Free Marcher: The Author's Preferred Text by Chris Beckett Page B

I mean, for a drink or something?’
    ‘Well, I’d like to but I’m not really supposed to… to socialise with…’
    ‘…people who are involved in your investigations? I see. Another boundary, eh? Another transgression to be avoided?’
    Her remorse about being sarcastic seemed to be remarkably short-lived.
    ‘Boundaries are important,’ Charles insisted, but it sounded lame and pedantic even to him.
    ‘So they are,’ she replied, ‘but they aren’t the only important thing. And some are surely more important than others.’
    ‘Well, yes. That is true.’ Charles suddenly smiled, as if just speaking these words had lifted some kind of burden. ‘And yes, I’d love to have a drink with you.’
    They exchanged phone numbers and arranged to meet the following Friday and then she left, and Charles was on his own in the room, feeling slightly dazed. But he shook himself and turned his attention to the files.
    She was a very pretty girl, this Tamsin Pendant, looking out at him from a photo taken on some institutional outing to the seaside. She was dazzling in fact. She looked sharp and ruthless too. She looked immensely powerful, even though she was so slight and so very young: powerful and dangerous and terribly vulnerable all at once.
    It was odd. He’d never met her, he was twice her age, and she came from a completely different background to him, yet he felt a connection of some kind with her, an affinity. Once again he saw in his mind the empty field and the darkening sky, and he realised that this was what shifters called a switch : he was seeing it through her eyes, hearing the cold wind through her ears. And off in the distance he could just make out…
    But there was another knock on the door.
    It was Janet Richards.
    ‘Charles, I need to tell you that I’ve been in touch with your line manager, Roger Young,’ said the Executive Director. ‘It’s about this offer by Hassan to talk if we hand back the… um… slip . I do appreciate your reasons for not wanting to accede to this and Roger told me that the line you took was entirely consistent with your agency’s policy, so please don’t take this as criticism in any way, but I just felt we needed to do everything possible to find out about this “mischief” that Furnish and Hassan talked to you about. And if that means handing over some of this slip stuff, well I know it’s not ideal, but the upshot of my phone conversation with your Roger was that he agreed to authorise you to do so. In fact it’s his decision that you should do so. He said to ask you to give him a quick call to confirm this.’
    ‘I see.’
    ‘Um, I don’t want to rush you, but these two men have been in custody for several hours and Roger was telling me that they could well disappear at any moment if they swallowed seeds themselves when they were arrested. I think you told us that yourself, in fact. So perhaps you could make that call and then go straight down to the custody suite? I believe you took possession of the slip yourself, isn’t that right?’
    ‘Yes, it’s here in my bag.’
    ‘Dick Thomas has lined up a very experienced detective who will join you in interviewing Hassan. Could you just make that call please Mr Bowen?’
    ‘Okay,’ Charles said, very reluctantly. But just as he was picking up his phone, her phone rang.
    ‘Hello. Janet Richards… Oh. I see…’
    She turned back to him.
    ‘It seems we’re too late,’ she said curtly. ‘The custody sergeant reports that both Hassan and Furnish have disappeared. What a pity. I know you were following your own rules, but I do wish that…’
    She broke off.
    ‘The sergeant particularly asked if you could go down there to speak to him and the officers on duty there,’ she said. ‘I gather this has rather shaken them up.’
    ~*~
    The sergeant and two PCs were waiting for Charles with almost childlike eagerness. They showed him the empty cells and watched while he went into each of them and stood there,