Free Scene of Crime by Jill McGown Page B

silence was over. But when she spoke, it was about neither of the things Judy expected to be exercising Marianne’s mind.
    It wasn’t about Carl Bignall’s sudden departure with Lloyd, despite the fact that Carl’s car remained on the rooftop car park, something that must surely have been driving the ever-curious Marianne mad with a desire to know what was happening.
    And it wasn’t about the impossibility of mounting a production when Cinderella had the flu, her understudy had phoned to say the train had been delayed by at least fifty minutes and she wouldn’t make it to rehearsal after all, and Buttons’s under-understudy had to go rushing off on police business, unaccountably taking Buttons’s actual understudy-cum-Ugly Sister with him. This had left Marianne with no Buttons, Judy’s inadequate Cinderella, only one Ugly Sister, and no choice but to abandon that evening’s rehearsal, but none of that seemed to be uppermost in Marianne’s mind.
    Indeed, for a moment after Marianne spoke, Judy had no idea what she
was
talking about.
    “It’s going to be very difficult,” she said. “Both of you being in the police, having to drop everything at a moment’s notice.”
    What was going to be difficult? Then it struck Judy that Marianne was still talking about her condition. She was beginning to realize the immense pulling power of babies, and consequently of mothers-to-be; other people seemed to be endlessly fascinated by the whole thing. She, of course, never had been, and still wasn’t. Normally, she hated discussions of this sort. But at least she wasn’t being pumped for information about Carl.
    “It’s not as difficult at the moment as it might be. I’ve been transferred to HQ—it’s nine to five. And I’m working from home most of the time anyway.”
    “And will you still be doing that when the baby’s born?”
    “I’ll be on maternity leave starting next month. But even when that’s up I can probably work mainly fromhome until next September,” said Judy. “Then I’ll be back in Stansfield.”
    “But still nine to five?”
    “Basically,” said Judy, not exactly truthfully, but she had no desire to discuss the pros and cons of working mothers, child care, nurseries, or anything else with Marianne.
    The current canteen wisdom was that Lloyd would be offered early retirement and she would get his job, but there was a lot of time for them to change their plans between now and next September. And CID was nine to five, more or less. But circumstances had temporarily forced Stansfield CID to become a serious crime squad in all but name, expected to handle all serious crime committed in an area with a population of 300,000; as a result, its Detective Chief Inspector did get called out at odd hours. Come the reorganization, due to be revealed in March and in place by April, it was rumored there would be a small Serious Crime Squad based at Barton HQ, and if that happened, the Stansfield CID chief would have an easier time of it. The problem was, she would prefer to head up the serious crime squad.
    “When
is
the baby due?” asked Marianne.
    Judy was brought firmly back to reality. She was an expectant mother—if there was a police force on this planet that had ever entertained the idea of having their serious crime squad run by someone who had to breastfeed an infant, she didn’t know of it. “Early February,” she said.
    “Aquarius! How wonderful! What are you?”
    “Scorpio, I think.”
    “Ah! An unbeliever.”
    Judy smiled. “Lloyd’s the one who believes in all that sort of thing,” she said.
    “Unusual,” said Marianne. “Men usually pretend not to believe even if they do. You must let me do a reading when he or she is born.”
    “She,” said Judy.
    “Oh, did you ask what sex the baby was? Most people don’t.”
    Judy gave a little shrug. “They asked me if I wanted to know, and I did,” she said. The more she knew about what to expect, the better; that was why she’d