Page 5 of First Blood

She bobbed out her tongue to show she was joking, and he turned back to the mirror.

‘I’ve worked for women and I’ve worked for people younger than me before. She just happens to be both. That doesn’t bother me.’

As both a police officer and as a detective he’d witnessed the horrors that people could inflict upon each other. He understood the coping mechanisms employed by some of his colleagues: drink, drugs, adultery; all of the above. In fact, anything to distract the brain from the images it held on to. He understood that the need for a crutch came from the absence of balance. Every crime scene was horrific, every crime he dealt with had a victim: loved ones, grief, despair, anger, hatred, death. Every case was a negative. Few police officers were called to investigate a cake bake. It reminded him of the Samaritans’ helpline. You were never gonna get a call from someone telling you how great their day had been.

His own crutch had been thirty cigarettes a day. Stressful situations had been followed by a few hits of nicotine which had helped relax him and bring him back to normal. He had known the cigarettes weren’t really relaxing him, just deadening his muscles in response to the poisons he was ingesting but it had felt good while he’d been doing it. Until after one chest infection too many, when the doctor had told him he was in danger of shortening his life by ten to fifteen years if he didn’t stop.

The thought of missing those years from the life of his nineteen-year-old daughter had prompted him to buy every patch and gum pack available. The sudden chest infection that had knocked him off his feet for three weeks had shown him just how poor his lungs were. He had eventually returned to work with the help of Menthol Lyptus extra strong sweets and had been trying to kick them ever since. But he was almost two years smoke free so the addiction to sweets he could live with.

Only thing was, since quitting he’d worked hard not to voluntarily place himself in stressful situations that might have him reaching once again for the smokes.

Attending crime scenes and interviewing witnesses were unavoidable but he tried to keep his working relationships easy-going, pleasant and without conflict.

And from what he’d heard about his new boss, that was likely to be nigh on impossible.

‘So, what have you heard?’ Jenny asked, as though she’d travelled along his entire thought process with him.

Always knowing his thoughts was one of the many things he loved about her. As was her insistence on forcing him to speak those thoughts so he could hear the words outside of his head.

‘That she’s difficult, arrogant, rude, hates working with anyone for too long.’

‘Well,ifshe is all those things it may be good that she’ll want to move on quickly.’

‘If?’ he asked.

‘Absolutely. If you’ve never worked with her, you can’t possibly know if these rumours are true. Remember when we went…’

‘To Marbella,’ he finished for her. ‘Yes, I remember. Bill and Helen told us it was bloody awful and reeled off everything they’d hated, making us wish we’d never booked the damn holiday until we got there and loved it.’

‘Am I that predictable?’ she asked, rubbing sleep from her eyes.

‘No, it’s the thing you always quote when you’re trying to tell me not to take other people’s opinions as my own.’

‘Then my work here is done,’ she said, dusting off her hands and getting out of bed.

She stood in front of him and straightened his tie. He didn’t bother to resist the urge to lean down and kiss the top of her head.

‘And beautiful,’ he said. ‘She’s apparently very good-looking.’

Jenny shrugged and tapped the knot of his tie. ‘There you go. Perfect.’

‘You’re not even a bit threatened, are you?’ he asked.

She shook her head and smiled up at him.

‘I love you,’ he said and meant it.

‘And, that’s why I’m not threatened,’ she said, moving away but tapping his behind. She paused at the bathroom doorway. ‘So, you okay about this then? There’s nothing else bothering you? It’s got nothing to do with the other thing?’ she asked.

He shook his head and felt the tension seep into his jaw.

Right now he didn’t even want to think about the other thing.

Chapter Four

It is time to take out the book.

The book.