“I’m fine, mate. We’re only doing paperwork.”
“Yeah, but you were shot at today.”
“Not like it’s the first time, right?” I tried to joke. He gave me an unimpressed look.
“You went out expecting to relax on a run, and instead-”
“Aye, alright,” I said sharply before taking a breath. “Sorry, didn’t mean to snap. But I don’t want to talk about it right now, okay?”
“Okay,” he relented, giving my shoulder a sympathetic squeeze before he turned away.
I fought the urge to sigh again. Stephen was right, though. The unexpectedness of the attack had made it more unnerving than if I’d gone into the situation expecting to be in danger. And it did feel strange to be sitting back at my desk and working on a dull report like nothing had happened. At least in the past, after a scare like that, there’d been some feeling of urgency and action from those around me as we all worked to get the perps who did it. This time, there was a strange sense that I’d almost imagined the whole thing.
I gave a sigh, leaning back in my chair and staring blankly at my computer screen.
“Alright, I’m going home,” I decided.
“Finally. Go on, then. And no running, y’hear me?”
I wanted to argue with him, but my legs were already achy, and I reckoned they’d be even worse tomorrow.
“I’ll nick one of the station cars, then,” I sighed.
I’d have to drive the thing back here tomorrow morning, but that was probably for the best. Sam had told me often enough that while I might not appreciate taking rest days, my body did.
“You better, or I’ll tell Sam.” He grinned at me sideways, and I didn’t doubt that he’d follow through.
“God forbid,” I smiled a little wearily.
His expression softened, and he waved me off, promising me that the report would be just fine without me and we could pick it up again tomorrow. I went to fill Rashford in about what I was doing, and she looked unsurprised, nodding her approval almost immediately.
The drive home was almost too quiet, and I switched the radio on just to have some background noise. It’d been a crazy sort of day, and my head didn’t seem to know what to do with itself. I’d have a quiet evening with a glass of wine and some rubbish TV and get myself sorted out. A talk with Sam would do me good, too, if she had the time to spare, and then I could do with about twelve hours of uninterrupted sleep.
By the end of the week, I’d be wishing for some excitement to break up the monotony, I thought wryly. But that as it may be, I wouldn’t pass up a perfectly boring day tomorrow, that was for sure.
Four
Sam had been able to spare the time for a long talk the previous evening, and it had done me a world of good. Hearing her steady voice and seeing the concern on her face made what happened feel both more real and more manageable. She’d been as exasperated as Stephen when I told her about breaking through the fence, but she’d sensed that I wasn’t up for a lecture just then. I missed her something fierce after hanging up the phone, but I’d felt more settled, too.
I drove into work the next morning, the heating turned up to beat back the icy chill in the air. It was a bright day, though, and if the weather stayed nice and my legs were up to it, I was eager to get back in the saddle and go for a run after work. It’d have to be a light one because I had my self-defence class today, but anything to stretch my legs and blow off the cobwebs would be welcome. Plus, a small part of me wondered that if I left it too long, I might start to associate running with the mess that went down on the hills, and I loved running too much to let that happen.
“You look better, mate,” Stephen said when he came up the stairs twenty minutes or so after I’d arrived.
“Did I look so bad yesterday?” I teased without looking up from my computer.
“Gawd, yeah, awful,” he said and grinned shamelessly when I raised my eyebrows at him. He nodded towards my hand. “How’s the cut? Still bleeding?”
I looked down at it. “No, it’s fine. It’s all scabbed over now.”
I’d changed the dressing and given it a good clean this morning, looking closely for any puffiness or heat that might’ve suggested it was infected. It’d all looked good, though pink and healing.
Stephen and I chatted idly as I drank my morning coffee, talking about the schools he and his wife had been considering for their son and how his daughter was scheduled for a hospital check-up on Friday. She had some trouble with chest infections and pneumonia a short while back, but she’d been doing well now that her asthma was better controlled than it had been. In return, I told him about what I’d be learning in my self-defence class tonight and what Sam had been up to lately.
“She’s been a little off lately. Tired, I guess,” I confessed.
“Off how?” Stephen frowned.
“I don’t know, really. She says she’s fine, but we haven’t been talking as much. She seemed good last night, and we had a long talk, but…”
“But what? You know she’s crazy about you, mate.”
“Aye, I’m just worried, I suppose.” I shook my head and checked my watch. “Anyway, we’ve got things to be getting on, right?”
“Alright,” Stephen agreed, but from the slight frown on his face, I could tell that he considered the conversation unresolved.
I wish I knew what was troubling her, but my efforts to ask had been rebuffed or redirected, and there were only so many times I could say, ‘Are you really okay?’ For now, though, I pushed the thoughts aside and focused on finally wrapping up this policy planning report for good.
We called it quits around lunchtime, heading off to the shops to grab a sandwich. Despite the sunshine, it was far too nippy to sit outside, so we settled back at our desks, Stephen busy reading one of the historical fiction books he liked so much.
I flicked through my phone idly for a few minutes before my thoughts went back to the dogs I’d seen in the barn yesterday. My throat tightened slightly, and I had to wash down my mouthful with a slug of water. Despite Maduewesi’s reassurances that it was all in hand, I still wished that I could’ve helped somehow.
As I ate, I absently read up online about dogfighting. Not much had changed, much to my disgust, since I’d been taught about the cruel sport as a rookie police officer, but a refresher was always good. There was tech that could be used to help track down and find these criminals that hadn’t been available fifteen or ten years ago, and it made for interesting, if disturbing, reading.
Once I’d nosed around online for a while, and my sandwich was almost gone, I had a look through the police system too. The reports were harder to read than the news articles online, with the cases of dogfighting we had to deal with all written up in our usual blunt, emotionless style. It was necessary, of course, but the horror of the events the reports described wasn’t mitigated in the slightest, and I had to set my lunch aside after a while.
“What’re you looking at?” Stephen asked, looking up from his book.
It took a moment for me to pull myself away from what I’d been reading, and I realised from his frown that I probably looked a little shaken.
“Dogfighting,” I said gruffly.
“Jesus. That won’t be light reading, I bet.” He grimaced.
After a pause, he put his bookmark in between the pages of his book and set it aside, moving his chair over towards me. I budged over so that we could share the screen, and we read in silence for a while.
“Crikey,” Stephen said, rubbing a hand over his short-shorn hair when he reached the bottom of the case file.
I’d finished it a little while before and was frowning as I turned it over in my head, linking up what I’d learned with what I’d seen in the barn. Unfortunately, my imagination was somewhat too effective at times, and the case files and news articles had only given me more material with which to picture all the awful things those dogs might have to deal with in their short, violent lives if we couldn’t help them.
“I’ll give the LACS officers a call,” I decided, giving myself a shake. There was no point sitting around moping, I thought sternly.
Stephen backed his chair up, returning to his desk, and I keyed the number into my phone that Maduewesi had given me. A woman’s voice answered a few moments later, and I straightened up.
“Kate Ross speaking.”
“Hi, I’m DCI Darren Mitchell. We haven’t met, but Chief Inspector Maduewesi gave me your number. You work for LACS, am I right?”
“I do, yeah. What can I help you with?”
“It’s about Ridge Down farm, I was hoping-”
“Oh, you’re the officer who got mixed up in everything yesterday, right?” she said, clearly pleased to have placed me.
“That’s me. I took a couple of pictures of the barn at Ridge Down, but they’re pretty low quality.”
“You did?” she said, sounding keenly interested.
“Aye, don’t get your hopes up, they’re dark and grainy, but I thought I’d send them over to you lot in case.”
“That’d be great,” she said warmly before reeling off an email address that I could send them to. There was a pause after that, and I knew she was wondering whether I wanted anything else or if that was all I’d called about.
“Has there been any developments since yesterday?” I asked, wanting badly to hear that my stumbling onto the farm hadn’t disrupted the operation too much.
“No, it all seems quiet up there.”
“That’s good. So you’ve got a bloke undercover with them?”
“Well, I can’t really tell you the details. I’m sorry,” she said, and I wasn’t surprised. I’d been pushing my luck a bit with the questions and half-expected her to shut me down.
“Aye, no problem. If you, ah, have any major developments and you are able to let me know, I’d appreciate it.”
“Yeah? Why’re you interested in the case, detective, if you don’t mind my asking?”
“No real reason. I saw the barn and one of the guys on the farm, and it shook me up, I suppose. I don’t like to think of the things they’ll do to the dogs there.”
“That’s understandable,” she said, her voice slightly softer and without the almost suspicious edge that’d been there before. “You can be assured we’ve got it all in hand, detective. We’ve run countless operations like these across the world, in fact. They don’t always work out, but we always do our best.”
“I’m sure you do. I wasn’t doubting it,” I assured her. There was a brief silence.
“I’ll take a look at the pictures. Thank you, detective. Anything like that is helpful.”
“Of course. Thanks for filling me in,” I said before we rounded off the call.
I was admittedly disappointed that she hadn’t been willing to share more with me, but it wasn’t my case, and she had someone working undercover who she had to protect. She didn’t know me from Adam, and though I was a DCI and Maduewesi had vouched for me, it was only sensible for her to take precautions. I knew too well that some cops didn’t obey the very laws they’d sworn to uphold.
“What did they say?”
“She couldn’t tell me too much. I said I’d send the pictures over, and she seemed grateful for that.”
“Pictures?” Stephen’s eyebrows went up.
“Aye, didn’t I tell you?”
I realised that in the hectic mess of yesterday, I must have forgotten to tell Stephen and filled him in. I brought the photos up on my monitor, and we both grimaced at the lacking quality. I fiddled with them for a while, trying to get it sharper and easier to see, but I still sent LACS the unedited ones. The court could view any changes to photos as suspicious, and it was better to let them adjust the pictures themselves than risk them dismissing them over possible tampering claims. Not that I was sure the photos would really be much help.
“I’m getting another coffee,” I said aloud, pushing aside my negative thoughts. The case wasn’t mine, and fretting about it wasn’t helping anyone.
“Get me one too, would you? I could do with the caffeine.”
I gave Stephen a nod and walked over to the break room. My stiff legs complained at the movement, and I hid a grimace, feeling the strain of the exercise I’d done the day before. Running so quickly uphill had left my thighs tight and sore, and on top of that, my hurry down towards the pub had left my knees feeling battered. Perhaps I’d be better off not risking a run tonight, I thought, as I put the kettle on.
The break room was empty, so I did a few stretches to get the kink out of my lower back and ease the worst of the soreness in my legs. Somebody walked in as I was finishing, and heat came to my face as I quickly straightened up, sending a sheepish smile at the amused-looking officer.
“Don’t stop on my account, sir,” she said, somewhat cheekily. After a second’s uncertainty, I placed her face.
“Tovar, right?” I said, stepping towards the cupboards to make up mine and Stephen's coffee. I put about four times as many of the instant granules in my cup as I did in his.
“Yes, sir.”
I glanced sideways at her as I moved to the fridge to fetch the milk, and I frowned slightly.
“You were the one dealing with that missing dog.”
“Uh, yeah,” she said, looking surprised.
“Did you get any resolution on it? Was the animal found?”
“No, sir, afraid not.” Her lips pressed together in consternation, and I made a sound of acknowledgement.
“What breed was it again? Something expensive?”
“No, not really. A Staffy.”
I stilled briefly, watching the kettle boil without seeing it. It’d been Staffordshire bull terriers, or a breed very similar, that I’d seen in the barn. I knew I couldn’t assume that it was connected to Tovar’s case, but the similarity still struck me.
“Have there been any similar incidents?” I asked as I filled mine and Stephen’s cups up with hot water.
“Any other dogs going missing, sir, or…?” she trailed off.
“No, I mean, anything specifically similar to that one, with a dog being listed online and going missing, especially a Staffy,” I clarified.
“Oh, no, sir. I haven’t come across a repeat.”
“Okay, thanks for telling me.” I sent her a nod and a smile, and she returned it, though she looked a little confused at why I’d been grilling her about it.
“No problem.”
I gathered up mine and Stephen’s mugs and moved to leave, only to pause.
“If there are any similar cases, could you give me a heads up?”
“Uh, sure, sir,” she said, eyebrows raised.
“I appreciate it,” I told her with a nod.
Stephen’s head came up as I came over to his desk to give him his coffee, and he fixed me with a quizzical look. I held out his coffee, but he didn’t immediately take it off me.
“What?” I said, prompting him into motion.
“Sorry.”
He took the mug, and I flopped down in my chair, wincing at the twinge of pain from the cut on my hand. It hadn’t been too bad today, though it still stung and carrying the mugs had pulled on the healing skin.
“You were talking to Tovar, were you?” he asked.
“Aye.” I took a sip of too-hot coffee and hissed between my teeth.
“She’s nice. Friendly.”
“I guess so,” I said, sending him a sideways glance.
“Not a patch on Sam, though.”
It took me a moment to process what he’d just said, and then the realisation made me nearly tip my coffee over my lap.
“Steph, are you kidding me?!” I said, twisting to face him.
“What?” He shrugged, feigning innocence despite the apologetic grimace on his face that told me he knew exactly what I meant.
“I’m not eying up other women!” I snapped a bit too loudly. I made myself moderate my volume, even though I was still fizzing with outraged hurt. “Why would you think I’d do that, mate, seri
ously?”
“You said things haven’t been great-”
“So you think I’m going to give up on Sam after a blip-” I spat, waving my arm and almost hitting my monitor.
“I didn’t say that!” he protested before taking a breath and putting his hands up. “Look, I’m sorry. I like Sam, Mitch, that’s all. Tovar’s pretty, I guess, and you-”
“I asked about a case, for Christ’s sake. About a missing Staffy. That’s it.”
I swore under my breath, genuinely stung that he’d assume I was looking for someone to replace Sam. I loved her for crying out loud. Even if things had been a little rough lately, the last thing I wanted to do was end it.
“Okay, I’m sorry, mate, really.”
“Is it because I dated around a bit before her?” I asked pointedly. “Is that it? You don’t think I can be monogamous and faithful to her?”
“No, I didn’t mean that.” He gave a sigh. “I am sorry, it wasn’t a smart thing to say.”
“Aye, too right. Look, forget it.” I rubbed a hand across my face and sighed. His doubt felt like a kick in the teeth.
He reached over to put a hand on my shoulder, and I barely resisted shaking it off. It’d only been an idle comment, but the implication that he didn’t think my feelings for Sam were very strong had stung, especially since he was supposed to be in my corner. I thought he knew me better than that.
“I know you love her, Darren. I’m sorry I said anything. It was stupid.”
“S’alright. I know you just care,” I sighed.
Things were a little tense between us for the rest of the afternoon, even though I tried to lighten the atmosphere. Maybe it was the stress of yesterday that had left me feeling more on edge than usual. Still, for him to even momentarily think that I’d flirt with someone else whilst being in a relationship with Sam had been painful to hear. I suppose I ought to be grateful that my best friend was the sort of decent bloke who’d call me out if I didn’t treat my girlfriend properly, I thought wryly. He could’ve given me a little more credit, though.
The self-defence class at the gym was a good stress reliever that night, and I gave it a good go even though my legs were aching. I’d stretched them out well beforehand and taken a couple of ibuprofen pills, so it was just mind over matter for the rest.
Tooth and Claw Page 5
