Free Dead in the Water by Aline Templeton Page A

had, boss.’
    Tansy was looking good these days, Fleming thought. Since the unfortunate business with a fellow officer last year, she’d become a lot less wacky. Her taste in hair colour, previously unusual to say the least, was rather more subtle – ash-blonde today – and her jeans didn’t now look as if she’d gone wild with the scissors.
    ‘What can I do for you, Tansy?’ she asked.
    Kerr looked surprised. ‘We have an appointment. You wanted to see me.’
    ‘Did I?’ Fleming gestured at the boxes around her. ‘I’m afraid I got caught up in this.
    ‘Now, what did I want you for? Oh yes. Your appraisal’s coming up shortly, Tansy, and I wanted to know how you saw your career before it reached me.’
    Kerr looked alarmed. ‘Um – not sure what you mean.’
    ‘You’re an able officer with almost the same years of service as Andy Mac, and he made sergeant eighteen months ago. Have you started working for your sergeant’s exams?’
    Kerr started pleating her fingers. ‘Er – not exactly.’
    ‘Not exactly?’
    ‘Well – not at all, really.’
    Fleming sat back in her chair. ‘I’m not an aggressive feminist. Positive discrimination’s insulting – in today’s world if we want it, we can get it. I don’t feel victimized because the lads describe us as lads as well, or are less than politically correct. I’m as tough as any man and I don’t find people patronize me because I’m a woman.’ She smiled. ‘Well, not twice.
    ‘But I still want more promoted women in the CID. Women have different skills to bring to the table.’
    ‘Mmm.’
    Fleming looked at her quizzically.
    ‘You see, the thing is—’ Kerr broke off, then started again. ‘I know that’s right. We need an all-round perspective. But I don’t really want responsibility – not yet, anyway. Happiest day of my life was when I finished school exams and I want to have a good time while I’m young!’
    Fleming looked at her with just a touch of exasperation. ‘What age are you, Tansy – thirty?’
    ‘Thirty-two,’ Kerr admitted reluctantly.
    ‘Not very young, thirty-two, really. Remember how old that was when you were twenty-one?’ Kerr winced, but Fleming didn’t spare her. ‘Take it from me, your thirties whizz by, and suddenly you’re forty.
    ‘Still, it’s your decision. But don’t just drift, will you? Thanks, Tansy.’
    Kerr rose, with some relief. Even cosy chats with Big Marge, as she was known to her officers, had a tendency to turn uncomfortable. She was just leaving when Fleming asked, ‘Quiet day? Nothing’s come my way, anyway.’
    ‘Not bad. But Sergeant Naismith was saying a report’s come in about trouble between the locals and some Poles – a knife involved. He’s going to have a word with you.’
    Fleming frowned. ‘That’s been brewing – vague reports of small incidents. All the gutter press talk about the “Polish invasion” is stirring it.’
    ‘Part of the problem is they all get together and come in a bunch, not just ones and twos. I’ve seen a dozen of them coming out of the Horseshoe Tavern at weekends – wouldn’t be my choice, I have to say.’ Kerr wrinkled her nose. ‘Spit and sawdust, but they say the beer’s cheap.’
    ‘The clientele’s pretty rough as well. Faults on both sides, no doubt. And it’s human nature – young men like fighting.
    ‘Anyway, I’d better get on. Tell Tam I’ll speak to him later.’
    Kerr hesitated. ‘Er – boss, you might want to know you’ve got dusty marks all over your face.’
    ‘Oh,’ Fleming said blankly, then looked at her hands and held them up. ‘Not really surprising. I feel as if I’ve got dusty marks all over my brain as well, just at the moment.’
    She watched Kerr go out of the door, then shook her head. She recognized that lack of direction, that restlessness, from her own youth. But she had been ten years younger at the time, and she had found her direction the day she joined the Force. She wasn’t sure it was