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FIFTY-THREE

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By early afternoon most of the camera crews had gone and so had Rosie Ellis and Flynn McCann. Northwest Area Command was bulging with officers, wanting to get ring-side seats for Hackett’s return to work party. Malin almost sagged from exhaustion.

She watched Temeke standing in the doorway of a cell and bundling Tiny Woodrow back in for another night.

“Son,” he said with a steady voice. “One baggy of heroin, four baggies of marijuana, two metal spoons, a hypodermic needle, a glass pipe and a digital scale doesn’t make you innocent. What’s a patrol officer to think? And pull those sodding pants up!”

Malin heard the loud clang of the door and Temeke stared at the ceiling for a time, shaking his head. “I wish the judge would keep him in. Tiny had a fourteen-year-old female with him this time. She’ll have lost all her teeth by the time she’s twenty.”

“You know as well as I do, sir, she’ll lose more than her teeth.”

Malin felt Temeke’s hand on the small of her back as he steered her toward the conference room. He kept looking at her nose, which seemed to be crying out for the urgent attention of a handkerchief.

“Blimey, Marl, hasn’t the office got enough germs without you bringing yours in as well.”

“It’s allergies,” she said, grabbing a tissue from Maggie’s desk on the way past. “I guess you Brits don’t get them.”

“I get dry eyes,” he said, looking down at a text on his phone and tapping out a response. He was grinning again. It had to have been from Serena.

“I’m happy for you,” Malin said, hearing the disappointment in her voice.

“Honestly, I’ve been awake for two days now, running on fumes and the joy of receiving another text from Serena. I really think it’s going to work this time.”

“When are you seeing her?”

“Tomorrow lunch.”

Malin swore she saw white for just a second and forced out a few more words. “Take it slow, sir.”

Temeke paused as if thinking. “I don’t want to listen to everyone simpering over Hackett’s injuries, or get taken hostage in there. I want to get back to work, back to normal.”

“You think someone’s going to say something about Hammond, don’t you?”

“I know someone is.”

“I talked to Suzi,” Malin said. “So she wouldn’t go crying to Fowler. I feel ashamed to be honest. She’s good at leading large investigations. She set up all the groups, the press conferences, did all the things we normally do. So why did I instigate a wall-pissing contest?”

“Because it’s satisfying.” Temeke put on his serious face. “Because you feel bloody insecure and you don’t want her to take your job. Maybe we should both stop making erroneous snap judgments and giving everyone else the finger.”

Malin let her shoulders relax as they turned the corridor toward the conference room. “I’m a pitiful creature.”

“I should say.” He waited for the obligatory chuckle. “Perk up, love. It could be worse.”

“You mean Fowler?”

“Hackett’s not going to last forever. As much as we love him.”

Malin knew when that time came and Fowler took over from Hackett, Temeke would retire. She just knew it in the pit of her gut.

“Looks like you’ve got a nice new boyfriend―”

“Boyfriend?” she asked.

Temeke pointed at a young man with schoolboy looks leaning cockily against the door frame of the conference room. He was gripping a box of chocolates.

“It’s only Matt.” Malin grinned in spite of herself.

“Nice big box. Is he trying to save your soul?”

“I’d need a bigger box than that, sir.”

Matt with the mischievous eyes and long eyelashes, and that seriously cute stutter. He handed Malin the chocolates, eyes burning into her cheek until she asked him what was the matter.

“You’re the talk of the town,” he whispered, reeling off a few more words. “Thought it might be a good idea to get a closer look. Stake my claim before someone else does.”

Malin pressed her lips together to crush another grin. It was flattering and now she was embarrassed at how far gone she was, how the adrenaline sneaked up through her gut and made her shiver. A nice regular guy like Matt.

She saw Maggie Watts leaning in over the board room table and acquainting herself with the Krispy Kremes. Captain Fowler tried to snag a look down her bullet-proof vest and Malin wasn’t the only person to have noticed. Suzi gave her a whatcha gonna do? shrug as she smiled over the rim of her coffee. At least there would be no more tight-lipped looks in the breakroom and for what it was worth, Malin felt like she’d climbed Mount Everest and come back down the other side. And Matt? He was already flitting in and out of her life and she liked it.

Temeke looked around the room, having identified a bad case of flatulence from the first sniff. It was K-9 Brock who lay outstretched under the table amid a semi-circle of crumbs. He was wagging his tail and panting.

The magic was temporarily suspended by Hackett’s entrance, a hobbled walk with the aid of a silver topped cane. Malin felt sorry. Everyone did. There was a scraping of chairs and a few raised cups of coffee. Shouts of ‘cheers’ and ‘congratulations’. The admin, Sandra Buckingham, handed him a cupcake with a candle speared into the icing. It was the first time Malin saw Hackett peer over his half-moon glasses and grin. Sandra took the cashmere coat from his shoulders and folded it over the back of the chair with practiced care. She gave it three loving pats.

“Good to be back,” Hackett said, taking a seat. “I’m proud of you. All of you. I would like to personally commend Detective Cornwell on a job well done. You should be proud of your team, ma’am.”

“To the golden girl,” Fowler said, smug tones carrying around the room. He didn’t break eye contact with Suzi even when he raised his cup. “She was asking me earlier about a red Cutlass, sir. Thought maybe Temeke had employed a PI because he didn’t think she was capable.”

All eyes were on Temeke as he gave a noncommittal grunt. Malin knew his face was a mask of fury and his lips were probably mouthing slimebag. She didn’t need to look.

“I believe Detective Cornwell is one of the most capable members on this team,” Temeke said, staring straight at Suzi. “Why would I doubt her?”

Fowler widened his eyes in a question. “Doubt her? My ass. You can pretend all you want, Temeke. You were hoping she would screw up.”

Hackett stepped in, palms up. “This is no place for petty jealousy, Captain. And I won’t have Temeke sweating under a light bulb. You will congratulate him.”

With all due respect, Malin wanted to respond. Temeke won’t sweat because he won’t bite. He’s not a game player. She could see the left side of his face sliding into a smile as he leaned back with his arms crossed. Way too relaxed for an angry man.

Fowler let out a gust of air and ended up studying his well-shined shoes for nearly five seconds before he offered a limp congratulatory comment. It would be hard for him to sustain any more hatred over Temeke’s winning smile. Everyone clapped and Suzi glanced at Temeke over the knuckled hand under her chin. She whispered something to Hackett that was drowned over the sound of cheering. Malin couldn’t make it out, especially with Jarvis shaking a tumbler of ice behind her.

Hackett peered over his half-moon glasses. “Has Mr. McCann been transported?”

“Yes, sir,” Temeke said. “I told him he’d be bunking with Stretch Gains, the guy who gets catcalls in the pods and on the yards. I think they’ll get along. He said he was proud of what he had achieved. Proud of the many years proving himself at work. He asked if I understood how hard that was? If it wasn’t for Detective Santiago I don’t think we would have got a confession. He bawled like a baby on the way to jail. Especially the part where Detective Santiago reminded him covering up a crime was a stupid idea. Had he left the scene and called us he’d still have a career. You know what he said? He said, I may rot in a cell for the rest of my life, but at least I have the satisfaction of knowing she’s in hell.”

There were murmurs and groans and plenty of head shaking until Hackett raised a hand. “Detective Santiago, do you have anything to add?”

Nerves wracked Malin’s body but she forced the words out. There had been little mention of Rosie Ellis’ involvement until now.

“Apart from the great work our technicians did,” she said, sneaking a look at Matt, “Detective Temeke found something else. Although we had enough fingerprints to pin on Rosie Ellis there was the question of a poem left in the McCann mailbox. Temeke found a diary Ms. Ellis had written. Inside were love poems, all typewritten and dated. She admitted to hand delivering a poem to the McCann mailbox at least once a week hoping Flynn would come home. We will never know if Mrs. McCann read them or whether she knew who they were from. But the last poem conveyed a darker side. The words dead cold did not refer to meth as Mr. Jaynes had assumed, but to the cold nature of Flynn McCann.”

The conference room emptied after the cake was gone, donuts scattered, plastic cups piled in a small pyramid in the trash. Each officer going his own way. Back to work. Out in the field.

Malin walked Matt to the front door and they stood on the front steps for a while.

“Thank you for the mention,” Matt said. “I’d like to take you out for lunch.”

Malin nodded, felt his lips brush against her cheek and watched him drive away.

The wind seemed to swallow the sound of the parking gate as it opened and Temeke powered down the driver’s window as he idled alongside the curb. “Righto, where to, Marl?”

She grinned and jumped into the passenger seat, glad to clear her head. It had taken a few months to fall into an instinctive groove, to read his face, to pick up on his quirks. She turned up the dial on the radio and listened as it crackled into life. She knew he’d want to listen. They both held their breath.

“Sounds like an abandoned car near the north diversion channel,” Malin said. “Alameda and Edith. Missing teenager, sir.”