He sat for a few minutes, letting the stresses of a busy, frustrating day evaporate from his body. Promotion had seemed the right thing to do, but he was quickly finding the frustrations of man-management, targets, and performance criteria difficult to reconcile. He missed the adrenaline rush of a manhunt, the surveillance follows, collaring a villain. All of that had been replaced with target-driven monotony and performance indicators.

He switched on the TV and turned to the sports channels, selecting Cage Warrior’s Mixed Martial Arts: a middleweight bout between two unnamed fighters. He was a big fan of the sport but quickly found himself getting frustrated. The defending champion was all over the place. ‘For fucks sake, get some side-control, you pillock,’ he muttered at the TV.

His work phone winked at him, indicating that an email had landed in his inbox. He wearily picked up the handset and read the message from his boss, DCI Simon Taylor. Apparently DS Neil Wilkinson from SC&O35, the covert policing command, wanted to speak to him urgently the next morning about a potential deployment. There was a contact number in the email and Taylor signed off with, ‘Don’t think this gets you out of late-turn, Tom, we’re short of manpower already.’

Tom allowed himself a wry grin. He knew Neil Wilkinson from previous operations; he was a good man who wouldn’t take any nonsense from a desk-jockey like Simon Taylor.

He hadn’t deployed undercover since promotion, and his interest picked up at the prospect. After the past few months staring at a computer screen and crime statistics, the prospect of a deployment caused a slow smile of anticipation to creep across his face.

He drained his whisky and headed off to bed.

*

Tom woke early and dressed in clean jeans and a dark polo shirt, selected from a meticulously-organised wardrobe holding a line of five identical polo shirts hanging on the rail next to several pairs of identical jeans. He didn’t like wasting mental energy deciding what to wear. For business-wear, he had three identical blue suits together with five identical white shirts. There was another wardrobe in the bedroom that held a supply of more gaudy casual clothes, used for undercover work.

He ran his hand over his chin, noting the dark stubble pushing through his jaw line. He toyed with the idea of shaving and then shook his head; if deployment was likely, then some sort of beard gave him more options for his appearance.

Using his work phone, he called the number for Neil Wilkinson.

‘Hello?’ came the voice from the other end.

‘Hello, boss, it’s Tom Novak. You wanted to speak?’

‘Tom! How you doing, mate? Not seen you since you jumped on the promotion bandwagon! How you been?’