His & Hers(13)

The woman has clearly had a charisma bypass.

I can see the lights that have been set up behind her, along with a small army of people dressed in forensics suits, a few of them crouched down over something on the forest floor in the distance. They’ve already put up a tent around the body, and I know from experience that we won’t get another chance to get this close again. Richard and I exchange a silent glance, along with an unspoken conversation. He hits Record on the camera and swings it up onto his shoulder.

“Of course,” I say, and accompany my off-white lie with a wide smile.

I do whatever I need to do to get the job done. Upsetting the police is never ideal, but sometimes unavoidable. I don’t like to burn bridges, but there tends to be another one—further upstream in this case, I suspect.

“We’ll just get a couple of quick shots and then get out of your way,” I say.

“You’ll get out of the way now, and go back to the parking lot like she asked you.”

I take in the sight of the man who has come to stand beside the female detective. He looks like he hasn’t slept in a while, appears to have gotten dressed in the dark, and is wearing a Harry Potter–style scarf around his neck. A modern-day Columbo, minus the charm. Richard keeps filming and I stay exactly where I am. This is a familiar dance and we all know the moves—it’s the same steps for any breaking news: get the shot, get the story.

“This footpath is a public right of way. We are perfectly entitled to film here,” I say.

It’s the best line I can come up with, a stalling tactic to allow Richard to zoom in and get a few more close-ups of the scene.

The male detective takes a step forward and covers the lens with his hand.

“Watch it, mate,” Richard says, taking a step back.

“I’m not your mate. Fuck off back to the parking lot or I’ll have you arrested.”

The male detective glares at me before turning back toward the tent.

“We’re just doing our jobs, no need to be an asshole,” says Richard over his shoulder as we retreat.

“Did you get the shot?” I ask.

“Of course. But I don’t like people touching my camera. We should make a complaint. Get that guy’s name.”

“No need, already got it. His name is DCI Jack Harper.”

Richard stares at me.

“How do you know that?”

I think for a second before answering.

“We’ve met before.”

It’s the truth, just not the whole of it.





Him



Tuesday 08:45



Seeing Anna winds me, not that I plan on telling anyone the truth about that. I replay the encounter in my mind, until it becomes an irritating rerun I could quote line for line, and take my frustration out on everyone around me. I wish I had handled it better, but I’m already having the mother of bad days, and she shouldn’t be here. There is a brand-new shirt inside my wardrobe that I could have worn today, had I known I was going to see her. It’s been hanging in there for months, but still has the creases from the packet it came in. I don’t know what I’m saving it for—it isn’t as though I ever go anywhere since I moved down here—and now she’s seen me looking like this, with crumpled clothes and a jacket older than some of my colleagues. I pretend not to care, but I do.

The place is swarming with satellite trucks, cameramen, and reporters. I have no idea how the press got hold of the details so soon, including her. It makes no sense. Even if they knew about a body being found, there are several entrances to these woods—which stretch for miles across the valley and surrounding hills—half of which I don’t even know, and there are more than a handful of parking lots. So I don’t understand how they knew to come to this one, and Anna was pretty much the first to arrive.

I spot her talking to Priya away from the rest of the press, and resist the urge to march over and interrupt. She’s always known how to make friends out of enemies. I just hope DS Patel isn’t na?ve enough to trust a journalist, or say something she shouldn’t, on or off the record. She hands Anna something. The two women smile and I have to strain to see what it is: blue plastic shoe covers. Anna leans on a tree trunk as she pulls them over her high heels. She looks in my direction and waves, so I pretend not to see and turn away. She must have asked to borrow a pair from the forensics team, so as not to get her pretty reporting shoes dirty in the mud. Unbelievable.

“I think I know who she is,” says Priya, appearing by my side and interrupting my internal monologue.

At least, I hope it was internal.

I am aware that I’ve started to actually talk to myself out loud recently. I’ve caught people staring at me in the street when it happens. It mostly seems to occur when I’m overly tired or stressed, and as a middle-aged detective, living with a perpetually unhappy woman and a two-year-old child, I’m pretty much always both. I try to remember if anyone on the team smokes—perhaps I could just bum one, calm myself down.

Priya is staring at me as though waiting for some kind of response, and I have to rewind my mind to remember what she said.

“She’s a TV news anchor, that’s probably why you recognize her.”

My words are in too much of a hurry to leave my mouth and trip over themselves. I sound even more ill-tempered than I feel. Priya—who rides my mood swings as though they are her favorite thing in the playground—won’t let the conversation slide.