Little Boy Blue

37

Charlie waited until Paul Jackson had been handed over to the desk sergeant before making her move. Having brought him in and cautioned him, Sanderson had ten minutes to gather herself, while he made his obligatory phone call. Ten minutes would be plenty for what Charlie had to say.

‘I didn’t think you’d stoop this low.’

Sanderson turned, surprised by Charlie’s sudden approach. Something – was it embarrassment? – stole across Sanderson’s face before she recovered her composure.

‘Come on, Charlie, you know the drill. We had a lead, I was the senior officer on duty -’

‘Jackson was my lead. I spent half the night watching his house…’

‘So I hear,’ Sanderson replied knowingly.

‘Don’t you dare take the piss out of me,’ Charlie spat back, anger suddenly flaring within her. ‘I questioned him, wrote the follow-up report. I got his bloody DNA, for God’s sake -’

‘No one’s denying that. It was good work. But you know what the boss has been like on this. She wants everything done yesterday -’

‘Great. So now you’re blaming her -’

‘Of course not.’

‘We’re equal rank, you can’t steal leads from me. Just because your undercover gig was a bust -’

‘You weren’t here, Charlie,’ Sanderson interrupted. ‘What was I supposed to do?’

‘You were supposed to call me. That’s what any normal person would have done. But you’re so busy trying to impress Mummy that you’d -’

‘You’re out of line.’

‘Deny it then. Look me in the face and deny that you deliberately stole my collar to make yourself look good in front of -’

‘Go to Hell.’

‘You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Be just like the old days -’

‘What’s going on?’

Charlie was almost nose-to-nose with Sanderson, but pulled away sharply on hearing Helen’s voice.

‘We have a suspect in custody,’ Helen continued, approaching fast. ‘We have dozens of leads to chase up. So why are my two senior officers going at it like a pair of fishwives?’

Neither Charlie nor Sanderson answered. They didn’t dare, given the look on Helen’s face.

‘You’ve both been around long enough to know that any problems need to be settled in private, not paraded for the rest of the station.’

Charlie stole a glance at the desk sergeant who’d clearly been enjoying the show.

‘DS Brooks, you will accompany me to the interview suite. DS Sanderson, you will return to the incident room and lead the team.’

Sanderson opened her mouth to protest.

‘And don’t even think about answering back,’ Helen said, silencing her before she’d begun.

Without another word, Helen turned, walking away fast towards the swing doors. Charlie sped after her. She didn’t bother looking back at Sanderson – she could tell what she’d be feeling now. Not that this was any consolation – they were both in trouble now and had a lot of ground to make up.

Whatever way you looked at it, Charlie’s bad day had just got a whole lot worse.