Emily glanced around the situation room. She loved times like this.
Dave Connor and Oliver Davis were arguing over how to enter the IDENT 1 database. Chrissy was working through the Operation Pharaoh files. A pile of pizza boxes lay empty on another table alongside used and battered cups from Costa.
Emily had finished updating the case report, including her own investigations into the backpack.
Ridpath wasn’t there, but Emily knew he was working at home after picking up Eve, going over the files one more time to see if they had missed a possible lead.
The case was moving forward, probably not as fast as Ridpath wanted, but still they were making progress, and quickly.
Emily wondered what she would be like as a mother. The prospect was extremely unlikely at the moment; the job left little time for socialising and she had decided a long time ago that the last place she would look for a potential mate would be the available police gene pool.
The whole idea of dating and marrying somebody from the job appalled her. The usual joke of giving the baby a truncheon rather than a rattle appalled her even more.
She shook her head and grimaced. She was only twenty-eight, there was plenty of time for babies later. For now, she wanted to concentrate on her career.
Perhaps tomorrow she would approach Chief Inspector Holloway. The gossip in the canteen whispered he was desperate to find detectives for his team. Her days at MIT seemed to be numbered; Turnbull had made it pretty obvious her face didn’t fit. If she was going to be promoted, she would have to spend some time working in one of the divisions anyway. At least Stretford wasn’t far from where she lived. Imagine if she was placed somewhere a long way away, like Oldham; the commute would kill her.
Chrissy punched the air. ‘Yes.’
Had Manchester City scored?
‘I think I’ve found the misper files for Jane Ryder. Now I have to traipse down there and trawl through them. They’ve not been digitised. Bugger.’
Chrissy lowered her head close to the laptop once more, unaware she had been talking to herself. Dave Connor and Oliver Davis were still arguing about IDENT 1.
A slice of pizza was staring at Emily, peeping out from beneath the box lid. She checked a thin sliver of tummy hanging over the waistband of her trousers.
Sod it, she’d go to the gym when the case finished.
She loved times like this, working a case. There was no other feeling like it.