complaint against him.
Unlucky Polly; a split-second’s misjudgement and she may have put herself in the power of someone out to do her harm. Grace felt her adrenaline pump at the memory of being out on the beat as an inexperienced constable, of the demand for constant vigilance, the endless monitoring of one’s environment, the need to assert and maintain control. Fail to notice a tiny mood shift, or trust the wrong person at the wrong time, and it could all go catastrophically wrong. Was that what had happened to Polly?
Grace shook herself. Wrong to identify with the victim: that way you missed things, jumped to inaccurate conclusions. Wrong to think about the past: she was here to move on. She picked up the menu and turned back to Roxanne, willing herself to recapture that earlier lovely moment when she’d remembered being naive, wide-eyed and careless.
The air was still warm when they finally left the bar. They made for the High Street as Roxanne phoned for a taxi. People from other clubs and bars had spilled out onto the noisy streets, making the most of the balmy June night, and there was much drunken laughter and banter outsidea popular kebab shop. One girl, misguidedly attempting a somersault on a bike rail, slipped and lay giggling on the ground while her girlfriends shouted their glee and tried to haul her up. A group of buff young men – Grace had the impression they might be paratroopers from the local barracks – gathered round, all clutching beer cans and cheering and jeering in equal measure. Fired up by the attention, the girl tried to repeat her clumsy performance with equally dismal results. When Grace had shadowed uniformed beat officers as part of her graduate-entry training, she had accompanied her share of revellers to A & E after they’d got into brawls, fallen over or vomited themselves into unconsciousness. It was both distasteful and a shocking waste of police time. Her colleagues – many of them legendary boozers themselves – were probably right to despise members of the great British public who couldn’t hold their drink. Yet Grace had remained aware of how vulnerable inebriated youngsters of both sexes could be to robbery, violence or sexual aggression.
Roxanne must have seen the serious expression on her face, for she gave her a playful push, nearly overbalancing herself in the process. Laughing, Roxanne grabbed on to her friend in just the same way that Grace had watched Polly’s grainy avatar cling on to her mates to keep herself upright.
‘Polly was as caned as we are now when she disappeared,’ she told Roxanne. ‘It’s on the CCTV footage.’
‘What d’you think has happened to her?’
Grace shrugged, aware of the shadowy doorways andsilent alleyways around them. ‘No idea. But look at us – she’d have been pretty easy prey for someone who was sober and determined, wouldn’t she?’
The cab Roxanne had ordered drew up, and as they identified themselves and clambered in, Grace looked back at all the young women innocently enjoying a boisterous summer night in this old market town, and wished them well.
FIVE
She lay awkwardly on top of the jagged debris that covered the half-cleared site where a Sixties office block in the centre of Colchester had been torn down. The body had been arranged with feet apart, legs straight and covered demurely by the smoothed-down, patterned skirt. The arms rested to the sides, and the head was pillowed on some red fabric that looked, from where Grace stood, like a neatly folded item of clothing. Trying to peer past the crime scene investigators, who were carefully laying plastic stepping boards over the rubble, Grace saw but did not immediately account for the dead woman’s short dark hair, startling herself with the realisation that this was not Polly Sinclair.
Despite the surrounding activity, and the undeniable thrill of privileged access to the epicentre of this event, Grace’s brain was sluggish this early in the morning.
Unlucky Polly; a split-second’s misjudgement and she may have put herself in the power of someone out to do her harm. Grace felt her adrenaline pump at the memory of being out on the beat as an inexperienced constable, of the demand for constant vigilance, the endless monitoring of one’s environment, the need to assert and maintain control. Fail to notice a tiny mood shift, or trust the wrong person at the wrong time, and it could all go catastrophically wrong. Was that what had happened to Polly?
Grace shook herself. Wrong to identify with the victim: that way you missed things, jumped to inaccurate conclusions. Wrong to think about the past: she was here to move on. She picked up the menu and turned back to Roxanne, willing herself to recapture that earlier lovely moment when she’d remembered being naive, wide-eyed and careless.
The air was still warm when they finally left the bar. They made for the High Street as Roxanne phoned for a taxi. People from other clubs and bars had spilled out onto the noisy streets, making the most of the balmy June night, and there was much drunken laughter and banter outsidea popular kebab shop. One girl, misguidedly attempting a somersault on a bike rail, slipped and lay giggling on the ground while her girlfriends shouted their glee and tried to haul her up. A group of buff young men – Grace had the impression they might be paratroopers from the local barracks – gathered round, all clutching beer cans and cheering and jeering in equal measure. Fired up by the attention, the girl tried to repeat her clumsy performance with equally dismal results. When Grace had shadowed uniformed beat officers as part of her graduate-entry training, she had accompanied her share of revellers to A & E after they’d got into brawls, fallen over or vomited themselves into unconsciousness. It was both distasteful and a shocking waste of police time. Her colleagues – many of them legendary boozers themselves – were probably right to despise members of the great British public who couldn’t hold their drink. Yet Grace had remained aware of how vulnerable inebriated youngsters of both sexes could be to robbery, violence or sexual aggression.
Roxanne must have seen the serious expression on her face, for she gave her a playful push, nearly overbalancing herself in the process. Laughing, Roxanne grabbed on to her friend in just the same way that Grace had watched Polly’s grainy avatar cling on to her mates to keep herself upright.
‘Polly was as caned as we are now when she disappeared,’ she told Roxanne. ‘It’s on the CCTV footage.’
‘What d’you think has happened to her?’
Grace shrugged, aware of the shadowy doorways andsilent alleyways around them. ‘No idea. But look at us – she’d have been pretty easy prey for someone who was sober and determined, wouldn’t she?’
The cab Roxanne had ordered drew up, and as they identified themselves and clambered in, Grace looked back at all the young women innocently enjoying a boisterous summer night in this old market town, and wished them well.
FIVE
She lay awkwardly on top of the jagged debris that covered the half-cleared site where a Sixties office block in the centre of Colchester had been torn down. The body had been arranged with feet apart, legs straight and covered demurely by the smoothed-down, patterned skirt. The arms rested to the sides, and the head was pillowed on some red fabric that looked, from where Grace stood, like a neatly folded item of clothing. Trying to peer past the crime scene investigators, who were carefully laying plastic stepping boards over the rubble, Grace saw but did not immediately account for the dead woman’s short dark hair, startling herself with the realisation that this was not Polly Sinclair.
Despite the surrounding activity, and the undeniable thrill of privileged access to the epicentre of this event, Grace’s brain was sluggish this early in the morning.