“But you did sign it, sir. Your signature is right there.”

He stared hard at her for a few seconds. Then he picked up the envelope and held it close to his face, examining the signature. He frowned. “I suppose I could have been in a hurry, and not really paying attention.”

“We all have our off days, sir. Actually, I believe it was sent on the same day we were called out to Kelham Island for the suspected bombing, so that would be understandable. What’s the date on it?”

He peered at the form once more. “Ah, yes. Busy day, lots going on.”

Thrupp narrowed his eyes and breathed through flared nostrils. He threw the envelope back on the desk. “Anyway, I’ve de-authorised it. They sent it back up because the disk hadn’t burned properly and they wanted another copy. I came to tell you not to bother. We don’t have budget for this. It’s not on the live case list. What were you thinking?”

“I thought it might be significant. The victim said there’d been an intruder in the hospital. I was just being thorough.”

Thrupp would not want to hear the real reasons: that she felt the case nagging at her; that she knew she wouldn’t rest properly until she knew the truth; that she had a feeling there was so much more to this, if she could only get beneath the surface of it.

“I looked up the case, Jo. It’s closed. It wasn’t even opened. A 999 call, filed as picked up by Mental Health Services. Why are you wasting everyone’s time with it?”

“When I met her, the victim was convinced it was real. I just wanted to tick all the boxes.”

“That’s noble of you, but you’ve got enough to do without investigating crimes that everyone agrees didn’t even happen. On top of all that, analysing CCTV costs money we simply don’t have.”

“I’m sorry, sir.”

“You’re very close to the line with this. If I spot anything else like it I won’t let it go. It’ll have to be a disciplinary.”

“Sorry. I honestly didn’t mean to cause you any trouble.”

“Look, Jo, you’re a diligent officer. But you have to operate as part of the team—you can’t do whatever you want all the time. This might seem like a small thing but it affects the rest of us. Just wait until you make inspector. You’ll be running around all day after your sergeants, trying to justify your use of resources, too. It’s a serious business, the allocation of funds. We’re talking about taxpayer’s money here.”

Harper nodded sagely, but thought, and that is why I won’t be making inspector any time soon. Running around after other officers, thinking about funding—she felt she had quite enough tedious administrative tasks in her current role, thank you very much. The further up the ladder you climbed, the less actual hands-on policing you did. It was all stress, long hours, and shift work, which the extra money couldn’t quite make up for. The previous year, Harper had aced the inspector’s exam but since then, whenever a job came up she usually found some excuse not to go for it; too far away, not the department she’d hoped for. The truth was, she wasn’t ready. She liked the practical side of things, and she didn’t want to work any more hours if she could help it, mainly because if she did, her training would suffer.