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pollutant, but it was going to be hard. If the new Serious Organised Crime Agency really took off, all would be well, but it was going to be a while before that happened. In the meantime, only the combined efforts of all the relevant agencies and police forces could make a difference. And the efforts never would be effectively combined without brilliant liaison.
    I could do it, she thought. I know I could.
    ‘How’s it going, Guv?’ said the desk sergeant by way of greeting as she pushed her way through the double doors at the nick.
    There was the familiar crowd of vulnerable people sitting on the uncomfortable chairs in front of him. As usual one or two of them looked in dire need of psychiatric care, muttering and twitching. They all shared the resigned expression of people for whom waiting was a fact of life. Hoping they’d find some help here, but glad it wasn’t her responsibility to provide it, Caro ignored the lift and ran upstairs to her office, barely panting.
    She thought of her first interview with the selection board. There’d been two men and a woman and none had been introduced. They’d subjected her to a gruelling forty-five-minute session, but she’d acquitted herself well, and the chairman’s eventual friendliness had given her the impression that she had a good chance. Leaving the big, sombre room with more excitement than she’d let herself feel for a long time, she’d
come face to face with the next candidate waiting to be questioned and lost most of her confidence.
    It was John Crayley. They’d worked together briefly about six years ago, and she’d known at once that he was a winner, who would go all the way. Clever, well liked by both men and women, and a good thief-taker, he’d quickly become an excellent manager. Now he’d been promoted to chief inspector ahead of her and was working in an important policy-making job at Scotland Yard. He’d even done some time undercover in between. He would have to be anyone’s first choice for the liaison job.
    ‘Hi, Caro.’ He had smiled at her, but there had been an odd, calculating look in his eyes. ‘I didn’t realise I was up against you, or I’d have retreated straight away.’
    ‘Come off it, John.’
    ‘I’m serious. At any other moment in history, I might have expected to walk into a job like this,’ he’d said, with no more arrogance than she would have had if she’d been in his shoes. ‘But I’ve been told they’re keen on the idea of a woman this time.’
    ‘D’you know who else is on the shortlist?’
    ‘Nope. I didn’t even know about you. But if it’s going to a woman, you must have a damn good chance.’
    ‘Thanks. Good luck,’ she’d said, hoping she’d managed to hide her frustration.
    Now, alone in her office and facing a desk piled high with paper, she could let it show and stretched her face into a childish expression of loathing and disgust.
    The very smell of the room seemed to spell uselessness: dusty, chalky, stale, it seeped into all her clothes. Sometimes when she woke, she could smell it in her hair. Last week she’d dreamed of finding herself walled up in the new extension that was being built on the old car park. She had to get out of here.
    Sitting down at her desk, she reached for the top folder in the pile and forced herself to work.
    ‘I’m sorry to bother you, Inspector.’ The tremulous voice made Caro look up. One of the newest of the civilian clerks was cringing in the doorway.
    ‘That’s OK.’ Caro forced a smile. ‘What’s the problem?’
    ‘Nothing. You just looked very angry. I only came to bring your messages. I didn’t mean to disturb you.’
    ‘It’s fine.’ Caro held out her hand for the clutch of notes.
    ‘The top three are the urgent ones,’ the clerk said, before she scuttled away like a startled insect.
    Caro riffled through the notes, picking out the first three and putting the rest aside for later. One made her frown all over again.
    ‘Stephanie phoned. She