Free Crossing the Line (Kerry Wilkinson) by Kerry Wilkinson Page A

are all you’ve got. Perhaps she
    has something she needs to tell you?’
    ‘I know why she’s calling.’
    ‘Oh . . . well, I suppose I’ll unstick my nose from your business.’ He grinned, returning to being
    grandfatherly Niall. ‘Would you like a bit of advice?’
    ‘About my mother?’
    ‘About the job.’
    ‘Okay.’
    ‘When you’re at the bottom looking up, you always think your bosses are incompetent, that they
    spend the day sitting around doing nothing, making everyone else do the real work. To a degree, it’s
    true – you do delegate more but the higher you go, the more stick you take. It’s one thing to get some
    abuse from your boss – but what if it’s the chief constable? Or the Home Secretary, like today? Or the
    Prime Minister? All I’m saying is that you’re new to this job – you’re probably annoyed at all the
    form-filling and thinking about budgets, then you’ve got to do the actual job as well. Just trust yourself and know where the lines are. It’s not all black and white, there are shades of grey everywhere.’
    With that, he was on his feet, both glasses in hand. ‘Another?’
    8
    Jessica caught the bus to work the next morning, getting off two stops early to pick up a vanilla slice
    and then walking the final half-mile in a temperature even polar bears wouldn’t venture out in. It had
    snowed lightly overnight but it was hard to tell where that began and the frost ended. Jessica’s thick
    winter coat and padded gloves offered little respite as it felt like the wind had grown teeth that
    gnawed away at everything in its path. Opposite the pub from the previous night, there were
    schoolchildren hurling snowballs at each other, screaming and giggling. Given the area, it was at least
    a step up from trying to stab one another.
    If he’d been faced with triplets covered in jelly then Fat Pat wouldn’t have been happier than he
    was when Jessica shivered her way into reception and handed over his cake. ‘The Guv wants you
    upstairs,’ he said through a mouthful of pastry.
    ‘Is it a Velcro shoe day?’
    Pat nodded, cream oozing between his teeth and down his chin. Jessica didn’t bother waiting for
    the actual reply, heading up to the first floor.
    Contrary to Pat’s warning, Cole was in a marginally better mood than the day before. Jessica
    would still have taken his shoelaces though. He told her Luke Callaghan was still in hospital with no
    details about whether he’d keep his sight after the acid attack. The word ‘witness’ was a loose term
    when it came to the people they had managed to track down from the plaza, with the fuzzy CCTV
    image all they were likely to get. The condoms in the flower pot had been the highlight for the search
    team and they’d dug up nothing suspicious on Luke’s wife Debbie, his former business partner
    Michael, or anyone else. All in all, given the lack of progress on anything, he seemed to have taken it
    rather well, although that was perhaps because the Home Secretary had stopped bleating overnight,
    likely down to someone reading his own advisor’s emails back to him.
    After buttering her up with praise for the work she’d done with Debbie and Michael the previous
    day, Jessica knew Cole was about to drop her in it.
    ‘I do, er, have a job for you,’ he finally said, not looking her in the eye.
    ‘I have a few things this morning; forms and the like.’
    It was always unlikely to work and Cole dismissed it with barely a wave. ‘I’ve been speaking to
    the super this morning and he’s been liaising with the SCD . . .’
    Cole continued for a few minutes, explaining how important it was and that it could only be trusted
    to a senior officer who they all had faith in and blah, blah, blah, but the essence was clear. ‘Can you
    visit the leader of Anarky and find out what, if anything, he knows about the attack on Luke
    Callaghan? Oh, and if you could do that without letting on that the SCD are secretly monitoring him
    and his