboard.
Eventually he headed out of the office and across to the head of the room. Kim put her hands in her front pockets and leaned against the door frame.
Travis began the briefing by introducing her. She guessed he’d explained the situation to his team, as she had to hers. Once he had offered her a name for each of his team she nodded in their general direction. She received a half smile from the single female in the room. The ratio saddened her.
Travis rubbed his hands in front of him. ‘Okay, guys and… girls,’ he said, nodding towards Lynda with a smile.
She rolled her eyes in response.
‘We’ll do a quick catch-up before I ask you all to hand in your homework. And first we’ll go to… Gibbs,’ he said, casting his eyes around the room and landing on the smartly dressed man in his early forties.
‘Yeah, pick on the guy in the suit,’ Gibbs offered.
Travis held up a hand and addressed the team. ‘I think we can all work out that Gibbs has court this afternoon,’ he said, raising one eyebrow.
A few chuckles sounded around the room.
‘Go on,’ Travis urged.
Kim could not tear her eyes away from her former colleague. This was not the man she had fought with across crime scenes for the last few years. It was not the man who had shown up yesterday, and it certainly wasn’t the man she’d driven in to work ten minutes earlier.
But it was the man she remembered working with.
‘Finally got a full confession last night from Dalglish,’ Gibbs answered. ‘Admitted to driving the car in three of the four robberies. Insisted he didn’t do the fourth but gave us the name of the kid that did.’
Travis nodded with satisfaction. ‘And?…’