DS Sam Butler checked her handbag for a third time, making certain that the head of a tiny microphone was concealed beneath the flap. “Where did you get it,” she had asked.
“Don’t ask questions, girl,” he had answered.
He hid the quick cuffs and a small canister of CS spray beneath a flimsy headband she’d supplied. She had turned up half an hour earlier and he’d been freshly astonished at the sight of her in the loose flowing dress. Something in his chest fluttered. He tried to remain indifferent but he didn’t fool her, not for a moment.
“Sam…”
He started the car and turned toward the High Road, supermarket end.
“Sam, I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“For not realizing you cared.” he toothache.”
“I never meant to be frivolous with you, Sam, or to give you the wrong idea.”
“You didn’t.”
They met the High Road. He drove past the supermarket. The car park was full. People struggled with bulging trolleys full of Christmas crackers and fancy tins of sweets and a bottle of last-minute sherry for the old neighbour who might drop in. And the guys selling Christmas wrapping paper were running out of time – their voices were louder: twenty sheets for a quid.
“It’s been a tough lesson, and I’ve learned it late. You might think you’re in control but you never are. All it takes is a special person, a little smile, and all your planning can go out the window. Everything you hold dear becomes secondary and you’d put it all on the line. For a dream. You’re a special person, Anian.”
“Oh, Sam…”
On the left the lonely pet shop window slid by. In the distance the Carrington loomed. The pavements were packed. It was getting close. “OK, so let’s concentrate. We’ve been over it a dozen times, I know. This is a bad idea. We’re supposed to be experienced coppers.” “Sam, it’s now or never. We’re in too deep to pull out now.” He grunted.
“It’s my fault, I know. I got us into this but it’s too late to give up. And really, we’ve got nothing to lose. If nothing happens no one will ever know.”
His nod was reluctant. He wondered how on earth he had landed in such a position, blinded by a fantasy, a dream that in reality he would never have allowed to happen.
“Sam, don’t say anything, but this is going all the way, understand? Whatever it takes. Don’t you come blasting in unless I’m in big trouble.”
He nodded and said, “Go easy on the wine.”
“He’s not going to drug me.”
He made a left and then a sharp right into the dark run-down road behind the Gallery. The Doll’s House slid by on the left, the old office buildings were in front. He pulled to a slow stop.
“This is it.”
She turned to face him full on. She flicked him a little smile then she was opening the door, struggling out, leaning back in for her handbag.
“Be careful,” he said. “I couldn’t bear it if you got hurt.”
“I’m not getting hurt, Sam.”
Her eyes levelled on him for one more time, blinked, once, twice, and she murmured, “See you in a bit.”
And then she was off.
He turned and watched her walk away the way they’d come, the brown dress picking up a breeze, hugging her thighs enough to make him shiver. She didn’t look back. She turned left and, with a little skip, like a shooting star that was sudden and unexpected and excellent, she was gone.