5

Friday 11 July 2014

Lizzie Griffiths’ mood was changing as subtly as ink spreading in water. Kieran, his hand on the small of her back, had become still but did not move, his eyes firmly shut as if he must concentrate on some flavour that was fading. He opened his eyes slowly and looked at her. ‘Lizzie,’ he said and smiled and rolled away onto his back. He stretched out his arms and legs.

Lizzie looked up at the ceiling. ‘I have to renounce you.’

Kieran smiled. ‘Renounce me?’

She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. ‘Yes. I must.’

‘I’ve not been renounced before. Where did you get that from?’

She smiled and dismissed her own seriousness. ‘It’s Jane Eyre. I did it for A level.’

He rolled up and sat on the edge of the bed, pulled on his boxers. ‘Too highbrow for me, I’m afraid. Anyway, you’ll have to renounce me later. We need to get a move on.’

He moved around the room, rolling deodorant, pulling on jeans. Lizzie watched him. There was that police officer’s tan from below the shirt line, and the rose tattoo on his bicep. It was an unashamed cliché and yet it was beautiful: a fairy-tale rose. That was Kieran: he could grasp the good things without shame. Perhaps when she had tired of the tattoo, she would have tired of him.

There was a latency about his body, a suggestion of power and some sort of hidden clarity about himself that she felt she lacked. She wanted to wrap herself up in it. His jeans fell down his stomach, just below his navel. Even though they had only just finished, she could begin again. Still there remained a moment between them that she couldn’t erase. It was after Hadley and Farah had died. She’d been on the run and – for all the talk, all the emotion – they’d stood together alone in a field and he’d winnowed it down to the most essential matter of survival. Don’t think you can drag me down with you, because you can’t. She’d had a piece of wood in her hands that she’d been stripping away, and she’d tasted bark and misery in her mouth.

He turned and looked at her again with a kind smile. ‘You’re really sad.’

She shrugged. It had only been a moment, after all, and things had been desperate. There were other, better moments that surely outweighed it. When the initial investigation was over and they’d decided she should face no charges, she’d become ill. Signed off sick, she’d spent months living alone in a friend’s caravan on the out-of-season English coast. Kieran had been worried, even his unassailable confidence shaken by her fragility. The brief chill between them was long gone. He’d been all concern, had found the time to be with her. She’d felt his warmth. It was real, just as real as that moment of coldness. He knew how to do this – the looking-after bit. He’d visited her, taken her out for meals in empty seaside cafés, sitting at laminated tables drinking cocoa and walking down the beach with her in the brisk, salty wind.

Now they were in a new phase. After the misconduct hearing, the Kieran–Lizzie relationship internal press release appeared to be headlined Lizzie is moving on! They didn’t talk about it, perhaps because they knew that if they dipped below the headline, they might still not agree.

Kieran threw her one of his T-shirts and pulled her change of shirt out of her bag.

‘I’ll iron this for you.’

Moving across the hallway to the bathroom, she heard the sounds of 1970s soul, a twanging guitar, a soulful voice, a funky beat. She couldn’t recognize the song at first, then realized it was Marvin Gaye. ‘Let’s Get It On.’ She looked to her right into the sitting room. Kieran was facing her, doing soul moves in front of the ironing board, stepping from side to side, holding the iron in his right hand but stretching his free arm out and moving it across his body. He danced well and with humour. She shouldn’t be so serious! He flicked the iron off at the wall and beckoned her over in time to the music.

She smiled in spite of herself and turned away from him.

She stood in the shower with her eyes closed, the warm water sluicing over her. She dried herself, brushed her teeth.

This was Kieran’s London flat, ostensibly just a place he crashed when he was on duty. His wife and daughter were in some little country place near Lewes. He’d taken the framed photograph of his daughter down from the wall, but Lizzie knew it was hidden away somewhere, easily recovered and hung back up. There was probably one of his wife too. But it wasn’t only that he was married: secrets were his temperament, as much a part of him as rugby or fishing were a part of other men. He had returned to that other world, the covert world that he had been deployed to before he took promotion and was – briefly – her inspector on a uniformed response team. He didn’t tell her anything about his new deployment. He was someone who could never share himself entirely. She suspected he would always need secret places, more than one phone.

She emerged from the bathroom. The ironing board had gone. Her shirt was hanging from the door lintel. Otis Redding now – ‘These Arms Of Mine’. Kieran’s eyes were closed, his arms folded round his body and he was dancing as if with himself. He opened one eye and beckoned her over.

She said, ‘We’ll be late.’

He wagged his index finger in teasing disagreement. That was Kieran: the moment, the moment. She turned to grab a quick coffee from the kitchen, but he put his arms around her and moved her from side to side in time with him.

‘I’ll be late.’

He kissed her, whispering into her neck. ‘You can be five minutes late. I’ll drive you.’

She turned to him and danced close, leaning into him, inhaling him.

She climbed into the Land Rover Discovery. He turned the engine over and told her to look inside the glove compartment. There was a copy of the previous day’s newspaper.

‘Page two,’ he said, indicating and pulling away.

She turned to the article that reported the IPCC’s findings.

She asks to now be left in peace to continue her career.

Left in peace. Whoever had come up with that bloody ridiculous phrase?

‘You’re out of the woods,’ Kieran said, glancing at her. There he was again; didn’t want to hear her doubts and equivocations.

‘Look, I’m not free tonight,’ he said. ‘But Wednesday you’re working a late turn. Pack a bag and I’ll pick you up from work.’

They pulled up outside her new nick and he did something he had never done before: when he leaned over to kiss her, he said, ‘It’s a pain in the neck, but I think I love you.’

She stepped down from the Land Rover and he drove away, leaving her with the sudden loneliness of the pavement. It wasn’t fair for him to say I love you. The phrase claimed its own echo and she had wanted to say it. I love you too. But how could she offer herself up to him like that? He probably couldn’t meet her tonight because he was going home to his wife and daughter.

Her phone rang. It was Ash. ‘Sorry, darling. It’s Brannon. Urgent application to dismiss. You need to get to court on the hurry-up.’

All the job cars were already taken. She raced over on the tube, completed the fifteen-minute walk to the court in just ten, her step hovering on the edge of a run. She swore she’d never wear heels again. Her jacket felt tight across the shoulders. She wanted to take it off but worried about the pools of sweat that must have formed under her arms and down her back.

It was a new court to her and there was no one at the reception desk. She followed one of the gowned barristers as he walked quickly through the marbled atrium. Outside the numbered courts, people waited. Through a locked door she could see people queuing for a photocopier. She showed her warrant card and entered the offices of the Crown Prosecution Service.

The desks were piled high with files. Defence briefs lingered, irritating the prosecutors with jibes, goading and complaining about not receiving the information they required. Why was everything so last-minute? One of the clerks pointed out a small, thin man – early sixties, dandruff on his gowned shoulders – as the prosecutor tasked with fighting Brannon’s application to dismiss. He was bent over a page, wig beside him on the desk, reading intently as if in some sort of bizarre Olympic sprint sport. His right hand, holding a fountain pen, twitched as if it wished to advance ahead of his eyes.

Lizzie moved over and stood beside him. He didn’t speak or look up. If anything, his concentration increased.

She said, ‘Um, Lizzie Griffiths, I’m the officer in the case for Brannon. It’s the application to dismiss?’

He didn’t even glance at her.

‘Court Five. It may be a while before you’re needed. You’ve time to grab a coffee.’

‘Anything you need to know? You’ve seen his previous?’

‘It’s all here. I’m reading it now.’

‘Can you tell me anything about his grounds for dismissal?’

‘I’m sorry, no.’

‘I just wanted to say—’

‘I’m pushed for time.’

‘Yes . . . that in spite of the victim’s reluctance, I really think we should proceed.’

The lawyer darted a piercing look at her. He had clever dark beads instead of eyes.

‘One other thing, before you go and get that coffee. Please don’t talk to the victim if she’s in court.’

The sharp warning look he had given her had only been momentary. He buried his head back in the case file.

Lizzie said, ‘Why’s that?’

The prosecutor’s head didn’t move but she could see he wasn’t reading. He wanted her to go away.

‘I can’t discuss it. You can be expected to be called to give evidence. Wait outside the court until you are requested.’

Outside the court? Why outside?

He put his elbows on the desk and both hands to his temples as if to close out all distractions. She lingered for a moment, uncertain, then drifted away into the communal areas of the court. Georgina was there with Skye and her friend Marley. They looked at her with an intensity that was unsettling and she remembered she wasn’t supposed to have any contact with Georgina. She walked away to the canteen on the first floor.

She stood at the window and looked out over the street, where building works were in progress, a crane’s arm swinging a heavy concrete block into place. The court tannoy sounded.

PC Griffiths to Court Five, please. PC Griffiths to Court Five.

Lizzie followed the usher, a plump woman in a black gown, towards the witness stand. She stepped into the box, rested her hands on the shelf in front of her and took the oath. Marley, she noticed, was in the public gallery. Brannon, in the dock, gave her one of his aggressive, winning smiles.

The judge – a thin white woman with baggy eyes and a big nose – leaned forward. ‘We have something a little unusual before us today. It’s taken me quite a long time to decide how we should proceed.’

‘Ma’am.’

‘My concern is that you should not be intimidated by what follows, do you see?’

A stupid phrase came into Lizzie’s head. I attend upon your honour. She almost laughed. In her nervousness she was in danger of falling into some kind of cod court protocol. Still, you couldn’t say, Sorry, I don’t get you to a judge. She couldn’t think of an answer so she didn’t say anything, just waited.

The judge smiled. ‘Of course you don’t see. I haven’t explained yet. It seems the victim has been moved to make certain serious allegations against you . . .’

Allegations?

Lizzie’s heart was suddenly hammering.

‘As the accused is currently remanded on this matter, I feel it incumbent to hear these accusations promptly. However, I am mindful of your own circumstances. Ideally, you would have been afforded legal advice.’

Legal advice?

‘In a moment, the barrister who acts on behalf of the accused will examine you. He will begin that examination with the caution and advise you that, should you wish to stop to seek legal advice, then that is your right. That’s not just form. If at any point during this examination you consider that you do require representation, I want you to turn to me and request that I stop proceedings.’

Lizzie took a deep breath.

‘OK.’ Then she added as an afterthought, ‘Your honour.’ She blushed, put her hands on her legs to calm herself.

‘Are you ready to begin?’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

As she turned her head to face the defending barrister, Lizzie closed her eyes briefly so that she would not see, even for an instant, Brannon’s grinning face. She would not look at him, or at Marley with her spiteful stare, but she did glance at the prosecutor. His hands were resting on the desk and he appeared to be gazing down steadfastly at them. Whatever it was, she couldn’t expect any help from him. She was on her own.

The defending barrister, a blowsy, hearty woman in her fifties who kept rearranging her gown as if she couldn’t quite work out how to settle it on her large breasts, began.

‘Police Constable Griffiths, you don’t have to say anything but it may harm your defence if you do not mention now anything which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence. You have a right to legal advice and we can stop these proceedings for you to seek that advice. Do you understand the caution?’

‘Yes.’

The woman adjusted her gown.

‘Officer, last year you were implicated in the deaths of two people, PC Hadley Matthews and Farah Mehenni, who fell to their deaths from a tower block in London.’

A flush of heat passed through Lizzie. She wanted to get out of the box, yes, and insist on this legal advice the judge had offered, but somehow she was trapped here, imprisoned by form, her job, by herself. If she stopped the trial everyone would know. There would be a big kerfuffle, rumours spreading through her colleagues like wind over grass. She wouldn’t be able to bear all those terrible hushed conversations behind closed police doors, the sudden silence when she stepped into a room, the fear and anxiety that would haunt her once more. She knew too that in all the heat and light, the prosecution against Brannon would be lost to the suddenly more compelling question of whether she was in some way guilty of misconduct.

‘Would you answer the question, please?’

‘Could you repeat it?’

‘Last year you were implicated—’

‘No.’

‘No?’

‘No, no, I wasn’t. I was not implicated in their deaths. I was present at their deaths but there was no finding of misconduct against me.’

The barrister shuffled her papers.

‘OK, so not implicated. Shall we say involved, then?’

‘No, let’s not. I was not involved either.’

‘You were there?’

‘I was there.’

‘And how did it come about that you were there—’

The judge interrupted. ‘Counsel, I can’t see what relevance this line of questioning has to the matter before us . . .’

‘Your honour, I am just trying to establish that this officer’s record is not unblemished.’

‘If I may say, counsel, you are not establishing that. In fact you are establishing the opposite.’ She turned to Lizzie, a firm hand offered to a woman who was struggling in quicksand. ‘Officer, to complete this line of questioning. Do you have any disciplinary or criminal findings against you?’

‘No, your honour.’

Lizzie’s nose was stinging and she could feel a painful heat behind her eyes. She was overcome by a memory, that last irremediable sight of Hadley and Farah before they fell, both framed by the intense blue of the sky behind them. She had been cleared of misconduct, yes, but that didn’t mean she didn’t feel responsible. She rubbed the back of her neck, took a sip of water.

She glimpsed Brannon and his tormenting grin. He’d managed to turn the tables on her.

The judge spoke. ‘Officer, are you able to continue?’

Lizzie felt her feet on the ground, the cheap veneered wood of the lectern under her hands.

‘Yes, ma’am.’

‘Counsel, if you would resume.’

‘Officer, the complainant in this matter, Miss Georgina Teel, has told the court that you have put undue pressure on her to give evidence against the defendant, her partner, Mr Brannon.’

‘Has she?’

‘In the manner of all those war films, officer, I am the one asking the questions. However, we’ll make an exception today. Yes, indeed she has.’

The barrister smiled at her own joke. She was probably quite fun when she had a big glass of red wine in her hand. But Lizzie remembered Kieran standing by a stream while she stripped the bark from a piece of birch and her mouth filled with earth. If you learn only one thing then let it be this: never give the bastards anything. Maybe he’d not been so cold after all. Maybe he’d just been right.

She looked at Brannon, tasted the pungent smell of alcohol and male sweat that had come off him the morning after he had assaulted Georgina. Now Georgina had made an allegation against the very person who had tried to help her.

Die then, Georgina. Go ahead and die.

She had almost said it out loud.

‘You understand that this is a serious allegation, officer?’

‘Oh yes. Serious, but baseless.’

‘Baseless?’

‘Entirely.’

‘We’ll just go over the detail. Mr Brannon says that when he was in custody he tried to talk to you about his love for his family but you were dismissive. What would you say your attitude was?’

‘It is not my business to have a view about Mr Brannon’s feelings for his family. They don’t affect the investigation one way or the other.’

‘Answer the question, please. Mr Brannon says you were rude. How would you describe your demeanour?’

‘Professional.’

‘Mr Brannon says he got the distinct impression that you were not treating this investigation professionally. That it had become personal for you. That you in fact personally disliked him.’

The judge interrupted. ‘Is there a question coming any time soon, counsel?’

‘Yes, your honour, immediately. PC Griffiths, how would you describe your attitude to Mr Brannon?’

‘Professional.’

That word, professional: it was becoming, Lizzie realized with a bitter smile, her own version of no comment.

‘Professional?’

‘Yes.’

The judge clicked her biro open and shut on the desk impatiently. ‘A word you might be minded to take to heart, counsel. Have we covered this now?’

‘We have indeed, ma’am. Apologies. And what was your attitude towards Georgina, officer?’

Lizzie remembered Brannon’s cheerful recitation of no comment. She turned her hands outwards in a gesture of bemusement, smiled broadly at Brannon and said, ‘Well, I’d have to say, it was professional.’

Then she remembered that she was still wearing Skye’s loom band on her wrist.

‘Georgina says you pressured her. You wouldn’t allow her friend Marley to remain with her.’

‘Marley would not provide me with her details. I did not know what her relationship was to the defendant or the complainant. I had the impression that if anyone was putting pressure on Georgina it was Marley, and of course the defendant himself, Mr Brannon.’

‘Marley was there to support her friend. Did you offer the complainant any alternative when you excluded her? Ms Teel is a vulnerable young woman, as you must be aware.’

‘She is vulnerable, yes.’

‘Answer the question. Did you offer any alternative to Marley?’

‘No. I took a withdrawal statement from the complainant and I asked her whether she would like me to refer her to a domestic violence agency, someone disconnected from the investigation who could talk to her in confidence.’

‘And why did you do that?’

‘She was distressed.’

‘Oh, she was distressed.’

‘Of course she was. She didn’t want to break up her family. She said her partner, Mr Brannon, was only violent when he was drunk.’

The judge intervened. ‘Police Constable Griffiths, I must stop you. We are not here to examine the evidence in this matter, only the admission of that evidence. Your last comment was, in any case, hearsay.’

‘I’m sorry, your honour.’

The defending barrister shrugged her slipping gown back onto her shoulders and scanned her notes. ‘So you admit Georgina was distressed?’

‘I can’t see why that is an admission.’

‘I’ll explain then. Georgina was distressed and you didn’t stop to consider how this might affect her evidence? That perhaps she needed independent support when she was talking to police.’

‘I was only taking a withdrawal statement.’

‘But you were trying to persuade her to give evidence.’

‘But not trying to persuade her to give evidence that would be untruthful.’

‘And Ms Teel’s daughter, Skye, was with her.’

‘At times. Most of the time she was in her room.’

‘Did you suggest that Miss Teel needed to consider Skye when she decided whether or not to give evidence against her partner?’

The questions had come so quickly. Lizzie hadn’t been able to think or to follow the direction of the barrister’s questions. Suddenly she grasped the nature of the accusation: that she had threatened Georgina over the custody of Skye in order to force her to give evidence against Brannon. That was why the judge had offered her legal representation. If substantiated, it was a criminal offence. What was the legislation? Would it be intimidation of a witness . . . perverting the course of justice, maybe. The ground had shifted. She, not Brannon, was the person in danger in this courtroom. She tried to remember the detail of the conversation she had had with Georgina. Skye had given her the loom band. They had both relaxed, that was it. And then she had said . . . she had said . . . what exactly?

‘Officer?’

Lizzie looked up. The prosecution barrister was watching her intently. Never lie: that was something she had learned. Never, ever lie. ‘I made a general comment. It wasn’t about her giving evidence. I said she needed to consider the welfare of her daughter. Skye had been crying, you see. That was what prompted it.’

‘Go on.’

‘I was speaking generally. I said it was not good for Skye to be around violence . . .’ The judge was making a note. Lizzie felt the matter slipping away from her. ‘I was speaking generally. We have a duty of care to victims of domestic violence and to children.’

‘Did you go on to talk about social services?’

‘I did not.’

‘You didn’t? Really?’

The danger of even the slightest misrepresentation was etched on Lizzie’s heart: put yourself before everything, even a successful prosecution. Tell the truth. Tell the truth. Let all else burn, but tell the truth.

‘Georgina did.’

‘Georgina did? Could you tell me about that?’

‘She said something like she had had enough of social workers coming round. That Skye was fine.’

‘Did you understand that to imply she was frightened that Skye might be taken into care if she did not give evidence against Mr Brannon?’

Lizzie remembered how she had suddenly softened towards Georgina, had liked her and feared for her. It had been weakness, she saw that now.

‘I didn’t understand that, no. It didn’t occur to me. It’s difficult of course. You see someone’s personal circumstances . . .’

She stopped, lost for words, suddenly on the brink of tears.

‘Go on.’

But she couldn’t, because she was elsewhere.

She was sitting with Hadley in that single mother’s house with the son pulling on his coat and storming out of the door and Hadley holding a tortoise on the palm of his hand. He said he had had one as a child and Lizzie hadn’t known whether that was the truth or whether he’d been saying it only to comfort the distressed mother. Now that he was dead she would never be able to ask him. She smiled. How silly! Why ever did it matter so much? She imagined him laughing at her in the courtroom. You total numpty! Shaming the uniform! He’d been able to laugh at just about anything. She thought, I can’t do this job. She was lost, totally lost. She didn’t even know where she was.

‘Officer?’

She put a hand on the lectern to steady herself.

The judge intervened. ‘Are you ill? Will you be all right to continue, PC Griffiths? Do you need a break?’

From somewhere out of the darkness she found the thread of what she had been saying and she held on to it and allowed it to lead her out of the woods.

‘Yes, ma’am. I’m all right, thank you. You have to stay professional, that’s it, that’s what I wanted to say. A colleague of mine, I remember, he said that to me once, “We are the police, not the social workers.” I think he meant by that that we can’t afford to become too involved. Our job is different, and for a reason. And so although I was afraid for Ms Teel and her daughter, I stopped trying to advise her and I took the withdrawal statement.’

The defence counsel resumed. ‘Did you then write a report to the Crown Prosecution Service recommending that the prosecution continue and that the court issue a summons for the complainant?’

‘I did, yes.’

‘Did you consider how your comments about her daughter might affect Georgina’s evidence?’

Lizzie shook her head. ‘No.’

‘Thank you, Police Constable Griffiths. No further questions, your honour.’

Lizzie stood outside Court 5. It was as if she was filled with scalding water, as though her skin was blistering from beneath its surface. She wanted to find somewhere less public, but the CPS room would be no sanctuary and she didn’t want to sit in the cramped police room and face the other officers with their bags of evidence. Georgina, who was sitting at the far end of the waiting area with Skye, glanced at her. Lizzie walked towards the stairs. The cafeteria was closing up, but she managed to grab a bottle of water. She closed her eyes, waiting for the heat inside her to subside.

When she went back down to the waiting area, Brannon was leaving the courtroom with his barrister.

It was over, then. The case had been dismissed. He’d won. She wondered if there would be any repercussions for her. She couldn’t walk any further towards the CPS office without bumping directly into Brannon, so she stood and watched from the entrance foyer as he went up to Georgina and, after a moment’s hesitation, they hugged. Then he scooped up Skye and squeezed his daughter tightly, his hand around the back of her head. He put her down, pinched her cheeks until she squirmed, prodded her in the stomach. ‘Dad!’ He turned and kissed Marley on the cheek, squeezed her hand. He shook the defence barrister’s hand warmly.

Anyone looking from a distance would be pleased for them. This was a happy story: a celebration, a family reunited, a miscarriage of justice averted.

Family: was there anything at that moment more uncomfortable? Lizzie thought of Kieran and his wife and child and decided never, ever to have children herself.

The congratulations were subsiding, the barrister making her goodbyes and walking away, pulling her gown about her shoulders. The little family gathered itself together and began to leave the court. The happy group was going to walk right past her. It was too late for Lizzie to turn away without losing face.

Marley spoke, her features twisted with triumph. ‘Why don’t you catch some proper criminals?’

Brannon said, ‘Better luck next time.’

Georgina looked steadfastly down, holding Skye’s hand. Lizzie wanted to say only one thing to her, something that she couldn’t say, didn’t say.

Next time, don’t call police.

Lizzie sat on the top deck of the bus, on the front seat. Her impression was of splashes of the life below as the bus swung and moved forward, stopped and turned, surged and halted. Fruit stalls, the roofs of bus stops, a pram with a baby kicking, a bicycle wobbling precariously between the bus and the pavement.

The prosecutor had been slightly bored, impatient even, when he’d talked it through with her after she’d made her way back to the Crown Prosecution office. It was all fine, he’d said, his eyes drifting sideways to the pile of papers he needed to read for his next case. The judge had made it perfectly clear: Lizzie had no case to answer in terms of interfering with the witness. Nevertheless, her honour had ruled that Georgina’s fear of having her child taken away made her evidence unreliable. That was why the case had been dismissed. Brannon hadn’t even had to give evidence.

What Lizzie discovered unfolding within herself came as a blinding revelation: she was heartily sick of it all. Why had she put herself in this position for people she didn’t even know?

She tried to make her thoughts stand still, to look at her situation and consider what she wanted. She was twenty-six and it filled her with terror. Her life was sliding away and she couldn’t seem to grasp it. This bloody job!

She had tried to help Georgina.

She wanted to get off the bus and run until she could run no longer. As soon as she got home, she told herself, she would put on her running shoes. There was a freedom unlike any other in the fall of foot on ground, the rhythm of the heart and the breath. She had competed as a schoolgirl for her county, completed the 10,000 metres in thirty-six minutes. She had stopped running competitively because chasing the possibility that that time suggested meant running all the joy out of her favourite thing, straining and hurting herself to cut minutes from her time. Now policing felt like that too. It had been fun! She had enjoyed it. It was difficult to believe that now. She’d imagined an exciting future: solving murders, going undercover, maybe preventing terror attacks. Now, the reality of it was . . . Her thoughts stumbled. What was it? Shitty jobs, shitty lives, people you couldn’t help.

And, occasionally, disaster. Hadley dead. Farah dead.

She had decided to carry on. She would survive it all by being a good cop. Now, sitting on the bus, she felt that to be impossible. It wasn’t nine to five; it wasn’t even eight till ten. It was like rearranging the pattern of your nerves until you became someone so different that you had lost the thread of who you once were. It was like her life would become a pair of running shoes run to shit.

She walked quickly to the police station, weaving ruthlessly through the slow-moving people, the charity chuggers, the newspaper stand, the on-street florist, a group of young men walking four abreast.

She went straight to the detective inspector’s office but she wasn’t there. She didn’t know what to do with her momentum. Ash was sitting at his desk. He looked up, smiled.

‘Hello, gorgeous.’

‘Oh fuck it, Ash.’

‘What?’

She took her warrant card out of her pocket, handed it across the desk, feeling stupid and hopeless.

‘I just don’t want this any more and I can’t find the boss to give it to. Will you take it?’

He reached across the table. ‘Of course I will, darling.’ He opened it up, glanced at the picture with a smile and then peered in the inside pocket, behind the crest. ‘You’ve left your Caffè Nero loyalty card in there. And ten quid. Don’t you want to keep those?’

Lizzie sat down. She rubbed her forehead. Ash tapped the desk with his middle finger for a minute.

Then he said, ‘I agree with you. Young thing like you, I think you should leave the job. In fact I think everyone should leave the job. How glorious would that be?’

Lizzie couldn’t speak. She tried instead for a smile. Ash laughed at her efforts.

‘Oh dear.’ His eyes narrowed sympathetically. ‘In all honesty, would you say right now’s a good moment to take a decision?’

She shook her head. He offered her the warrant card. ‘Take that back for now. Give it a day or so, see how you feel.’

Lizzie, feeling embarrassed, put it back in her inside pocket. Still, perhaps she had needed that melodramatic impulse to make the change she needed to make. Now she was back in the same place.

Ash said, ‘To be honest, I’m not terribly good at intense. How about we bunk off and get an ice cream instead? There’s a pretty boy works in there – should cheer us both up.’

‘No, but thanks. I think I’ll just finish up and go home.’

Lizzie nailed the Brannon report shut, as Ash had advised her to, updating why the prosecution hadn’t gone ahead, making a referral to a domestic violence agency and emailing the detective inspector about her concerns. Bang on time she booked off duty, scooped up her bag and made her way down to the street.

Brannon was standing on the pavement outside the station, smoking. He smirked. She would have to pass him and she hesitated. He rocked on his feet and smiled happily. ‘Hello, Lizzie.’

She nodded, ‘Mark.’

She’d only had permission to leave her car in the off-street bay for a day, but it was waiting for her safe and sound, her little blue Golf. She flicked her key and the lights flashed. She moved past Brannon, her back prickling. She got into the car, resisted the urge to lock the doors, threw her bag on the passenger seat, reversed out into traffic. What was he doing there? His phone had been seized as part of the investigation – perhaps, now that the case had been dismissed, he was going into the nick to pick it up. Threading through the back streets and over the speed bumps, she began to let it drop. Someone like Brannon probably spent a lot of time going in and out of his local nick. If he wasn’t there on his own behalf, it would be for one of his friends. In all likelihood, if she continued working out of Caenwood, she would encounter him frequently. He was one of those types who would always come again.