Free The Crime Trade by Simon Kernick Page B

mumbled something about me getting the kettle on. I took pity, hauled myself out of bed, and went through to the kitchen to do her bidding. . We've been together a few months now, Tina and I, even though it's always been a rule of mine not to get involved with work colleagues after a particularly bad experience a long time ago. But sometimes you've just got to make an exception. You don't get that many chances to get yourself into a decent relationship with a good-looking woman, and as the years fly by they get fewer and fewer, so one night last November when we'd been sat together in a car, staking out the home of a well-known local sex offender, I'd decided that it was now or never. I'll be straight with you, I'm one of the world's shyer people when it comes to making my feelings known to the opposite sex. Having been married for thirteen of the previous fourteen years, and involuntarily celibate for the other, I was a long way out of practice, but I'd had this feeling for a while that Tina might have some of the same feelings for me as I had for her, so it wasn't an opportunity I wanted to miss.
But how do you go about it after fourteen years? I'd said, 'Hey, look over there,' and pointed in the vague direction of the house we were watching. She looked, and I leant over and kissed her on the neck, catching her unawares.
She'd then swung round and shot me an expression of shock, the sort I would imagine her pulling if a favourite uncle had just pinched her arse, and I got the sort of terrified sinking feeling I haven't experienced since school.
'John?'
'Yes.'
'Did you just kiss me?'
'I couldn't help it,' I said, trying without success to sound casual. 'You've got a nice neck.' Not a great line, I admit, but the best I could come up with in such difficult circumstances.
'Oh, shit.' She wasn't looking at me as she said this, but rather over my shoulder in the direction of the pavement.
'What is it?' I demanded, turning my head.
Which was when she grabbed me by the short and curlies and gave them a squeeze that was halfway between affectionate and bloodthirsty.
'Now we're quits,' she said, laughing.
There then followed one of those movie silences when we both looked at each other, wondering whether a fleeting kiss and a painful grope were going to lead to anything else.
After three seconds they did, and we kissed. Properly this time. Then finally carried on with the surveillance (which, unlike the relationship, never came to anything), and so far we haven't looked back.
I came back into the bedroom with two cups of strong coffee. She was sat up in the bed now - naked, groggy and very desirable. I briefly thought about trying to get her interested in a bout of morning glory but knew that it would be a lost cause. Tina Boyd was not a morning person.
'Are you feeling a bit better today?' I asked, handing her one of the cups.
The previous night, when we'd got back to my flat in Tufnell Park, she'd talked about leaving the Force, saying she'd had enough of working so hard for so little reward, only to have everything blow up in her face. I think she felt that what had happened yesterday was partly her fault, and since it had cost the lives of six people, it had hit her pretty hard.
'Not a lot,' she answered, sipping her coffee. The people killed yesterday are all still dead, and one way or another we're going to have to prove that it wasn't us who messed things up.'
'Don't blame yourself. Yesterday wasn't your fault or mine. We did everything right in the build-up, and in the end we had nothing to do with setting up the final meet, so we're in the clear. Remember that.'
She sighed loudly. 'I know, but at the moment it doesn't make me feel any better.'
I sat down on the bed and gave her a supportive smile. 'You're not still thinking about leaving, are you?' 'How would you feel if I did?'
'Are you going to?'
'I'm thinking about it. I've got a degree, I could get a decent job. Something that pays more but with a lot less stress.'
'We