The team made small talk but no one knew quite how to play it. Furtive eyes were cast towards the pub entrance, then suddenly there she was. Charlie bounded over towards the group – keen to get this over with? – and as if by magic the crowds seem to part, allowing Charlie a clean run at her superior.
‘Hello, Charlie,’ Helen said. Not exactly inspired, but it would have to do.
‘Boss.’
‘How’s your first day been?’
‘Good. It’s been good.’
‘Good.’
Silence. Mercifully Tony leapt to Helen’s aid:
‘Nicked anyone yet?’
Charlie laughed and shook her head.
‘You’re losing your touch, girl,’ Tony continued. ‘Sanderson, you owe me a fiver.’
The team laughed and slowly they crowded round, patting Charlie on the back, buying her drinks, peppering her with questions. Helen did her best to join in – asking after Steve, her parents – but her heart wasn’t in it. Seizing a suitable moment, she nipped off to the toilets. She needed solitude.
She entered the cubicle and sat down. She felt light-headed and rested her head in her hands. Her temples throbbed, her throat was dry. Charlie had looked surprisingly well – nothing like the broken woman who’d stumbled free from her terrible captivity – but seeing her had been harder than Helen had anticipated. Without her around as a reminder, Helen had settled back into life at the station. With Tony promoted to DS and new blood introduced it had almost been like engaging with a new team. Charlie’s return took her straight back to that time, reminding her of all that she’d lost.
Helen exited the cubicle and gave her hands a long, thorough clean. In the background a toilet flushed and a cubicle door opened. Helen flicked a glance into the mirror and her face fell.
Walking towards her was Emilia Garanita, Chief Crime Reporter for the Southampton Evening News.
‘Fancy meeting you here,’ said Emilia, smiling the broadest of grins.
‘I would have thought this was your natural habitat, Emilia.’
It was cheap, but Helen couldn’t resist. She disliked this woman both professionally and personally. The fact that she had suffered – one side of Emilia’s face was still heavily disfigured following a historic acid attack – cut no ice with Helen. Everyone suffered – it didn’t have to make you a merciless shit.
Emilia’s smile didn’t waver; she liked duelling, as Helen knew to her cost.
‘I was rather hoping we’d run into each other, Inspector,’ she continued. Helen wondered if the stress on the last word was Emilia’s way of emphasizing how Helen’s career had stalled. ‘I hear you had yourself a nasty little murder on the Empress Road.’
