Free The Backs (2013) by Alison Bruce

stare, genuine this time. ‘So you drive up there a couple of weeks later to see if you can work out who she was?’ Gully didn’t wait for a reply. ‘Why? Because you can’t stand the idea that you’ll miss something one day, and then you won’t be able to hack the guilt.’
    ‘No one would choose to be walking up there at that time of night, not barefoot.’
    ‘So, she had a fight with her boyfriend, he drove off, left her to walk. Then felt sorry, came back. End of. You know I’m right.’
    ‘I know you’re
probably
right.’
    ‘And why aren’t you working on the Paul Marshall murder?’
    ‘Officially because I’m giving evidence in eleven cases this month. That means it’s court, paperwork and minor cases for the next few weeks. Unofficially I think it’s because I was off duty when I found the body. Marks doesn’t want some defence lawyer having to cross-examine me as a witness and then again as a police officer. If one appearance was discredited, the other would be, too.’
    Gully gave a wry smile. ‘Like when they try to make you give reasons for being up there in the first place?’
    ‘Exactly.’
    He could see that Gully’s irritation had now completely passed. Nothing seemed to make her as happy as verbal sparring, sarcasm and a box of spongy biscuits. As if to prove the point, she tapped another from the packet, dunked it in her coffee and said, ‘The words
Serves you right
are on the tip of my tongue, but I’m not going to waste my breath on them.’
    The phone on his desk rang just then. He answered quickly and heard the caller take a sharp breath. It sounded like a woman.
    ‘Can I help you?’
    ‘This is Jane Osborne. Can I talk to you?’
    ‘In person?’
    ‘Please.’ She hesitated. ‘I’m downstairs now, but out the front. I’d prefer not to come in. D’you mind?’
    ‘There’s a bench on Parker’s Piece, straight across the road from the station . . . see it? Is it free?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘I’ll be down in five minutes.’
    ‘Thank you.’ The phone cut off so abruptly that he was left with the impression that it had been heading back to the cradle even as she spoke.
    Gully raised one eyebrow.
    ‘Jane Osborne,’ he explained. ‘There’s obviously something on her mind.’
    ‘Do me a favour? Let Marks know.’
    She left the room then and, after she’d gone, he continued staring at the empty doorway until he heard a door further along the corridor close behind her. He went over to look out the window.
    Jane Osborne was already sitting there.
    The bench she occupied was the typical design of three scrolled cast-iron uprights supporting horizontal wooden slats held together by chunky nuts and bolts. Identical, in fact, to all the others positioned at regular intervals around the perimeter of Parker’s Piece. They’d been installed years before, but while the others were generally used as a pleasant place to sit and wait, or relax, or read even, this one had become an informal police-station waiting room. The place people chose to stand when they waited for news but needed fresh air or a cigarette. The place where people congregated to bitch about the police or show their support for a friend or relative who’d been dragged in. The ground all around this bench was scuffed bare, the grass having receded into a semicircle and the mud decorated with cigarette ends and beer-bottle lids. It was the one bench that was only ever used by people who needed to be at the station but also had reasons not to go inside.
    Jane sat in the middle, her back towards him, but if her expression matched what he could assess of her body language, it said
Find somewhere else to sit.
    It was no surprise then that she still had the bench all to herself as he crossed the road to join her. The scowl remained, and it was clear that she’d been crying, but she looked up at him with a strange bemusement. ‘I’m out of the habit of talking to anyone.’ She didn’t smile. ‘Apparently