The Last 10 Seconds

‘How’s the neck?’ she asked Dan Grier as they ran into each other at the front door of the building.

‘He caught me with a lucky shot,’ he answered, with just the faintest hint of belligerence in his tone, rubbing his throat through the material of the coverall. ‘I wasn’t expecting it.’

‘No, I saw that. Quite a feisty little bugger, wasn’t he?’

‘He definitely had some kind of martial arts expertise. I think we should have researched his background better.’

Tina smiled, thinking Grier was a pompous sod sometimes. They’d never really seen eye to eye, right from the word go. She thought him precious and over-serious; he clearly didn’t think she should be his boss. Things had been even more strained since the interview with Adrienne Menzies’ friend, when Grier had discounted her lead and Tina had followed it up on her own, and she had the feeling that he thought she’d deliberately set him up to look an idiot, which she hadn’t. It was just that generally she liked to work alone, relying on her own instincts. ‘Well, you know how it is, Dan,’ she said to him. ‘You live and learn. And at least we’ve got him now.’ She put out a hand. ‘After you.’

Grier didn’t reply, just walked inside in silence.

As Tina went to follow, someone called her name. She turned and saw DCI MacLeod walking towards her, his phone in one hand, his coveralls in the other. His face was still red from his earlier exertions, even though by Tina’s calculations he’d only run the best part of thirty yards, and there were obvious sweat stains on the underarms of his shirt. With his middle-aged spread spreading way too quickly, and an unhealthy pallor that matched the grey in his hair, he looked like a heart attack waiting to happen.

‘Sir?’ She hadn’t spoken to him since the arrest – he’d been on the phone non-stop ever since – and she wondered what he wanted to say.

‘Well done on stopping Kent,’ he said as he reached her. ‘It could have been embarrassing if he’d got away.’

She liked that about him. The fact that, unlike many of the senior officers she’d dealt with over the years, he was honest, and said what he was thinking. ‘No problem. It’s nice to have had the chance to get involved.’

MacLeod frowned. ‘You know I’d have you back on active duty like a shot if I could, Tina. But it’s the bloody regulations. You know how it is. They swamp us.’

‘If there’s anything you can do, it’d be a help. I didn’t join up to watch other people do the glory jobs.’

‘I’ll have a word.’ He breathed in deeply, and Tina could tell he hadn’t just come over to congratulate her. ‘I don’t suppose there’ll be any complaints from Kent about any inappropriate use of force . . .’

‘I should imagine right now that’s the least of his problems.’

‘But you’re going to have to be careful, Tina,’ he continued, leaning in closer, clearly choosing his words carefully. ‘Sometimes you can let your enthusiasm for stopping a suspect get the better of you. You laid into Kent pretty hard back there.’

‘He needed to be stopped.’

‘I know that, and quite frankly, on a personal level I think he deserves everything he gets, and plenty more besides. But you’re a high-profile officer.’

She started to argue but he held up a hand. ‘I know it’s not your fault that people know who you are, but like it or not, you’re just going to have to accept it. And you’re going to have to remember that your actions get noticed. You step out of line, people are going to come down hard on you. I’m only saying this because you’re one of my people, and I want to protect you. I also think you’re an extremely good police officer. It was you who got the break with Kent, you who should get the credit. Don’t ruin it by kicking hell out of our suspect in the middle of the street in broad daylight.’

Tina felt defensive, and her first instinct was to fight back, to say that she’d only used the minimum amount of force necessary, and if people couldn’t handle that then frankly that was their lookout. But she didn’t. She had no desire to have a run-in with her boss, and, if she was honest with herself, he was right. ‘Thanks, sir. I’ll bear that in mind. Is that everything?’

He smiled. ‘Yeah, that’s everything. Lecture over. And well done again.’

She turned away and went inside, making her way up the threadbare staircase to the first floor, conscious that her foot was playing up again. It was the second time she’d been shot in the space of five years. Add to that the fact that she’d killed a man and that two of her colleagues, one a lover, had been murdered, and it was hardly a wonder she had such a high profile.