All they had to do was wait.
15
Morrow sat in the slowly cooling car, staring at the blank wall in the yard at London Road. She couldn’t cite Danny as a source. She couldn’t let it be known that he was her half-brother. Police liked the absolute value of ‘them and us’ and she and Danny looked so alike, the slightest suspicion would prove the relationship. But Bannerman was determined to ignore the lead and, even if it did pan out, he wouldn’t credit her with it. She had to tell MacKechnie without looking underhand.
Stepping out of the car she locked it and walked up the ramp to the security door, feeling her heart rate slow as she reached for the security pad. She always felt calm before she entered the station, the balm of order. Behind the door she knew which desks would be manned, who was responsible for which job, who to look up to, who to piss down on. Sometimes when she was lying awake in bed at home she put herself here, outside the door.
She punched the code in, the door buzzed in front of her and fell open. Through the processing bar and the lobby she reminded herself Danny had given her important information and ambition wasn’t met by giving leg-ups to rivals. She needed to stop, make a plan.
The disabled toilet in the lobby was empty and she sloped in and locked it, lowering the toilet lid and sitting down. She needed to give the information at a time and in such a way that she would be acknowledged as the source. Couldn’t mention Danny but needed to give the information in front of MacKechnie, while Bannerman was there. She needed them together.
Shutting her eyes she saw the Blair Avenue red front door again. She snapped her eyes open and stood up, stepped over to the low sink and glared at herself in the mirror. Red eyes, blue shadows under them, bitterness twitching around her mouth. She was starting to look as sour as her mother.
Avoiding eye contact with the mirror she made herself tidy, smoothed her hair back. Now wash your hands. Turning the tap on she was ambushed by the image of chubby fingers under clear running water, fingers flexing curiously, savouring the new feel of it. She shut her eyes, threw her head back, opened them. Scrawled in biro, in tiny writing at the side of the mirror, someone had graffitied ‘TJF’.
Morrow snorted furiously, scooped water from the running tap and threw it at the wall. She snatched green paper towels from the dispenser, spilling them on the floor, and scrubbed at the writing. The fury passed and she took her hand away. The letters were slightly fainter, not by much. TJF. A catchphrase officers used to denote the death of morale, an excuse for shoddy work and buck-passing, the death of order. TJF: The Job is Fucked.
She squeezed hand soap from the dispenser and rubbed it on the letters, scrubbing again, using wet towels this time. Even fainter. She wiped the blue soap off the wall and ran her hands under the water to get the residue off, keeping her eyes on the letters, directing all her anger and focus on them.
Picking up the scattered green paper towels, she dried her hands, unlocked the door and threw it open so it bounced off the wall, striding across the lobby to the front bar. She pressed the doorbell strapped to the desk, staring at herself in the mirrored wall, knowing they were back there looking at her.
The duty sergeant must have sent him: a young copper came out with a pained expression on his face. She pointed back to the toilet. ‘Have you been in there recently?’
He had been relaxed back there, and it took him a moment to adjust his mood. ‘Sorry?’
Morrow glared at him.
‘Sorry, ma’am, been in where?’
‘Disabled toilet. On the wall.’
He frowned over at the toilet. ‘The wall?’
‘In the toilet. Graffiti on the wall. Was it you?’
He looked picked on, and Morrow felt that this was the problem with the job now, not that it was fucked, but that no one wanted to take shit from anyone else, as if it was any other job, as if it was selling computer equipment or something and everyone had rights and no responsibilities. The job was all she had. If it was fucked, so was she.
‘Why would I?’ he said simply.
She had no answer for that. Of course he didn’t do it, he might be dumb and new and young but he wasn’t going to vandalise a toilet when he was the first person they’d ask about it.
‘Ridiculous,’ she said, looking him up and down, knowing she was being unreasonable. She turned on her heels and stabbed at the security pad on the CID door, turning, opening the door with her back so she turned back to the desk. She pointed at the toilet. ‘Get it cleaned off.’
The desk copper nodded, muttering after her, ‘Yes, ma’am.’
The door slammed behind her and she found herself looking down the CID corridor. MacKechnie’s office was dark at the far end, door shut. He wasn’t in his office, might not even be in the building. To her right she saw that her own office lights were on, the door hanging open. Shit. She put her head down and walked over to it.
There he was at his desk, hair carefully waxed and tousled, suited, looking tired but professional. His Elvis mug was sitting on the desk, by his elbow lay an empty health bar wrapper: Apples!Apples!Apples!
‘Bannerman,’ she said, notifying him of her presence.
His eyes narrowed with spite when he saw her. ‘Morrow. You missed my briefing.’
‘Um, well,’ she said uncertainly, ‘I had-’
‘You will not miss briefings under my command. We’ve got a million calls to make this morning. You cannot swan in and out.’
It was an order, a call to tow the line, inappropriate coming from someone of equal rank. ‘Bannerman, it’s supposed to be my day off.’
He held up a hand to stop her, shutting his eyes and turning his head away. ‘MacKechnie suspended days off. You got the email.’
Stunned, she watched him stand up and walk out to the incident room, keeping the staying hand up at her. It was always the soft ones who came down hard, she thought, the bastards who left the chain of command vague to make themselves feel like one of the troops. Then they had to enforce it by humiliating people. TJF.
The incident room desks had been arranged in a horseshoe. Five DCs were sitting, working phones, reading files and every single one of them had laptops. Three of them weren’t even part of this division; they must have been called in from somewhere else, which meant the case was having resources thrown at it. High profile, well resourced, every DS’s dream.
It took her a minute to spot MacKechnie. He was standing at the side of the room, glaring at her. Morrow brightened at the sight of him but he didn’t smile back. He kept his head down as he came over, as if he was walking through driving hail, across the lobby and into the office, Grant following in his wake.
Grant shut the door carefully behind himself. She could imagine the giggle of excitement in the briefing room, the looks passing between the DCs, mouthing her name to anyone whose view of her had been blocked, all speculating as to why MacKechnie, Mr Inclusivity, needed the door shut to speak to her.
Bannerman stayed out of his chair, leaving it to MacKechnie to sit. They were moving as a single animal, they had talked about her, the two of them, wound each other up over her absence, reading things into it that weren’t there. MacKechnie sat down heavily in Bannerman’s chair, pursing his lips, letting off a martyred sigh. It must be a struggle, she imagined, to blend his vegetarian management style with honest aggression. She stood at ease in front of the desk, her head tilted insolently.
‘DS Morrow, I am aware that you are unhappy with my choice of lead on this case,’ MacKechnie narrowed his eyes for emphasis, ‘but I never expected you to usurp the management of his investigation.’
‘Sir, I’ve-’
‘If you compromise these proceedings through sheer bloody-mindedness because you feel picked on…’