Caroline arrived at work early the next morning, feeling somewhere between holiday mode and the drag of her usual daily routine. Even though she’d got up early to head in, she was pleasantly surprised to see her team already hard at work, over-dedicated as always.
It was one of the things that made it harder to put the job second. Dexter, Sara and Aidan put her to shame with their work ethic as it was, and she was supposed to be the one leading the way and setting an example. It occurred to her that none of them had a marriage and children to maintain at the same time as the job, but she also knew they’d have little chance of the former while the latter ran the show.
‘Morning,’ she said as she walked in and made her way to her office, which, in practice, was a walled-off corner of the major incident room. She put her bag down, then stepped back into the main room. ‘You guys are going to have to bring me up to speed pretty quickly. I’m due to have a word with the Super later this morning, so we can get some extra foot soldiers. Anything you can give me which might help my case would be much appreciated.’
‘Do you think he’ll go for that?’ Aidan asked her.
‘I’ve no idea. I hope so, because I’m still on holiday and I’ve got a husband on a beach in Suffolk somewhere, hopping mad and needing his car back. If we can make as much progress as possible today and get those extra hands to the pump, I’ll be handing things back over to Dex for the rest of the week.’
Dexter clenched his jaw and smiled, trying not to show his discomfort. ‘Alright. Well we’d better bring you up to speed, hadn’t we?’
A couple of hours later, Caroline was poring over the sudden death reports completed by the officers at each respective scene, along with the information that had been given by the victims’ families and witnesses, when there was a knock on her office door.
‘Come in,’ she said, not lifting her head.
‘Boss,’ Dexter said, his voice trembling with excitement. ‘We’ve got something. You might want to come through.’