Maybe he was judging Anderson too harshly if he was offering to do the legwork. That would give him and Styles a chance to work out where they went next with Natasha’s case, and he hadn’t had time to track down Will Leonard for the report on the scene at Taylor Fisheries.

His phone vibrated and he glanced down at the screen. It was a text from Campbell.

In my office when you have 5.

Had he spoken to Milburn already? When Campbell had recovered from his embarrassment at misreading the photograph, he had dismissed Porter, promising to ring Milburn straight away. In Porter’s experience, Campbell rarely tended to be the bringer of good tidings, and almost never this quickly. He excused himself and headed to find out, mentally preparing his plan B if the answer wasn’t in his favour.

Porter debated sending Campbell a reply saying he had left the building and was tracking down Will Leonard first, but thought better of it. No sense in delaying potentially bad news, and if Campbell found out he had fobbed him off, he would be even harder to win round. No sense swimming against the tide unnecessarily.

The door was slightly open, but Porter knocked anyway. Campbell was staring intently at paperwork on his desk, and spoke without looking up.

‘Come in, have a seat. I’ll just be a second.’

Porter sat as instructed and waited patiently for Campbell to finish. Porter didn’t know how he could do it. He couldn’t think of anything more soul-destroying than having budgets as your number one adversary, instead of the actual lawbreakers they were here to police. Someone had to do it, he supposed, and was just thankful it wasn’t him. He would rather follow Anderson into the sunset than chain himself to a desk.

Campbell finished whatever he was reviewing and scribbled an intelligible signature at the bottom like a child’s doodle.

‘Ah, Porter.’ He sounded almost surprised to see him even though he’d sent the summoning text.

‘You wanted to see me, sir?’

‘Yes. I’ve just come off the phone with Milburn. We’ve agreed to run a joint taskforce taking what happened to Gibson and Simmons into account. Anderson will still lead on the drugs angle. You and Styles will follow up on Gibson, Simmons and that other chap. You’ll do daily briefings for myself and Superintendent Milburn at the end of each shift to make sure there’s no unnecessary overlap.’

Porter didn’t react. It wasn’t exactly what he wanted but it was enough of a happy medium for him to work with. He would rather be setting the direction for the case as a whole instead of part of it, not for any personal gain, but to put it simply he just didn’t have the confidence in Anderson that his superiors did.

‘What about our other case, sir, Natasha Barclay?’