‘The top brass. My own boss. They think I’ve lost it. They don’t trust me to do a proper job.’
‘Maybe they’re just protecting you.’
‘I don’t need protecting. Why would they even think that?’
Ben shrugged his shoulders. ‘You didn’t take much time off. Maybe they think you could do without the stress.’
Hannah swigged more wine. ‘I can handle stress. It goes with the badge. It’s not about that. It’s because they think I’m a fuck-up.’
‘No they don’t.’
‘They do. The Suzy Carling thing was just the cherry on a whole cake of fuck-up.’
‘That wasn’t your fault. You know that.’
Which was another thing she loved about Ben. They’d had this conversation probably a thousand times before, and each time he could have said something like ‘Oh, Christ, not this again’, but he never did. Although sometimes – right now, for example – a part of her wished he would do precisely that so she could have a damn good argument.
‘I know what they put in the official reports, but the force doesn’t admit to mistakes unless it absolutely has to. What they write about me and what they think about me privately are two different things.’
Ben pointed to the wine bottle. ‘Are you planning to share that?’
She took down another glass. As she filled it she wondered if he’d asked for it just to prevent her drinking it all.
Ben sipped the wine and studied her over the rim of his glass.
‘What makes you think they’re so against you?’
‘Don’t ask that like you’re a psychologist talking to a paranoid schizophrenic. I’m not imagining things. I look at the cases I used to get and I look at the cases I get now and they’re different. I used to work murders. I was right at the forefront on those investigations. Everyone had me pegged for shooting up the ranks.’ She waved her glass at him, and some of the wine sloshed over the sides. ‘You know what they gave me today? A missing husband.’
‘Well, that sounds pretty important to me. I mean, I’d like to think that if I went missing—’
‘He disappeared two years ago. Two fucking years. And he’d emptied out his savings account before he went, so it looked like he knew exactly what he was doing. But now the family are kicking up a fuss about it again, and my bosses want to show that they’re taking it seriously. So who gets the job? Muggins here.’
‘I suppose somebody has to do it.’
There he goes again, she thought. The voice of reason.
‘Yes, of course somebody has to do it, and if it was just the once, I wouldn’t be complaining. But when it happens again and again – when every shitty meaningless job lands on my desk – then it starts to get pretty tedious pretty damn quickly.’
‘Have you spoken to anyone about it? Have you talked it over with your boss?’
‘Yes, I had a chat with Ray Devereux.’
‘And? What did he say?’
‘He said . . . he said I should have a good long think about whether I’m on the right career path.’
The shock was evident on Ben’s face. ‘What kind of support is that? Shouldn’t he be sticking up for you? Jesus! And this is all because some stupid woman tried to outrun a train? That’s not fair.’
That’s more like it, she thought. A bit of outrage against the bastards I have to deal with. Mild outrage, admittedly, but for Ben it’s the equivalent of a volcanic eruption.
‘It’s . . . it’s not just that.’
‘What do you mean?’
Confession time. She’d kept this to herself out of embarrassment, but right now she needed support.
‘There are other things. Mistakes.’
‘What mistakes?’
‘Little things. Mostly.’
‘Mostly?’
‘There was a lad. He came in for a voluntary interview last week. He had information related to a stabbing we were investigating. I led the interview. Only . . . I forgot to caution him prior to questioning.’
She saw how Ben’s face dropped. He knew enough about police work to realise how serious this was. It could lead to the collapse of a case in court.
‘Oh, shit,’ he said. ‘What happened?’
‘Somebody noticed there was no caution on the recording of the interview, which left the lad’s statements open to legal challenge. A stink was raised. I was asked for an explanation.’
‘And what did you say?’
‘The only thing I could say. I remained adamant that I had issued a caution.’
‘Did they believe you?’
