Bancho acknowledged that his current attitude was affecting the team; even the assistant chief constable had pulled him in for a pep talk. Given that the actual words were, ‘Pull your fucking socks up you miserable bastard, you’re getting on everybody’s nerves,’ he wasn’t too sure how helpful it was, but he had to recognize that things were bad. He needed to socialize more, extend the hand of friendship to his colleagues, and all that bollocks. The detective pushed back his chair and wandered out to the operations room to grab a coffee. He put a smile on his face, which he hoped didn’t look as forced as it felt–otherwise it would frighten those of a weak disposition.

The chatter in the operations room didn’t stop when he walked in the door–that was always a good sign. He wasn’t an official weirdo yet. His colleagues were hard at work and looked just as tired as he felt; a few of them even raised their heads and nodded in his direction. Bancho straightened his tie and ran a hand through his hair. PC Tricia Sheehy didn’t look too shabby in this light and, even in his miserable state, he had started to notice that she was the one thing that was keeping him going at work. Sometimes the thought of her even cut a few seconds off his banging-head-on-desk routine. She poured him a cup of tar-black coffee out of the percolator.

‘Where’ve you been hiding?’ she asked as she tucked a stray blonde hair behind her ear. She was medium height, medium to look at, but with a spark in her brown eyes that penetrated his deadened senses–a bit.

‘Bancho! The ACC wants you to call,’ shouted a secretary.

Bancho didn’t acknowledge her. He sipped his coffee and continued to look at Tricia Sheehy.

‘I said, where have you been hiding? You deaf?’ Tricia asked again.

‘He says it’s important,’ the secretary bawled even louder this time. ‘And I thought he sounded like he actually meant it.’

‘I heard you’ve already been in to see the boss this week…you know he doesn’t like to be kept waiting. You best go–sir,’ said Tricia. She briefly placed her hand on his arm to emphasize that he needed to move, and a quick tingle spread through his body.

Bancho refilled his cup and took it back to his office, which seemed to have got dirtier and lonelier in the five minutes he’d been in the ops room. He put his feet up on the desk, opened the bottom drawer, took out a chocolate digestive biscuit and dialled the ACC.

‘What’s the problem?’ he asked, no preamble necessary between the two men, who knew that formalities only wasted time in the real world.

‘Another one’s turned up.’

Bancho stared into space. Christ.