Jo was luckier with her line of work. Once you had your rank, they weren’t taking it away. She could have stayed out for a couple of years, and there’d have been few impediments to rejoining later. Maybe the odd training course to bring her up to speed on the latest rules and regs, but otherwise it would have been back into the thick of it. The only thing she’d had to fight for – and it was a quick and bloodless fight with the HR department – was a return to active duty rather than desk-work like Heidi had settled for. That had never been her thing.
It wasn’t just the thrill of the chase she missed though. She’d been thinking about it a lot, and realised a large part of the job’s appeal was that, at St Aldates, things were actually simpler. There were plenty of problems, obviously – mysteries to be solved, charges to be brought, wrongs to be righted, justice to be served. But at the end of the day, there was procedure, paperwork, and shared routine that everyone understood – shift patterns, briefings, pecking order. And results that spoke for themselves. No one had warned about the complexities of motherhood, and she’d never anticipated the psychological challenges it would bring. Not knowing the solutions to calm a crying child. The trial and error. Never being sure if you were doing the right thing, either in the moment or for the long term. The constant second-guessing. It had been a different proposition altogether, stirring up insecurities she’d thought she’d put behind her years ago, creating others she never knew she had, a rollercoaster of highs and lows, doubts and difficulties. Through the fog of sleeplessness, answers seemed less certain. Even the questions being asked weren’t sometimes clear.
* * *
She pulled up in the St Aldates car park feeling a little like an adult revisiting her childhood school. In reality, it was only six months since she’d last been at the station, and she wasn’t sure why she expected it to look different. Nevertheless, the complete lack of change came as a surprise. The same takeaway menus were pinned to the board in the hallway at the same angles. The same scuffs were on the floor. The same smells, even – whatever refrigerant was leaking in the break room, mixed with the stuff they used to clean the holding cells along the corridor. Plus George Dimitriou’s strong, though admittedly very pleasant, aftershave.
As she entered the CID room, though, it was empty. Her own chair was under the desk, a woman’s lightweight jacket slung over the back, and a nice-looking handbag perched on the edge of the desk. Heidi had mentioned a new DC had started, in her late twenties. Alice something. Jo heard the mumble of voices and laughter from the briefing room, so dropped her things on the desk and wandered over. The door opened before she’d reached it, and it was Dimitriou who ambled out. He was sporting a new, finely sculpted moustache, which unnerved her a little. She backed away, unable to take her eyes off it.
‘Look what the cat dragged in,’ he said. He smiled as he spoke, half-turning to a slim and attractive natural blonde behind him. ‘Ali, meet the mighty Jo Masters.’ As ever with Dimitriou, there was a hint of mockery. She was technically his superior, but he never spoke as though that occurred to him. Most of the time, she didn’t mind, and the two of them had a lightly combative relationship that just about worked.
The woman shook Jo’s hand firmly. ‘Alice Reeves,’ she said. ‘Pleased to meet you at last.’
‘Likewise,’ said Jo. ‘Looking forward to working together.’
Inside the briefing room, Heidi Tan and Andy Carrick were talking but broke apart when they saw Jo. Andy waved her in.
‘We can catch up in a minute,’ Jo said to Dimitriou. ‘But don’t try and tap me up for sponsorship.’
‘Huh?’ he said.
‘For the novelty facial hair.’
Alice smiled, and Dimitriou blushed. ‘Ha-bloody-ha.’
Leaving them, Jo walked across to the others. On the screen immediately behind them was a montage of several pictures of a young man in the front seat of a car – a white BMW. From one angle, he looked asleep, but another showed a significant wound that had mangled the left side of his face.
‘Welcome back,’ said Carrick. ‘Theo okay?’
‘I think I’m taking the separation worse,’ said Jo. ‘How are yours?’
‘The older one’s worked out how to bypass the parental controls on his phone,’ said Carrick. ‘I’m fighting a losing battle.’
Andy had two kids, on the way to being teenagers, and managed to carry off the balance of perfect family man and professional police officer with more grace and aplomb than she’d ever achieve.
‘Got that to look forward to,’ said Jo.
‘I doubt it,’ said Heidi. ‘By the time ours hit ten, the phones will be implanted somewhere.’
Jo turned to the photos again. The man looked Japanese, or Korean. ‘This the local shooting?’ she said. It had been in the paper, and though she’d normally have taken great interest, it had coincided with the fallout from the accident outside the minimarket, and thus had made limited impact on her consciousness.
‘Indeed,’ said Carrick. ‘Five days ago – the twelfth – at the old BT building.’
Jo knew the location – five floors of abandoned offices off the Cowley Road. Popular with graffiti artists. There wouldn’t be any security cameras, because the building held nothing of value.
‘Xan Do,’ said Heidi. ‘Twenty-one years old. Private school educated, an undergrad here who dropped out after a year. He wasn’t on our radar, but one of Dimi’s informants seemed to think he was connected to the Matthis family.’
Jo nodded in acknowledgement. The surname was a common one from their case files. The Matthis family had been notorious, mid-level drug dealers in the South Oxford area since before she joined Thames Valley, though things had quietened down in recent times. ‘They’re inside, aren’t they?’
‘The dad is. Plus his eldest boy, Riley. There’s another son, though – Blake. He’s sixteen. Our theory is that Do was taking care of the dirty work, with Blake acting as a contact with his father.’
‘So this was a deal that went south?’ said Jo.
‘Maybe,’ said Heidi. She fished through a pile of papers and came up with a photo of several small baggies of pills. ‘These were still under the seat though – a couple of grand’s worth. Phone and wallet left untouched too. We’re having the call and GPS data extracted.’
‘Maybe a rival then,’ said Jo. ‘Or a third-party professional. Ballistics?’
‘Single round, fired point blank through the window, which remained largely intact. It entered under his cheekbone and exited, well, all over the place. They’re saying it’s a Makarov, probably reactivated.’
‘Xan Do’s parents own a successful Asian food wholesaler on the edge of town,’ said Carrick. ‘They consented to a search, but it came up empty. George is pissed. He and Alice are about to head out to talk to Blake Matthis, see if we can shake the tree.’
‘Great – I’ll tag along.’
Carrick smiled. ‘You don’t want a cup of tea or something first? Catch up?’
‘Maybe later,’ said Jo. ‘I need to get my sea legs back.’
* * *