Free Critical Threat by Nick Oldham

your bidding?’
    â€˜I will destroy you if I have to.’
    â€˜Oh, stop talking like Lex Luther. What you need,’ Henry said, ‘is an anger management course.’ It was something he’d been longing to say to the DCS, but when it came out it sounded limp and pointless under the circumstances.
    â€˜I haven’t heard that one before,’ Anger said mirthlessly.
    Even so, Henry made himself laugh as he turned and set off down the corridor again, head held high, feeling the pierce of Anger’s blazing eyes burning like lasers between his shoulder blades.
    Outside in the car park it was cold and dark and all he wanted to do was scream at the moon.
    Instead, he went and sat in his car, engine idling, heater blowing, churning it all over, wondering how best to progress. He wasn’t certain how long he sat there, but it was a good length of time – long enough for him to watch Anger, Carradine and Rik leave after, Henry guessed, their briefing from the pathologist.
    A knock on the driver’s window made him jump. In his reverie, Keira O’Connell had somehow approached his car without him seeing her. She had tapped on the glass. He opened the window and she bent down to speak.
    â€˜I noticed you sitting there.’
    â€˜Yep.’
    â€˜I can’t believe you drive a Rover 75,’ she mocked him. ‘Bit stereotypical, isn’t it?’
    â€˜I used to be Mondeo man before this.’
    There was beat of silence.
    â€˜I believe you’ve been replaced.’
    With a sigh, he nodded.
    â€˜That was short lived.’
    â€˜I’m afraid if I open my mouth I’ll say something I’ll regret and shock you. I’m presently biting my tongue so hard it might bleed.’
    â€˜If you fancy a bit of a diatribe, I’m a good listener and I’m parched, too.’
    â€˜Well, I’m not sure what one of those is, but I could do with letting off steam and I know just the thing for dryness – the Fox and Grapes just round the corner.’
    Henry spent an hour in the company of the professor in the pub. During that time he selfishly overpowered her with an unrelenting barrage of his tales of woe and frustration. It was a tirade not designed to woo or even remotely impress a woman. All thoughts along those lines had been banished by his contretemps with Dave Anger anyway. Once again, Henry was furious with everyone and anything and Professor O’Connell sat opposite him like a patient sponge, soaking in everything he chucked at her with a wry smile and an occasional ‘Oh, no’ delivered at an appropriate moment. Even if she wasn’t interested, she gave the appearance of being so – at least for a while.
    It was only when her eyes glazed over and she took a surreptitious peek at her watch that Henry realized she was probably bored rigid and he had missed an opportunity, should he have wished it to be one. He had broken the cardinal sin of seduction, or so he’d read in one of the tabloids recently: ‘Get them to talk about themselves, get them to laugh, and you’re on to a sure thing.’
    Henry – so self-obsessed and selfish – had done neither. When she politely thanked him for the drink, then got up and walked – again, politely – out of his life, he kicked himself.
    Losing my touch, he thought as he finished his pint, sidled back to the bar and ordered another Stella with a Jack Daniel’s chaser. He returned to his seat and found it had been snaffled, so mumbling and pulling his face, he squeezed himself into a corner with a chest-high shelf. He sipped his drinks, stone-faced and brooding, and even the thought of the substantive promotion did not appease him, though he had achieved the goal of pension enhancement.
    â€˜Special Projects,’ he mused glumly. ‘What the hell does that mean?’ To the best of his knowledge it was a rag-tag bunch of individuals no one else wanted who were