An Unlikely Pairing

Allan Chisolm surveyed the mass of paperwork spread over his desk. Changed days. Talk about effective policing! He hardly made it out of the office any more. To add to his team’s caseload, now there was this blessed Struthers case.

With a sigh, he pushed the file he’d been working on to one side and picked up the box of TicTacs he kept on his desktop. Eeeny-meeny, he juggled it back and forth between his hands. Could be something, could be nothing. Who knows? What he did know for sure was it had taken up far too much time – his and that of a load of overworked and underpaid detectives. Might be time to put some pressure on – he weighed the box in one hand – see what they could come up with before they called it a day.

There was a tentative tap on the door.

‘Enter.’

The door opened. A young civilian officer crept into the room.

‘Well?’ Chisolm looked up.

‘I’ve a message for you, sir. Call came in while you were upstairs. I didn’t think you’d want to be interrupted.’ Apologetic look.

‘No.’

There was silence, then: ‘Out with it.’

‘It was from ARI, sir. To do with a Mrs Sheena Struthers,’ the girl broke off, blushing to the roots of her hair.

‘And?’

‘They’re saying she’s regained consciousness.’

‘Right.’ Chisolm turned his attention back to the reports in front of him.

The officer stood, waiting for further instructions.

He looked up. ‘Off you go then.’

‘Sir.’ She scuttled out of the room.

After the balls-up uniform had made of the call-out to Milltimber, he’d best send somebody sensible to take a statement from Sheena Struthers. If the husband was a big wheel in the city, upstairs wouldn’t want the guy kicking up. He performed a mental head-count of his officers: Wood and Duffy he dismissed as being too old-school. When he’d first taken up his post, Chisolm had toyed with the idea of sending the pair on a Diversity Awareness Course, concluded it was way too late. Dunn, he decided, was a tad too brash to interview the older woman. That left Burnett and Strachan.

Flipping open the perspex lid with his thumb, Chisolm tipped a couple of mints into his mouth. It was over a year since he’d stopped smoking – just one of the things he’d sloughed off when he’d turned his back on Glasgow. Or had it turned its back on him? He uttered a rueful snort. Who knows?

Burnett would do the job, he chewed thoughtfully. Bit buttoned-up, but he’d get a result. Chisolm wondered if his sergeant had always been that unforthcoming, or whether the fallout from the marriage break-up – Chisolm had heard the stories – had caused the man to retreat into himself…

Chisolm swallowed down the last of the mints. That wee girl, Strachan, though… She might only be a DC, but she’d shown real insight since she joined his squad.

Wasn’t it always the same? The female recruits were invariably more collected: didn’t feel the need to strut their stuff, not like the blokes. Not unless…

His face creased into a grin, as he remembered the dyke from his last posting. Talk about gay pride! The woman was aggression writ large: tried at every turn to shove her sexuality down your throat. The complete opposite of that Laird woman.

Maggie Laird. The grin vanished from Chisolm’s face. All that soft femininity. The last time he’d called on her, he thought she’d got the message: if she must play private detective, she’d have to confine herself to more mundane things in future. She’d taken it on the chin, and he’d warmed to her, then, even toyed with the idea of asking her out. Nothing heavy. A casual drink, maybe, just to break the ice. But that was before she turned up again like a bad penny, looking to gate-crash police enquiries at will.

Chisolm couldn’t imagine anyone trying that sort of thing on in Glasgow, least of all some pint-sized female. As for the other dame? Jesus! She was a joke. The DI had only seen the neighbour in passing, but to say the two were an unlikely pairing was putting it mildly. Women! He stroked his chin.

Still…Strachan. She’d earned her credentials on the Seaton case, the insight she’d shown into that Fatboy bastard’s make-up, her compassion towards those toe-rags. Maybe she’d be the one could get into Sheena Struthers’ head.

He’d give the wee girl a chance.

He reached for the phone.