eyebrow
when he wasn’t writing names on the white board in slow and precise block
capitals.
Harkness
had been allocated a wall seat barely two feet off the ground. Having finished his
summing up, he gazed up at them from behind his knees, feeling like an
overgrown schoolboy due his first caning. Next to him, with the patched elbow
of his jacket occupying exactly half of the shared arm rest, sat DS Ron
Biddle.
“Thanks
for that summary, DS Harkness,” began Newbould at a brief nod from Brennan.
“And congratulations on the promotion. Sounds like you’ve done a fair job
tonight. I’ve got a few points to make. Do you want to start, sir?”
Brennan
shook his head and shifted his gum from one side of his jaw to the other.
“Right
then. As I said, Rob, great job tonight and we’d like you to stay at the sharp
end of this enquiry.” He paused to allow Harkness to bask in the radiance of
his smile. “Naturally, we’ll be setting up a HOLMES room ex post facto and
working to the letter of the manual to get the right result first time every
time. It’s only fair however to say that we do have one or two misgivings about
the conduct of the enquiry to date thus far. Are we on the same page, Rob?”
“I
think so, sir.” Harkness glanced at Biddle, who crossed his legs, sniffed and
continued to stare at the white board.
“Good
man.” Harkness caught a whiff of some peppery musk, a blend of brothel and
municipal lavatory. It wasn’t Biddle, whose trademark tang of pipe tobacco and
stale sweat was present and correct. Perhaps Newbould’s spray-on deodorant was
being tested.
“Now
then, top of the old agenda, crime scene integrity and health and safety. A
little bird tells me that certain protocols vis a vis risk assessing a crime
scene and not circumventing the rules for preserving the evidential integrity
of said scene may not have been observed to the fullest letter of the manual.”
“Well,
sir, it’s like this…”
“Relax,
Rob, it’s not last cigarette time. And there’s more.”
“It’s
like this, Rob,” began Brennan, cutting across Newbould, his South Yorkshire
accent thickened by forty years of full tar, full fat and full pint glasses.
“You
turn up half cut at a murder scene in your best pal’s personal car looking like
you’ve coated yourself in glue and rolled around in a charity shop. Then you
play at being a fireman, traipse around a delicate crime scene like you’re
Clouseau and fart around with the dog squad while the golden hour ticks away.”
Harkness’s
radio flashed and chimed, a personal message overriding the mute setting. He
flushed, fumbled it from his belt clip, saw a collar number he didn’t recognise
and blocked the call.
“Finished?”
asked Brennan, index finger frozen in mid jab. “Good. Bloody technology. Now
this is a bollocking, not a debate. I like you and you’re a bright boy, but you
need to stop pissing about and realise you’re wearing bigger shoes now. In a
second, I’ll ask you to say ‘yes, sir’, and when you say that, you’ll be
agreeing that we’ll never have a conversation like this again.”
Brennan
leaned across the desk and cocked an ear.
“Yes,
sir,” said Harkness, exhaling slowly. He had a sudden urge to change his
clothes and scour his skin, to erase the taint of the night that now clung to him,
reeking.
“Right
then,” said Brennan, leaning back and crossing his arms over his well rounded
gut. “We’ve got some admin and media waffle to take care of while you two piss
off and figure out how to find this bastard. Come back with a game plan when you’ve
got one that might work.”
“Which
two, sir?” said Harkness, dread transfixing his features like the shadow of a
falling rock.
Biddle
grinned and stuck out a hand,
when he wasn’t writing names on the white board in slow and precise block
capitals.
Harkness
had been allocated a wall seat barely two feet off the ground. Having finished his
summing up, he gazed up at them from behind his knees, feeling like an
overgrown schoolboy due his first caning. Next to him, with the patched elbow
of his jacket occupying exactly half of the shared arm rest, sat DS Ron
Biddle.
“Thanks
for that summary, DS Harkness,” began Newbould at a brief nod from Brennan.
“And congratulations on the promotion. Sounds like you’ve done a fair job
tonight. I’ve got a few points to make. Do you want to start, sir?”
Brennan
shook his head and shifted his gum from one side of his jaw to the other.
“Right
then. As I said, Rob, great job tonight and we’d like you to stay at the sharp
end of this enquiry.” He paused to allow Harkness to bask in the radiance of
his smile. “Naturally, we’ll be setting up a HOLMES room ex post facto and
working to the letter of the manual to get the right result first time every
time. It’s only fair however to say that we do have one or two misgivings about
the conduct of the enquiry to date thus far. Are we on the same page, Rob?”
“I
think so, sir.” Harkness glanced at Biddle, who crossed his legs, sniffed and
continued to stare at the white board.
“Good
man.” Harkness caught a whiff of some peppery musk, a blend of brothel and
municipal lavatory. It wasn’t Biddle, whose trademark tang of pipe tobacco and
stale sweat was present and correct. Perhaps Newbould’s spray-on deodorant was
being tested.
“Now
then, top of the old agenda, crime scene integrity and health and safety. A
little bird tells me that certain protocols vis a vis risk assessing a crime
scene and not circumventing the rules for preserving the evidential integrity
of said scene may not have been observed to the fullest letter of the manual.”
“Well,
sir, it’s like this…”
“Relax,
Rob, it’s not last cigarette time. And there’s more.”
“It’s
like this, Rob,” began Brennan, cutting across Newbould, his South Yorkshire
accent thickened by forty years of full tar, full fat and full pint glasses.
“You
turn up half cut at a murder scene in your best pal’s personal car looking like
you’ve coated yourself in glue and rolled around in a charity shop. Then you
play at being a fireman, traipse around a delicate crime scene like you’re
Clouseau and fart around with the dog squad while the golden hour ticks away.”
Harkness’s
radio flashed and chimed, a personal message overriding the mute setting. He
flushed, fumbled it from his belt clip, saw a collar number he didn’t recognise
and blocked the call.
“Finished?”
asked Brennan, index finger frozen in mid jab. “Good. Bloody technology. Now
this is a bollocking, not a debate. I like you and you’re a bright boy, but you
need to stop pissing about and realise you’re wearing bigger shoes now. In a
second, I’ll ask you to say ‘yes, sir’, and when you say that, you’ll be
agreeing that we’ll never have a conversation like this again.”
Brennan
leaned across the desk and cocked an ear.
“Yes,
sir,” said Harkness, exhaling slowly. He had a sudden urge to change his
clothes and scour his skin, to erase the taint of the night that now clung to him,
reeking.
“Right
then,” said Brennan, leaning back and crossing his arms over his well rounded
gut. “We’ve got some admin and media waffle to take care of while you two piss
off and figure out how to find this bastard. Come back with a game plan when you’ve
got one that might work.”
“Which
two, sir?” said Harkness, dread transfixing his features like the shadow of a
falling rock.
Biddle
grinned and stuck out a hand,
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