Jack tried to lean down to open his bedside locker, but his back instantly seized up and he flinched in pain. Ridley pulled the locker door open, fished out the rucksack and started to unzip the main compartment. ‘Front pocket!’ Jack said quickly. Ridley’s hands moved to the front pocket. He took out the diamond bracelet, stuffed the rucksack back into the bedside locker and stood up.

‘Sir . . . thank you. I never meant to put you in this position. I hope you know that.’

‘I do know that, yes.’ Ridley closed his fist around the bracelet. ‘Because I know that when you took this, you never actually gave me a second’s thought. And that’s a problem, Jack. Each time you step beyond the boundaries that guide us as police officers, you come back a little less like that man from Totnes who I employed two years ago.’

Jack, thinking he’d just made the biggest mistake of his career and now had nothing left to lose, spoke without his usual careful filter.

‘Good. I don’t want to be him. I’m better than him. Right from the off, you gave me shitty jobs, forcing me to realise that I wanted more. Then you made me fight for it. So, no, I’m not the man you employed two years ago, sir. But you have to take some of the blame for that. Or maybe the credit?’

Ridley remained statue-like, giving nothing away and Jack was certain that he’d blown it. There was no way Ridley was going to cover up the theft.

So Jack did the only thing he could: he hit below the belt. ‘If you decide to get rid of me, sir, please make sure I’m sacked. Don’t get me moved. If I’m going to continue to be a policeman, I don’t want to be part of anyone else’s team.’

Ridley’s eyes smiled beneath his furrowed brow. ‘Well . . . considering that moving teams would require a recommendation from me, it wouldn’t be an option, would it?’

Ridley slid the diamond bracelet into his trouser pocket and left.

Chapter 27

CHAPTER 27

Jack had relished his week’s medical leave, although he’d driven Maggie demented by not resting anywhere near as much as he should have. On his second day home, she caught him finally building his office desk. Two hours earlier, he’d said he was going to lie down as his head was aching, and when she’d gone to wake him for lunch, he’d actually been in the spare room fixing the integral lock onto the desk drawer. As she gently chastised him, he tucked the trailing strap from the small black rucksack into the drawer, locked it, and added the tiny key to his keyring. He then kissed Maggie and she joined him for his long-overdue lie down.