Detective Constable Nick Weston was in a vile temper and drove accordingly.
His car usually responded to being pushed hard. The Subaru was his weakness, a sop to the last remnants of the boy racer in him. Much as he knew the WRX model wasn’t helping him integrate into the hierarchy at his latest posting, he couldn’t bring himself to part with it.
Might have to, soon, though.
For once, even thrashing down the motorway failed to lighten his black mood. He’d covered the eighteen miles of M6 from Penrith down to Tebay in a shade over eleven minutes, rarely dropping below a hundred. Good job none of the miserable lot from Traffic were patrolling that stretch or they’d have nicked him for it.
But maybe he was being taken seriously at last. The uniformed sergeant who’d found him skulking over paperwork in the CID office at the Hunter Lane station said the shout was a suspicious death out near Orton, a possible shooting, that the on-scene CSI was calling for an expert assist.
“Everybody else’s out,” she’d said, her flat tone making it clear he was her last resort, “but you used to be with the shoot ’em up boys, didn’t you, detective constable?”
“Used to be.”
She raised a cynical eyebrow at this reticence. “Well then, I thought it might be right up your street—you being a city lad.” She sniffed. “Saw enough gun crime down there in Manchester and London, didn’t you?”
Nick attempted to shake off his misery as he got to his feet. “Right, I’m on my way.” He’d tried what he hoped was a placatory smile. “And…thanks. Wendy, isn’t it?”
That earned him another sniff. “I think ‘sergeant’ will do just fine.”
Still, it was good to know that the two years Nick had spent with Armed Response had some ongoing benefit after all, even if he’d let his Firearms ticket lapse when he moved up out of uniform. Perhaps something might actually be salvaged from this disastrous career cul-de-sac.
Now, Nick almost missed the gateway to the field where this supposed shooting had taken place. He’d been accelerating up the long climb out of Orton village and had to brake hard when he spotted the marked-up Ford Focus sitting half-hidden behind some galumphing great pickup truck on the verge.
“What the hell are they playing at?” Nick muttered. Surely by now this unknown CSI should have arranged some marker for the investigation team?
When Nick joined the force, Scenes Of Crime Officers—he couldn’t get used to calling them CSIs—came from the ranks. They had years of experience at the sharp end of policing. Not like these bloody amateurs. A quick day-release college course and they thought they were God’s gift to forensic science.
He left the Subaru as far off the road as he could, paused at the unguarded gateway to note with irritation the presence of three obvious civilians in the middle of the field. The vicious headache that had plagued him all morning returned to pulse behind his right eye.
How incompetent are these yokels?
Scowling, he struck out across the grass. Within a dozen paces, the bottom three inches of his trousers were soaked through, which meant a dry cleaning bill on top of everything else. The realisation made him glower at the young uniform who approached, balancing a bagged-up shotgun under his arm.
“Who d’you think you are, sunshine—Wyatt Earp?” Nick demanded, just low enough not to carry to the people nearby. He nodded curtly to the gun without breaking stride. “That the possible murder weapon? Well, don’t carry it around like some bloody trophy! Get it locked away before this becomes a multiple homicide.”
“But…it already is.”
“What?” Nick thought he caught something crafty in the other’s voice, but a glance at his face revealed only blankness. “How many?”
“I think at the last count it was half a dozen,” the young policeman said, stony. “Grace—er, CSI McColl—will be able to confirm the numbers.”
He nodded towards a lone figure, camera in hand, who seemed to be wandering aimlessly at the far side of the field, with little thought to her responsibility for this organisational shambles.
McColl. Nick had heard the name, recalled occasional glimpses in the corridors of Hunter Lane of the tall superior redhead with her nose in the air. He was conspicuously excluded from the usual jungle telegraph but he’d heard about her, even so.
In certain circles, it seemed she was almost as unpopular as he was. And if her performance here was anything to go by, he could understand why.
He sighed, ran a frustrated hand through his hair and tried a sympathetic smile that was woodenly met.
“Look, I’m sorry I jumped down your throat. Looks like it’s going to be a bad day for all of us. What’s your name?”
“Danny—Danny Robertshaw.”
“All right, Danny. Take a minute. Keep it together and get the job done, OK?”
The young policeman nodded, ducking his head and scurrying away.
Nick strode across the field, almost brushing aside the couple who stepped forwards—pompously, he felt—to intercept him.
“Well?” he snapped as soon as he was close enough to the CSI not to shout. “What’s all this about?”
Her only response was a single raised eyebrow. She waited for Nick to reach her before she replied, which only annoyed him further.
“Good morning,” she said pointedly. Her voice had a drawl that instantly put his back up. “Clearly they don’t teach you any people-skills down there in sunny Manchester.”
Nick’s head came up, eyes glittering. “And clearly they don’t teach you crime scene procedure up here in sunny Cumbria.”
She put her head on one side as if considering whether to take offence or not. “You’re very rude, Mr Weston,” she said then, as if voicing a remote observation.
“And you’re very sloppy, Ms McColl.” He stuck his hands in his trouser pockets, looked about him. “Where’s the rest of your team? Why isn’t this whole area cordoned off? Where’s your protective gear and your common approach path?” He fixed her with a glare that served him well in Interview. “You don’t seem to be treating this as a proper investigation.”
Nick heard the words coming out of his own mouth like they were being spoken by someone else, and gave an inward groan. How to win friends and influence people. Taking his anger out on her would only make his job worse.
Crime scene technicians like Grace McColl were the first response to any incident, and frequently led the initial stages of the investigation, giving it direction and focus. Antagonise them and you could find yourself sent off down a total blind alley, just for the hell of it. As if he hadn’t already come up against enough resistance…
“Well,” she said, finally matching her tone to his, icy, “if you are all they’ve sent me, it looks like nobody else is treating this as a proper investigation either, are they?”
He opened his mouth again—to apologise this time—but she had already looked away.
“Now,” she said blandly, “if we’ve quite finished banging our egos together, would you care to take a look at the remains?”
Touché. He paused, frowning, still trying to feel his way into a reluctant apology, but then he caught the flicker in her face and realised his hesitation might be mistaken for a weak stomach.
“Lead the way.”
She inclined her head, almost regal, and moved on ahead of him. She was only a few inches below his own six-foot-two which made her tall for a woman, and she moved like a racehorse, all smooth-gaited co-ordination and long muscles.
He felt the usual twinge of conscience that always nagged him when he had cause to admire another woman. He shrugged it aside and made an attempt at solidarity.
“Do we have an ID on the victim?”
The CSI glanced back over her shoulder, frowning again. The action caused a little dent to appear between her eyebrows.
“According to those two, his name was Ben.” She indicated the couple he’d ignored with a cool slide of her eyes. Nick had initially thought they were pale brown, but now he realised they were hazel, flecked through with green and chestnut and gold.
“How old was he?”
She’d turned away but he saw one elegant shoulder lift briefly. “Difficult to say.” Because he couldn’t see her face, the pity in her voice seemed more apparent. “Only a youngster, though.”
Oh, God, every copper’s nightmare. Her casual attitude to the scene rose up again to anger Nick. “A child?”
She stepped smartly aside, so that he found himself staring at the stretched-out body of a black-and-tan German Shepherd.
“Of course not,” she said. “He’s a dog.”