“I feel so stupid,” she said in the end.

“You’re not. Not a bit stupid.”

“I was so sure that I would get it.” She looked up at him. “Do you know . . . I was thinking about going for sergeant next year? I thought moving over to detectives was going to be a done deal, and I could press on from there. God. I’m an idiot.” She’d had it all wrong. This was humiliating. How many people knew that she was going for this? She hadn’t exactly kept it a secret. And now they’d all know that she’d been knocked back. Maybe they’d always known. Maybe she was the only one who hadn’t realized that she wasn’t cut out for it. And now she was being inappropriate, talking to him as if he were a friend whose shoulder she could cry on. She straightened up. “Sorry, sir.”

“It was a good application,” Martin said.

“Not good enough,” she said dully.

“Everything looked good on paper.”

“On paper,” she echoed. “What does that mean?”

He looked so sorry for her. That was nearly the worst bit. Like she was a small child who had been working desperately but was still way behind the rest of the class.

“It’s just, for detectives, it’s more than just the application, you know?”

“Of course, it is,” she said. “Of course.” But she didn’t understand what he meant. She thought back to all the work she’d done. All the burglaries and minor assaults where she’d run down witness statements and followed up on leads, when another uniform would have considered their job done once the initial report was filed. All the unpaid overtime, to keep on top of the paperwork those extra inquiries had generated. And she’d had wins. Lots of them. No one had anything close to her runs on the board. What had she missed?

“I really thought I had it,” she said. “I’ve worked so hard.”

Martin took a step closer. He put a gentle hand on her shoulder. “You have. You’ve worked very hard.”

“I thought I’d done more than enough. I must have screwed up somewhere. Or maybe I pissed someone off?”

“It’s not about that, Carrie,” Martin said, and his voice was very kind. “It’s not about running around trying to tick all these boxes as if there’s one long form and there are right answers to every question. We’re looking at the overall attitude and approach to the work. It’s about a certain kind of . . . fit.” He paused. Before she knew quite how it had happened, he’d taken a half step closer to her, and the hand that had been on her shoulder was moving, brushing a strand of hair from her cheek. Then his fingers were on her neck, his thumb stroking her face. “It doesn’t mean you aren’t well suited for other work.”

She was paralyzed, unable to move or feel anything except the sudden sickness in the bottom of her stomach. She could still hear voices from the squad room outside.