Child's Play (D.I. Kim Stone #11)(4)

Ah, she got it.

‘Bryant, why is Betty on your desk?’

Not once had he been awarded the prized plant for his work efforts.

Stacey sniggered. ‘Told you.’

‘Just looking after it, guv, with Penn being away for most of the week.’ He paused. ‘And I kinda wanted to see how it looked.’

‘Then earn it,’ she said, placing it back on the windowsill.

She turned back to the room. ‘And what the hell are those on your feet, Penn?’ she asked, folding her arms.

‘Trainers, boss.’

Unlike the man who had occupied the place in her team before him, Penn was not a man easily given to smartness. His normal attire of plain black trousers and white shirt were presentable and met her standards, just. But put the man in a suit and somehow the suit managed to look just as pissed off as he did.

Not that she knew much about men’s current fashion in suits but with its thick grey pinstripe, his court outfit looked as though it had crawled out of the Nineties. His unruly curly blonde hair did little to help, but she was pleased to see the bandana was missing and the curls had been tamed by some kind of man hair products.

But the trainers.

‘Look, Penn, I don’t know what Travis put up with but when you’re going to court, even for one of your old cases, you are part of this team now and as such you’re representing both—’

‘They’re under the desk, guv,’ Bryant said, behind her.

‘Huh?’

‘His shoes… they’re under the desk. I couldn’t let you do it. You were falling for it way too easily.’

Penn smirked before reaching down to untie his laces.

‘Jesus, you’re dead funny, you lot,’ she said, shaking her head.

‘I’ll be back after though, boss, eh?’ he asked, hopefully. ‘Court finishes around four-ish.’

Both Bryant and Stacey waited expectantly for her response too.

She was sorely tempted to agree.

‘No, Penn. Go straight home. Woody ain’t budging.’

A collective groan sounded around her.

‘Not my rules, guys,’ she said, holding up her hands in defence.

She’d seen the memo sent out a month ago to all supervisory staff across the West Midlands Police Force. And initially she had quite happily ignored it. Until she’d been called up to Woody’s office and presented with a printed copy by her boss.

The force was in crisis. Recruitment figures were down, violent crime was up and staff burnout rates were at an all-time high.

‘You work them too hard,’ Woody had said, waving the memo in front of her face.

‘This is my fault?’ she asked. She had a team of three which, even if she burned them all out, wouldn’t touch the overall figure.

‘You know what I mean,’ he growled.

‘I keep an eye on them,’ she defended.

‘They’re like dogs, Stone.’

‘Excuse me, sir?’

‘They hide their illnesses,’ he clarified. ‘Police officers hate to admit when there’s something wrong. They battle on, soldier through it. You won’t know until it’s too late.’

‘So what am I supposed to do?’

‘Rest them, Stone. You have to manage them and ensure they get enough downtime. Try to stick to shift patterns and look for tell-tale signs like emotional changes.’

She raised an eyebrow.

‘Okay, maybe in your case you should look for behavioural changes and physical signs like being withdrawn, irritable, aggressive. It’s all here,’ he said, waving the memo at her again.

‘Noted, sir, and I have only one question,’ she said, glancing at the piece of paper in his hands.

‘Go on.’

‘Did the criminals get the memo too?’

If her memory served correctly that was the point at which he’d thrust the memo at her and told her to leave.

Penn’s court case could not have come at a worse time. Any time over the last few weeks would have been fine by her, while they’d been working routine cases since their last major investigation into the sicko who had been recreating the most traumatic events in her life.

Unfortunately, the CPS didn’t consult her diary when programming murder trials, and as it had been Penn’s last major investigation with West Mercia, she’d had no choice but to free him for the trial. Especially as he’d been the arresting officer.

‘Okay, let’s get cracking,’ she said, perching on the edge of the desk facing the wipe board. ‘Belinda Evans, sixty-one years of age found tied to a swing, late at night at Haden Hill Park. Smartly dressed, presentable, arrived there under her own steam but no mobile phone on her person. Lives in a nice area of Wombourne and hasn’t come to our attention before. Stace, find out everything you can about our victim. Bryant and I will be heading over to her house before meeting with Keats for the post-mortem at ten.’

‘Got it, boss,’ she said, turning to her computer.

‘Woody has delegated statement taking to Inspector Plant and his team seeing as Penn is taking a holiday this week.’

Follow-ups normally fell to Penn. He shook his head. ‘Who the hell would want to hurt a little old?—’

‘Hey, sixty-one ain’t old, matey,’ Bryant said, being the closest person in the room to that age. ‘And my money is on Eleanor.’