I See You(53)

‘That’s good though, isn’t it?’ Lexi had said, when she’d come to visit Kelly after a particularly difficult anger management session. ‘It’ll make it easier to move on from it. Forget it even happened.’

Kelly had buried her face in her pillow. It wasn’t easier to move on. It was harder. Because if she didn’t know what had caused her to lose control, how could she be certain it wouldn’t happen again?

She pressed the buzzer for MIT and waited, huddled inside the shallow doorway, out of the rain. A disembodied voice rang out on to the street.

‘Hello?’

‘It’s Kelly Swift. I’m here on secondment to Op FURNISS.’

‘Come on up, Kelly!’

Kelly recognised Lucinda’s voice and her nerves abated a little. This was a clean slate, she reminded herself; a chance to start again, to prove herself without being judged on her past. She took the lift, walking into MIT without any of the hesitation of her previous visit. A nod of recognition from one of the team – Bob, she remembered, just too late to greet him by name – buoyed her mood, and when Lucinda bobbed up from behind her desk, Kelly was reassured further.

‘Welcome to the madhouse.’

‘Thanks – I think. Is the DI around?’

‘He went out for a run.’

‘In this weather?’

‘That’s the DI for you. He’s expecting you, though; Diggers sent an email round yesterday, letting us know.’

Kelly tried to read Lucinda’s expression. ‘How did it go down?’

‘With Nick?’ She laughed. ‘Oh, you know Nick. Well, I guess you don’t. Look, the DI’s great, but he’s not good with authority. If it had been his idea to have a BTP officer on secondment, he’d be all smiles. As it is, Diggers and he don’t exactly see eye to eye, so …’ Lucinda stopped. ‘It’ll be fine. Now, let me show you where you’ll be working.’

At that moment the door opened and DI Rampello came in. He wore shorts and a Gore-Tex T-shirt; a lightweight fluorescent jacket zipped part way up his chest. He pulled his earphones out and balled them up, rolling them into a pair of Lycra gloves. Water dripped on to the floor.

‘What’s it like out?’ Lucinda said casually.

‘Lovely,’ Nick said. ‘Almost tropical.’ He headed for the locker rooms without acknowledging Kelly, who envied Lucinda her easy relationship with the DI.

She had switched on her computer and was looking for the piece of paper with the temporary log-in Lucinda had given her, when Nick returned, a white shirt sticking to his still-damp back, and a rolled-up tie in one hand. He slung his jacket over the chair next to Kelly.

‘I’m not sure whether to be pissed off that you went to the DCI after I’d already said no to this attachment, or to admire your negotiation skills. In the interest of working relationships, I’ll go for the latter.’ He grinned and stuck out his free hand towards her. ‘Welcome on board.’

‘Thank you.’ Kelly felt herself relax.

‘So you’re an old friend of the DCI’s, I hear?’

‘Not a friend, no. He was my DI on the Sexual Offences Unit.’

‘He thinks very highly of you. I understand you got a commendation.’

Nick Rampello had done his homework. The chief constable’s commendation had followed several months of painstaking work tracking down a man indecently exposing himself to schoolchildren. Kelly had taken scores of witness statements, working closely with the Intelligence unit to eliminate known sex offenders and other undesirables on the police radar. Eventually, Kelly had successfully bid to use decoys – a team of undercover surveillance officers deployed to high-risk areas to pose as potential victims – and caught the offender red-handed. She was flattered that Diggers had remembered, and touched that he had smoothed the waters with Nick by singing her praises. The feeling was short-lived.

‘The DCI wants you working with someone else at all times.’ Nothing about his delivery suggested that Nick knew the reason behind Diggers’ condition of Kelly’s secondment, but she wasn’t naive enough to think the two men hadn’t discussed it. She felt her cheeks grow hot and hoped it wasn’t obvious to Nick, and to Lucinda, who was listening with interest. ‘So you can work with me.’

‘With you?’ Kelly had assumed she’d be paired with a DC. Was it Diggers who had decided the DI would need to keep an eye on her, or Nick himself? Was she really that much of a liability?

‘You might as well learn from the best.’ Nick winked at her.

‘Cocky bastard,’ Lucinda said. Nick shrugged in an I can’t help it if I’m brilliant way, and Kelly couldn’t help but smile. Lucinda was right, he was cocky, but at least he could laugh at himself.

‘Have you sponsored me, Luce?’ Nick said, and Kelly realised – not without some relief – that their conversation was over.

‘I gave it to you weeks ago!’

‘That was for the Great North Run. This is for the Great South Run.’ He looked at Lucinda, whose arms were crossed tightly across her chest. ‘Think of the children, Lucinda. Those little orphaned children …’

‘Oh fine! Put me down for a fiver.’

‘Per mile?’ Nick grinned. Lucinda gave him a stern look. ‘Cheers. Right, I need an update. On the face of it there’s nothing to link Tania Beckett and Cathy Tanning apart from the adverts, but I want to know if we’re missing something.’