The Doll's House

133

The incident room was empty, which seemed fitting. Ceri Harwood stood alone, her eyes flicking over the board, taking in the pictures of Pippa, Roisin, Isobel and Ruby. The entire team was out hunting Ben Fraser – this major operation was reaching its climax. With luck, Fraser would soon be in custody, but this thought gave Harwood little pleasure. She would be excluded from the triumph, isolated in defeat.

How had she misjudged things so badly? There had been other DIs, women especially, who had threatened her position before. She had crushed them easily, exiling them from her unit, replacing them with ambitious, compliant officers who would dance to her tune. But Helen Grace had refused to buckle, had always found ways to evade the traps laid for her. Perhaps it was time to acknowledge that she lacked the imagination to deal with Helen Grace. Perhaps she was too bound by protocol, by rules and regulations, to deal with an adversary who was constantly surprising. In the final analysis, she just wasn’t good enough to beat her.

It was time to go and see Fisher now. She had typed out her resignation letter, had her excuses ready – the easy lie of wanting to spend more time with her family. That bit almost made her laugh. She had the girls of course, but their family was fractured now – weekend visits to their dad would be a constant reminder of that. Even now this seemed such an odd thought. They had come to Southampton so full of optimism and yet the end result had been catastrophic for everyone. She would have to rebuild her career, her life, elsewhere now – it was time for someone else to take the lead. Please God, Fisher doesn’t give the job to Grace, Ceri Harwood thought, as she left the incident room. She had suffered enough indignities already.