Free People in Season by Simon Fay

sifting through all the computers in search of some despicable crime to pin on her. Ava has never seen the woman so unnerved. She throws her the painkillers she keeps on hand and catches them as they’re lobbed back, unopened and unused.
    ‘This is too stressful for you. Go on holiday. I could use your office for a while. I wouldn’t have to listen to Barry take calls anymore.’
    Joanne ignores the idea. ‘Who’s he talking to next?’
    Peering across the cubicles to the room Francis has claimed, Ava sees the door is ajar. The information she gathers is filtered through the window, and then, filtered through her eyes and out of her mouth to Joanne’s ears. ‘He’s just sitting there, lost in his notes or something – I don’t think he’s entirely right in the head, Joanne.’
    Putting her own spin on it, Joanne says, ‘Probably looking at my online history. I knew I shouldn’t have been looking up that stuff about buying anthrax.’
    The social agent stands abruptly and calls to that funny haired girl as she passes by. Jumping to catch up with her, she beams in response and they walk into his office together. With the door closed behind them, they’re just soft shapes on the glass now, hues Ava can’t understand.
    ‘She’s a trouble maker,’ Ava mumbles. ‘That intern. The one with the awful hair. She keeps pushing that silly doctor gossip.’
    ‘I don’t blame her,’ Joanne laments. ‘I wish we could use it. That riot story went nowhere. The Gards were calling about that bloody lost girl you centred the piece on, by the way. You need to get back to them.’
    ‘We helped enough, getting her story out there, maybe they can do something for her now, you must realise that. And you’d have had it buried just to get some smutty medical scandal on the front. That doctor story would have had this place bombarded with lawsuits.’
    Joanne doesn’t hear this, ‘How can they not know what happened to her?
    ‘Who?’
    ‘The girl you took that photo of. The one you said we helped, Ava. They want our assistance tracking her down!’
    ‘Translation – please solve the case for us.’
    ‘It’s not a case. It’s damage control. They don’t want to look bad.’
    ‘Yeah right, next they’ll be asking us to give their uniforms a make-over. Well, it’s not for us to find out. We’ve done our part.’
    ‘Says the woman who started the story!’
    ‘Anyway if she hasn’t been reported missing she must be fine. Her parents probably don’t want any publicity and haven’t come forward to announce they were there. Honestly, you’d think we could respect the last good people in the world that don’t want to milk attention out of a disaster.’
    Frowning, Joanne finds her e-smoke battery has run down. ‘Tell that to the Gards. And do you think they’re going to find anything? This is just going to fizzle out to nothing. One more riot that caught our attention for a minute. Just a clap of thunder. I’m tired of the snacks you people keep bringing me. I want a story with meat. Type something up to kill it. Say the cops have several leads and are pursuing them in earnest. Hopefully something terrible will happen in the world tomorrow and we can move on from it all.’
    ‘Alright, fine, and what are you going to do about Susan?’
    ‘What?’ Joanne asks, frustrated. ‘Who the bloody hell is Susan?’
    ‘The intern who keeps causing trouble!’
    ‘Jesus, Ava, I don’t know. She hasn’t done anything that bad has she?’
    ‘Pretty sure she’s the one who’s been stealing food from the fridge.’
    ‘She could stand to lose a pound or two,’ Joanne finds herself agreeing and with it, a stone drops into a well. Business is a mercenary affair where I’ll scratch your back if you scratch mine is the definition of friendship. Ava wants the girl gone and Joanne wants Ava to remain a pillar of support in this turbulent time. The reasoning for it, whatever the girl did to offend Ava, is the last thing