She had been with CID eighteen months and Greg knew she was ambitious. She was known as a clock-watcher, but not for the usual reason. Laura Best never minded staying late. She didn’t seem to notice the passing hours.
No, the secret nickname was earned because her colleagues were aware she was clock-watching her future. She had let slip that she wanted to make DI before she was twenty-eight, and there was no doubt she was in earnest. She was hell-bent on making her mark in the department. Her cases to date were not only successful, but every bit of paperwork was duplicated and put into the right hands before the cell doors had even banged shut. The fact that she was successful was largely due to her carefully vetting each case. She only coveted sure winners – quick turnovers at that – leaving the time-consuming cases to others.
She was a cool customer and admired by most other officers, but Greg was wary of her. And not because she was making her way to his rank; it had nothing to do with the job. It was personal.
‘You look haggard,’ was her first remark. ‘And you’re wearing the same clothes as last night.’
If it wasn’t personal, she would not have got away with speaking to him so casually.
‘And you, Laura, look as fresh as a daisy, as always.’
‘Maybe it’s because I work out and don’t drink and don’t smoke,’ she said, pointedly eyeing the empty Coke can on his windowsill where she knew he dropped his cigarette butts.
The police station had a strict no smoking policy, and for the most part Greg honoured the rule, only occasionally lapsing when rain was lashing outside in the early hours of the morning – like it had last night. Or following sex, which had happened on only one occasion in this office. With Laura Best.
‘So how was the mad doctor?’ she asked. ‘Did you read my report yet?’
He nodded. He’d asked for it on his return to the station last night, and he would almost have agreed with Laura’s conclusion if he hadn’t already met Dr Taylor. She didn’t seem mad. Edgy and tearful maybe, but mad? He shrugged off the uncomfortable thought.
‘So you don’t think there’s even the slightest possibility that this abduction could have happened? The search was thorough?’
‘It’s in my report. Uniform were thorough. Sergeant McIntyre would have had us look under patients’ sheets if he’d had his way. The grounds and all floors were combed.’ She laughed derisively. ‘And sure, there’s a possibility, Greg. We see this kind of thing all the time. Why, if you look out your window you may even see an elephant fly.’ She mistook his silence as approval and proceeded, without laughing, to shred the doctor’s character.
‘The woman’s deranged. Even her colleagues don’t believe it happened. Concussed is their opinion. But if you want mine?’ She drew breath, not waiting for a reply. ‘She lost a patient that day. A baby, no less. I think Dr Taylor lost the plot. One too many nasty things to deal with and her mind simply flipped. Or .?.?.’ And here she paused. ‘She’s made the whole thing up for an entirely different reason.’
Greg eyed her sternly. No matter that she made some valid points, it was the way she made them that offended him. ‘Laura, don’t assassinate the woman. Have a little compassion, why don’t you?’
Her eyes and mouth grew round with surprise. ‘Compassion! If she’s made all this up, she needs locking up. At the very least, she should be struck off. Don’t forget there are people’s lives in her hands. Would you want her looking after you?’
Greg wished he’d dug out the report himself instead of asking Laura for it. In the confines of his office, when it was just the two of them, her overfamiliarity unnerved him. He could deal with it better out on the floor among other officers, as she was not quite as outspoken, but even then he was on edge in case she opened her mouth and revealed what had taken place in this very office.
He should never have slept with her. But she’d caught him at a vulnerable time. His decree absolute had arrived the morning of that eventful day, and a sense of failure coupled with too much alcohol had made him seek the warmth and reassurance of another woman. Six months ago he had handed her a powerful weapon. One that could easily end his career, if she ever decided to tell anyone.
‘She’s dealing with stuff that you and I couldn’t even begin to understand,’ he said, trying to reason with her. ‘The nearest you or I get to see what she has to cope with are the ones we find barely hanging on to life. But she’s the one who saves them. Or doesn’t.’
‘Which is exactly my point,’ she answered crisply. ‘She’s dealing with so much bloody trauma that she’s imagined some horror happening to herself.’ She turned to leave and then slowly turned back. Her eyes raked over his dishevelment – his face in need of a shave, his hair in need of a cut, and the grubby tie hanging loose around his neck. ‘And now she’s calling us in again for a so-called murder? I’d think about pressing charges for wasting police time, if I were you.’
After she had gone, Greg felt a bitter taste in his mouth. He stood by the window of his office and gazed out at the city where he was born. Bath, a city so beautiful and unique it was designated a World Heritage Site, home to the rich and genteel for two thousand years. Jane Austen, Thomas Gainsborough and Beau Nash had no doubt drunk or relaxed in its curative waters. Waking up to a new day, the outline of the Georgian buildings was as familiar to him as his right hand, but it didn’t give him a sense of belonging any more.
Home no longer felt like home. Laura Best’s presence was a thorn in his side and, come the New Year, he would have to make some decisions. Either she left or he did.
He was a decade older than she was and he still had ambitions of his own. But this situation was beginning to sap his strength. He should never have slept with her and that was a fact.
He was tired, and thoughts like this were not healthy right now. He had paperwork on the Amy Abbott case to sort out and her post-mortem to attend. Turning away from the window, he set his mind back to work.
*