Читать книгу DEAD SILENT - Neil White - Страница 12

Laura McGanity looked around at the other officers in the room: they were mostly young, the ambitious ones marked out by the earnest way they sifted through their paperwork, the rest happy just to chat as they started their shift. They were in a room lined by glass walls and filled with computer screens, part of the shiny new police station on the edge of town. The windows looked out over the car park, and the glass walls gave her a view into a large atrium, where the officers ate their canteen food and gossiped.

Some of the officers had decided what they were doing that day, advice forms from the Crown Prosecution Service clutched in their hands, directing the collection of evidence to make the cases fit for court. The younger ones bustled around, anxious to get out of the station, the warm weather beckoning them outside, happy to take whatever the radio threw up that day. The older ones went through the motions, stoked up on coffee and walking round the station holding pieces of paper, their eyes already on the clock.

Laura sighed. She had gotten used to being a detective at the bottom of the pile, following the direction of experienced officers. Now she was the director, a room of young and eager faces looking to her for advice, and it felt suddenly hard. She had no stripes yet, but everyone knew why she had chosen the starched white shirts and shiny black trousers: brushing up on her community skills was the quickest route to sergeant. In return, Laura was expected to be a mentor, take on some responsibility, but a few of the old guard were just waiting for her to go wrong, happy to see another prospect fail, to justify their own lack of progress.

Her sergeant came in, a woman in her thirties with dark hair cut close to her head and a square jaw, lines starting to etch themselves around her lips from sucking on too many cigarettes. There was a young officer behind her, his cheeks fresh and flushed, eyes flitting nervously around the room. ‘Fresh meat,’ someone whispered, and Laura heard a chuckle.

The sergeant clapped her hands and barked out, ‘Can I just have everyone’s attention?’

The chatter died down.

‘Can we all keep an eye out for the Crawler?’ she shouted. ‘Two more reports last night. They might be false, it seems like any noise gets called in as a peeping Tom, but just be vigilant. He might go on to attack someone, so don’t ignore anyone suspicious. Talk to them. Get their name.’

Everyone mumbled to themselves as they went back to their work, and the sergeant made her way over to Laura.

‘I want you to do me a favour,’ the sergeant said, and she nodded to the young nervous officer in the corner of the room, his shirt hanging off his skinny shoulders. ‘Can you take Thomas with you today? It’s his first day after training school. Do the town centre circuit with him, introduce him to the store detectives, just have him feeling like a cop.’

‘No problem,’ Laura replied, knowing exactly why she had been chosen. Thomas looked young and scared. The older ones would fill him with cynicism, and the crewcut brigade would just teach him bad habits.

Laura remembered her own time as a young constable, how it was often harder for the women, the men attempting to shield her from the fights, expecting her to spend the day patting old ladies’ hands. But Laura liked the rucks, the excitement, the chases. It was why she joined, for the dirt, a different life to the one she’d had as a child in Pinner.

‘Thomas?’ said Laura, and when he looked up, Laura beckoned him over.

He tried to make himself seem big, his thumbs hooked into his belt, but Laura detected a slight quiver to his voice as he said hello.

‘I’ve got a trip into town, and I need some help. I thought you could come with me.’

Thomas smiled and nodded. ‘Good. Thanks.’

As they made their way out of the station, threading their way through the atrium that was busy with detectives, all serious and intense, Laura wondered whether making sergeant would be worth missing out on all the fun of CID. What would she do if she never got back in there, if she had to carry on wearing the uniform?

That was something she didn’t want to think about.