8

Lizzie put her overnight bag on the floor. She and Ash were the only officers working the late turn in the unit. She hoped they wouldn’t be too busy. She was meeting Kieran after work.

‘Good news and bad news,’ Ash said, entering the office with the kettle. ‘Good news: no prisoners in the bin. Bad news: I’ve given you a couple of non-crime domestics.’

She bent over her computer and scanned the first of the two crime reports. It was a third-party report: a neighbour had heard shouting. Both parties had been insistent they didn’t need the police. Still, she had to call them.

The man who answered barely said hello. He called out: ‘Justin, can you believe it? It’s the police again.’

The phone was muffled. Then a different man spoke.

‘I’m so sorry about Adam. The poor officer who came to the door – Adam was so rude to him. He tried to plough on – asked if we’d ever been cruel to animals. I pointed out our two Siamese and asked him whether he’d ever seen animals so downright spoilt . . .’

A uniformed inspector had entered the office – a small woman, about five foot three, blonde, quick-moving. Lizzie guessed she was the duty inspector, the officer calling the shots for all critical operational decisions on the borough until someone more senior arrived. Something big must be happening. She looked at Lizzie and made the wind-it-up gesture with her index finger.

The voice was still rattling on. ‘How can I reassure you that we really don’t need you?’

‘You’ve done a pretty good job, actually. I’ll close the report. Sorry to have troubled you.’

The inspector spoke with a low voice in an Edinburgh accent. ‘Hello, CID folk. We’ve got a critical incident. Briefing in the canteen in ten minutes, everyone ready to go, please.’