Page 54 of Watching You

The hallway was quiet as Lively reached the top of the stairs. It was his first day back after taking leave to settle Beth at home, and he’d been looking forward to it and dreading it in equal parts.

‘And so,’ he could hear Detective Superintendent Overbeck’s voice bouncing off the briefing room walls like hailstones off a car windscreen, ‘we’ve been left with a substantial budget deficit at the end of this operation.

The result is that there’s no capacity for overtime pay for the next three months, requests for special training will be put on hold, and—’

Lively walked in.

‘Ah, my life is complete. Ladies and gentlemen, feast your eyes, if you will, on the team leader whose intimate friend was responsible for all the murders we were investigating, while he sat on her couch making eyes at her and eating her home baking.’

There was a round of laughter and applause from the squad and Lively could feel his face turning purple.

‘Right, that’s it,’ Lively bellowed, ‘Dr Waterfall is not a killer. She’s been the victim of a sustained and vicious—’

‘Sergeant Lively!’ Overbeck cut through his rant.

‘There’s no doubt in any of our minds that Beth Waterfall would never have done anyone any harm but for the brain injury she sustained at Karl Smith’s hands.

What we’re all wondering, is what the incredibly successful, intelligent, hard-working, capable, level-headed, sophisticated and normally peaceful surgeon sees in a loser like you? ’

Lively frowned and tried to think of a comeback.

In more than thirty years of policing he’d never once been stuck for a sarcastic retort, and there he was, wanting only to rage about how amazing Beth Waterfall truly was, and yes, how he too could not understand what on earth she saw in a scruffy, earthy, no-frills cop like him.

Just as Lively was about to protest, Overbeck said, ‘But you’re our loser, Lively.

You belong to the Major Investigation Team, and while I may, frankly, be flummoxed about the reasoning, everyone here appears to adore you.

So they insisted we buy you a cake and stop any form of work temporarily to celebrate your return.

’ She stepped aside to reveal an enormous cake that was a cartoon robber sneaking away with a bag of swag.

‘They also wanted to shout “Surprise!” when you walked in, but I put my foot down at that point, assuming that you would prefer the tradition of me giving you a hearty Police Scotland ribbing.’

‘Oh, fuck me,’ Lively said. ‘In the circumstances, ma’am, I think I’d have preferred the surprise party.’

‘Come now, sergeant, has falling in love made you lose your edge? What pleasure would there be in the job without a stone like you for me to sharpen my blade on each day?’

But Lively heard nothing after the word ‘love’.

Someone, thankfully, had produced a knife and was handing slabs of chocolate cake (his favourite) out on paper plates, while some other genius had remembered to bring canisters of squirty cream (the only thing that could improve a slice of chocolate cake) and still Lively couldn’t seem to move a muscle or say a word.

Love. Was that what he was feeling?

It had been such a long time, and he’d become so hardened and set in his ways, he’d forgotten that love even existed beyond tacky greetings cards and the reality TV shows that had perfected the art of everyone faking the emotion.

Love. It felt strange in his head, like an idea that was too big to contemplate. It was Brian Cox explaining how the universe was expanding or describing the concept of superposition.

Someone thrust a plate of cake and cream in his hand and slapped him on the back, and still he stood there like a lemon, wondering how he was supposed to eat when he’d just found out that he was, in fact, not only in love, but in love and happy, in love and becoming part of a family.

In love with someone who loved him in return, he hoped.

‘Y’all right there?’ Salter asked. ‘You’re looking a bit lost, sergeant. Shall we take our cake somewhere quieter?’

Lively managed to nod, so that was something. Salter took him by the arm, across the corridor, and into an empty consultation room.

‘Bit much?’ she asked.

‘Just wasn’t expecting it,’ he said. ‘How did you persuade the super to sign off on it?’

‘Ah, that’s the thing, Overbeck actually ordered and paid for the cake. I wouldn’t go quite so far as to say she likes you, but I think she understands that the squad is happier when you’re around. You don’t seem exactly happy to be here, though. Not ready to get back in the saddle yet?’

‘I’m just very aware that I’ve got folk at home who need me. I’m not used to the pull, Salter. How do you do it every day, get up and leave your wee girl with someone else? What happens if she needs you?’

‘I get a call, and if we’re not too busy on a case, I go,’ Salter said. ‘Is that all that’s bothering you? Looked to me more like you’d been hit by a busload of emotion.’

‘Ach, you spent far too long with that doolally American woman, always wanting to talk about how people are feeling. It’s enough to make me feel sorry for the criminals.’

‘Connie Woolwine is unconventional and also invasive. Bull in a china shop might be a fair analogy when it comes to getting in other people’s heads. But she knows something about something. What advice do you think she’d give you now, if she were here?’

Lively ate a mouthful of cake with a dollop of cream as he thought about it.

‘Bloody woman would tell me that trying to stop myself feeling things only intensifies the experience because it becomes all you can concentrate on. She’d probably say that the easiest way to process all my emotions is to let them come and go freely.

Be like a sapling and bend with the wind, or some such shite.

’ He put the plate down. He had Beth to think about now.

She needed him. And he needed her to need him.

‘Some such shite, indeed,’ Salter said. ‘Right, I’m away. You’d best go in and convince your squad that you’re happy to be here. Probably all that’s needed is for you to insult a few people, be a bit grumpy, and pick a fight with the boss.’

‘Good advice,’ Lively said. ‘And where are you off to? Bit early for end of shift.’

‘I’ve an appointment with a surgeon of my own.

’ She rubbed her stomach without realising she was doing it.

‘I’ve decided it’s time to let them repair the scar.

No point living with pain if I don’t have to.

You never know, one day I might even get a holiday from this bloody place and end up somewhere hot with a beach.

Got to look good in that bikini, right?’

‘Good for you,’ Lively said. ‘It’s been a journey, Christie. Nice to be moving on.’

She gave him a hug that lasted longer than Lively would have been comfortable with a few months earlier, and he returned it with the fierceness of a father dropping his daughter at an airport alone for the first time.

‘You’ll be all right,’ Salter murmured. ‘And so will I. Let’s face it, Police Scotland would fall apart without us.’

‘That it would,’ Lively replied. ‘Now off you go. And kiss that little one for me when you get home.’

He picked up the plate of cake and walked back through into the briefing room, and life – the new and improved version of normality – began again.

Behind him, a man and woman entered and the room fell silent.

Those who’d been sitting, stood. Anyone who’d been eating put down their plate.

She was painfully thin, but her eyes were bright and her smile lit up the room.

The man with her, half his face a map of scars, the other almost unbelievably handsome, gave Lively a simple nod.

‘About fuckin’ time you two showed up,’ Lively said.