‘All I’m saying,’ Dave cut her off, putting on his reasonable voice, ‘is that your priorities-’
‘My priorities? My priorities.’ She laughed, not in the slightest amused. ‘Would we be having this conversation if it was you?’
‘Of course,’ he said, not even thinking about it.
‘No,’ she said, brusquely, ‘we wouldn’t. “He’s only three, Dave, wait until he’s at school, till he’s bigger, he needs his father here”, she mimicked. ‘No way!’ She felt close to losing her temper, her skin hot, harsh words, dangerous words crowding her throat. ‘But I’m expected to put things on hold because we have a child. Takes two to tango,’ she said. ‘I need you to back me on this. So I’ll think about my decision while you think about that.’ She’d walked out then. Agitated, disappointed.
Janet had listened to her recounting the discussion with Dave over a bottle of wine in a bar in the town centre.
‘You can’t not apply,’ Janet told her, ‘you’d never forgive yourself. You’re meant for this, you know you are. Supercop,’ she added drily. ‘You go, girl.’
‘I’d be back in between jobs anyway,’ Gill argued, ‘have reasonable leave.’
Janet laughed. ‘It’s not as if you’d be going off to the Antarctic or something. This is the twentieth century, nearly the twenty-first. There’s a girl in records, Indian, she’s left two kids with her mum in Delhi while she makes some decent money over here for them all. We don’t know we’re born half the time.’
‘I think he’s miffed,’ Gill said, raising her glass. ‘Me doing it and not him.’
Janet raised her eyebrows. ‘He’s a big lad, he’ll get over it. You know you could hack it. Maybe he couldn’t.’
Gill looked at her for a moment. Janet always had this precise, understated way of telling the truth. No flag waving or drum rolls. Straight to the point, measured, sensible, incisive. ‘Maybe that’s gonna be a problem,’ Gill said.
‘He’ll do all right for himself,’ Janet said. ‘He’s ambitious enough.’
‘What about you, though?’ Gill held up the bottle and Janet accepted a top-up. ‘You’ve never thought of moving into an MIT?’
‘I’m fine as I am,’ Janet said.
‘So, you’re going to stay on Division all your life. Not had enough of burglaries and assaults yet?’ Gill asked.
‘I get pulled on to the odd murder now and again when they need an extra detective. Not as if I never get a look-in. I’m not sure I’d want to do it all day every day.’
‘Give it time.’
Gill was dragged back to the present by a knock on her office door, as Phil Sweet the CSM came in to discuss the implications of Sean Broughton moving the duvet.
