Head CSI Richard Sibson was engrossed in a report on the latest advances in DNA profiling, making occasional comments into a small memo recorder. He did not initially hear the annoying buzz of his office telephone. Eventually, with a sigh, he snatched the receiver to his ear.
“Yes!”
“And a good morning to you, too.” Grace’s slightly husky voice was placid.
Because she couldn’t see his face, Sibson allowed himself a broad smile at the sound of her. He sat back in his swivel chair and rocked a little. “Ah, McColl—at last! Well, if you’re going to gallivant off round the country for half the morning, you can’t expect civility from me.”
“Don’t exaggerate,” she admonished gently. “And I’d hardly call attending a post-mortem exam ‘gallivanting’, would you? My, what an interesting private life you must lead.”
“Don’t be cheeky, my dear. I’m both your elder and your better. So, what did that old Welsh charlatan have to say?”
“Well,” she said cheerfully, “Professor Evans claims that you faked your degree and couldn’t tell your—”
“About the dog, McColl, thank you very much!”
“Ah, well, on that subject he was less inclined to joke.”
Sibson lost his languid pose. “Tell me,” he said curtly. “Did Evans have any theories on the weapon?”
“Oh yes. In some ways, I wish he hadn’t.”
She gave her report in the concise, almost emotionless style Sibson had come to value. Laying out the facts without emphasis or bias, so he could absorb them in his own way. And she never seemed to miss anything. That photographer’s eye. Unobserved, he smiled again. She’s a natural.
Sibson knew when he took Grace on, still fresh from her studies and jaded from her marriage, there were some who questioned his judgement. Cumbria had received any number of applicants for the post of CSI and he could have had his pick. But something about Grace had stood out, even then.
And he wasn’t just talking about her looks, although he’d had more than the odd sideways comment about his ulterior motives. Five years earlier, after a protracted struggle, Sibson had lost his wife to cancer. Some had thought he intended to seek consolation in the arms of his latest protégée, but in truth, he’d no designs on Grace. Even if he had entertained such an idea, she’d certainly given him no encouragement.
But he’d been surprised, he had to admit, that she’d been with that brash new chap yesterday. Grace was normally very wary of letting colleagues invade her personal space. She had an ability to keep herself slightly removed that Sibson secretly rather admired.
So his eyebrows climbed as she brought her verbal report to a close and asked, “Would you mind passing on the information to DC Weston?”
“Weston? My dear McColl, I’ll be taking this straight to Inspector Pollock. Why deal with the oily rag, so to speak, when you have the engine driver to hand?”
“Because he was there,” she said simply. Sibson heard the shrug in her voice. “I thought he deserved to know that yesterday wasn’t all some wild goose chase.”
“I’ll make sure he’s told,” Sibson promised. “And no, Grace, if Evans’ opinion is to be trusted—and much as it grieves me to say it, I rather think it is—then the last thing I’d call this business was a wild goose chase, hm?”
He put the phone down without waiting for her reply and stood up sharply enough to send the swivel chair skittering backwards. It hit a stack of textbooks, knocking them into a sprawl.
Sibson glanced at it with annoyance, then strode out of the office anyway. The books could wait. His report to Inspector Pollock on Grace McColl’s findings, he considered, could not.