She was a pretty wee thing in her photo. Dark skin, big bright eyes, and a smile that was nothing but mischief from ear to ear. What was she? Nine? Ten? He’d heard it mentioned, but hadn’t been paying too much attention.
The case was getting a lot of coverage. Rich parents, Ben guessed. Maybe a small town. Always easier to get the press interested if the parents were wealthy upstanding members of the community. Had she been from a council estate, she’d be lucky to get a half-inch mention in the local paper.
“Terrible this, isn’t it?” the constable volunteered between slurps. “Such a shame.”
“Aye.”
“Parents must be climbing the walls.”
“Must be,” Ben agreed. “Did it say what they do? The parents? For a living, I mean.”
“Doctors, I think. He is, anyway. Specialist of some sort. Not sure about her.”
Ben nodded, his suspicions confirmed. He turned back to the kettle and half-listened to the report as he rummaged around for the tea bags.
The girl—Jameelah— had been nabbed on her way home from school. That was the theory, anyway. Nobody had come forward to say they’d seen her being taken, but her bag had been found on a quiet stretch of leafy suburban road on her usual route home, her phone still inside.
On-screen, the SIO was telling a reporter that they’d ruled out the possibility of her having run away. He was an imposing figure, his face ravaged by some sort of injury that hadn’t healed well. The way he was talking to the journalist reminded Ben a lot of Logan. Like he was just tolerating the interviewer’s existence for the sake of the missing girl.
“That tea not made yet?”
Ben turned from the TV just as Moira made her way across the canteen. She still wasn’t as sprightly as she’d been before the stroke, but she was showing vast improvement. There was a bit of a lean and a hint of a limp, but you had to be looking for it to notice.
The clack of a Tupperware lid being closed signalled the imminent departure of the constable at the table. She hurriedly gathered up her things, regularly shooting glances at Moira like she was trying to keep track of the older woman’s location.
Once she’d collected everything, she sidled for the door, picked up the pace for the final few steps, then went hurrying off.
“Was it something I said, do you think?” Moira asked.
“I’m sure it’s just coincidence,” Ben told her.
“It absolutely is not!” Moira insisted. She looked annoyed by the suggestion, and Ben got the impression she was quite pleased with the effect her arrival had on the PC.
She took a seat at the table for two, then tapped the back cover of the magazine. “Now hurry up with that tea, so we can look at this.”
Ben’s eyes went to the publication on the table. “Haven’t you already read it?”
“Of course I haven’t read it! Why would I have read it?” Moira asked, her nostrils flaring in disgust, outrage, or possibly both. She sniffed loudly. “No bloody point reading it on my own, is there?” she asked. “It’s our thing.”
Ben paused with the kettle halfway to the first cup. “Do you know, I’ve never thought of it like that before,” he said, then he looked back over his shoulder and smiled. “But aye, I suppose it is.”
When Tyler had moved out of Uniform and into plain clothes, he’d been led to believe that there was a lot less running involved. This, in his experience, had not turned out to be the case.
He seemed to spend a lot of his time running. He ran after things—fleeing suspects, stray sheep, that sort of thing. He ran away from things, too—dogs, mostly, although also that steam train that one time.
It was getting to the stage that he thought he should probably just wear trainers to work. Ideally quite a cheap pair, too, given that much of his running took place through mud and wet bracken.
He’d hoped that after his big operation, running duties might be passed on to someone else. Hamza, maybe. He was a handful of years older, but he still had a turn of speed about him when he wanted to.
But no. Sergeants didn’t run, apparently. Not unless it was absolutely necessary, and even then, not without complaining about it.
No, Tyler knew his place. He was the youngest, he was the fittest, and he was at the bottom of the ladder. If there was running to be done, and he was anywhere in the vicinity, he was the bugger that was going to end up doing it.
Like here. Now. Today.
Running was not in any way unusual. Running while dressed as Dinny the Drink-Driving Squirrel, on the other hand, was not something he had ever expected to be called on to do.