Poppet

The Secret of Flying

FARTLEK MEANS ‘SPEED play’ in Swedish. It is a training method designed to place stresses on the aerobic and anaerobic systems, stimulating the heart and discouraging it from falling into a steady rhythm. It can be adjusted to suit the individual, and is therefore ideal for anyone wanting to recoup their fitness after a long period of inactivity.

The football ground behind Avon and Somerset police’s northern operations centre has its own mini-‘Fartlek hill’, a man-made mound at one end of the pitch with three polyurethane tartan track lanes snaking up and over it. At seven a.m., just as the sun is rising above the city, thirty-year-old Sergeant Flea Marley pushes herself up the hill. She passes the bases of the three wind turbines mounted along the crest, runs down the other side. Keeping her pace hard and fast, she executes a speed turn at the foot of the hill and races back up it. Her black, wicking force T-shirt – ‘POLICE’ embossed on the deltoids – is saturated with sweat. It evaporates off her in clouds. With Fartlek you have to push through the lactic-acid build – the bleed of pain in the long muscles. The nausea. You have to want to do it.

Flea wants to do it. She wants to get back to fitness. She is sergeant of the force’s Underwater Search Unit – the police diving team. A woman in a man’s world and above everything she needs her body to be in tune. Over ten months ago she was hurt in an explosion in a tunnel which left her with muscle injuries to her thigh and a burst eardrum. It’s been a long haul getting fit again. But she’s made the most of it – she’s worked it and worked it. She is, quite simply, a different person from the one she was last year. In control – and things in her head are nicely spaced. It’s all been about putting things in boxes in her head. Closing lids. That’s the secret of flying – you never look down or over your shoulder.

She abandons the hill and enters the pitch, moving into the easy running phase. She pounds along – the ground dry and cold underfoot. The turf pitch is unlit – the only luminance comes from the floodlights over on the Astro where a youth-alliance football team are doing morning training. The compression sleeve she had on her thigh for months is off now, and the air on it feels good. The burst eardrum got infected and held her back longer than she expected – she’s been at work but on restricted duties for eight months – she probably won’t be able to dive for another three weeks, after a visit to the barotrauma specialists in Plymouth to be formally ticked back into work. But her body feels organized, and for the first time in ages she thinks she looks nice too. She’s gained weight and her skin is healthy.

As she transitions into the final minute of fast pace she realizes she’s being watched. A man is sitting on a bench in the arbour that leads to the car park – under a sweep of autumnal branches.

She circuits the full five hundred metres, monitoring him with small glances as she does. The leaves are on the ground around him, and he wears a dark-blue gabardine jacket, the collar up, his elbows on his knees. His face is hard, set – he has a wide neck, intense blue eyes and thick dark hair kept very short. If he got up it would be a calm movement – one that people, especially women, would notice. Flea knows this because she knows who it is. It’s DI Jack Caffery.

She hasn’t seen or spoken to him in almost a year – and she doesn’t acknowledge him now. Instead she executes a sixty-metre sprint along the eastern edges of the pitch, dropping the pace as she comes round the corner. He’ll be able to watch her uninterrupted, and that’s fine. For the first time in ages she likes her body – she doesn’t mind people watching it. She’s got a lot to be proud of.

As she rounds the top end of the pitch, her airwaves radio in the black holster around her bicep gives a familiar warble. It’s the unique sound of a point-to-point contact – someone wanting to speak to her directly. She slows her running to a long loping gait, pulling the radio out of her holster. Maybe this is his way of contacting her. But when she sees the ID on the handset it’s not Jack Caffery but Wellard, her acting sergeant.

She bends over, one hand on her thigh, panting. Then, almost recovered, she straightens and holds the radio to her mouth.

‘Hi, Wellard – wassup?’

‘Tried your mobile. No signal.’

‘No – I’m on the football-club track. I think it’s the turbines.’

‘Can you get back then? A job’s come in.’

‘A job?’ Flea digs her fingers into her stomach muscles, where they ache. ‘A diving job?’

‘No – it’s a search. MCIT.’

MCIT – Jack Caffery’s unit. She resists an urge to look over her shoulder to where he’s sitting. ‘What do they want?’

Wellard sighs. ‘A search. Misper. I’m guessing it got kicked up by the review team because it’s one we’ve done before – Misty Kitson.’

‘Misty Kitson.’

‘That’s what I said.’

Flea takes her finger off the button. She breathes in and out – dragging the air down into the bottom of her lungs. Her heart rate, which should be slowing, has picked up at the mention of that name. Misty Kitson.

‘Boss? You there?’

She coughs. Hits the button. ‘Yeah, yeah – I’m here.’

‘I was saying – Misty Kitson – they want us to search near the clinic again. They’re going to extend the parameters.’

‘Yeah, I heard you.’

‘Can you come back to the office? Start thinking about staffing?’

‘I’m on my way.’

She snaps the radio into the holster and stands for a minute, her heart thudding. Misty Kitson. A search for Misty Kitson. The only officer at MCIT who would have issued a request like that is the one who was the Senior Investigating Officer on the case. DI Jack Caffery.

Slowly she turns in the direction of the shaded pathway where he sits.

But this time the lamplight shines on an empty place. Caffery – if it was him – has disappeared.