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Chapters (70)
  1. Cover
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  3. Map of Rutland
  4. Map of Oakham
  5. 1
  6. 2
  7. 3
  8. 4
  9. 5
  10. 6
  11. 7
  12. 8
  13. 9
  14. 10
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  35. 31
  36. 32
  37. 33
  38. 34
  39. 35
  40. 36
  41. 37
  42. 38
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  44. 40
  45. 41
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  48. 44
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  50. 46
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  53. 49
  54. 50
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  56. 52
  57. 53
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  60. 56
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  62. 58
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  64. 60
  65. 61
  66. 62
  67. 63
  68. On Borrowed Time
  69. Acknowledgments
  70. Adam Croft

She didn’t feel it, but that wasn’t something she was about to admit. She wondered if perhaps opening up to Dexter had lifted a weight from her shoulders. The biggest burden still needed to be shifted, but she was pleased Mark had noticed a change.

‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘Maybe a bit of time and space is all we need sometimes.’

‘I was thinking maybe we might come back first thing instead of in the evening tomorrow. Roads’ll be hell later on, with the rest of the bank holiday traffic. Plus the boys are missing you already.’

‘I miss them too.’

She dearly wanted to open up to Mark, but this wasn’t the time or the place. She needed him to be here with her. Tomorrow night, she promised herself, was when she’d tell him everything.

She said her goodbyes, then put the phone down on the coffee table. She needed to swallow her emotions for another day. She’d done it for years already, so what was another few hours?

She felt nervous at the thought of having to tell him everything, but accepted it was for the best. Keeping things to herself hadn’t worked, and this was the only option she had left. Then she could worry about her job, and whether she’d even have one once this was all over. She had a distinct feeling she’d be left on paperwork duties, or that some decree would come from above that anything more serious than a cat stuck up a tree would be handed straight over to EMSOU. And that was before she even started to worry about the chemotherapy.

There were too many things to worry about. Work provided her the focus and structure she needed to get through things. And in that moment, she knew what she had to do. She headed over to the pile of papers and documents Dexter had brought over, opened her laptop and got to work.

53

There was something comforting about not being constrained by the very specific and process-driven way things were done in the Met. It got results — that couldn’t be denied — but Caroline wasn’t sure it was any more successful than the holistic approach to policing she preferred.

This was much more like the job she’d envisaged, spending a late Sunday evening hunched over a laptop and a pile of papers, crossing the t’s and dotting the i’s and trying to find a crack somewhere — anywhere — which might provide her with a breakthrough.