Tony Hill u Carol Jordan 08 - Cross and Burn

Torin. ‘Has she got any scars, or birthmarks, or tattoos? It makes it easier for us to check with the local hospitals in case she’s had an accident and been brought in without her handbag.’
    He glanced at the scrap of paper Paula had given him then met her eyes again. ‘She has a tattoo of a bluebird on her left shoulder. And she’s got a scar on her right ankle where she broke it and they had to put a pin in.’
    Paula made a quick note. ‘That’s very helpful.’
    ‘What are you going to do about my mum?’
    ‘I’ll make some phone calls. Talk to her colleagues.’
    ‘What about me?’
    It was a good question. Torin was a minor and she knew she should phone the social services department and get a case worker assigned to him. But Bev might prove Paula’s professional unease unfounded. She might still turn up, embarrassed and awkward after an unpredicted night on the tiles. Then unpicking the process set in train by the social workers would be a nightmare for mother and son. She’d be stigmatised as an unfit mother and he’d be classified ‘at risk’. It might even have an impact on her job. Paula didn’t want that on her conscience. ‘Why don’t you just go to school?’
    ‘Like normal?’
    She nodded. ‘Text me when you get out of school and we’ll take it from there. Hopefully, she’ll have turned up at work and that’ll be the end of it.’ She tried to reassure him with a smile that matched her voice.
    He looked dubious. ‘You think?’
    No. But, ‘Chances are,’ was what she said as she stood up and eased him out the door. She watched him as far as the front entrance, his shoulders hunched, his head down. She wanted to believe Bev McAndrew was fit and well and on her way home. But convincing herself would have required a triumph of hope over experience, and Paula didn’t have it in her.
    She turned away, momentarily nostalgic for her old team. They would have understood exactly why she was bothering with Torin and his barely missing mum. But that was then. Instead she had DCI Fielding to face. She’d heard good things about Fielding’s conviction rates and this was definitely a team she wanted to hitch her wagon to. But already she’d kept her new boss waiting. It was far from the perfect start she’d hoped for. Hopefully, it wasn’t too late to redeem herself. She’d simply have to try that little bit harder.

7

    T he tram rattled across the high Victorian viaduct, sleek modern lines a contrast to the soot-stained redbrick arches. It was, Tony thought, a powerful metaphor for the whole area surrounding the Minster Canal Basin. Opposite the viaduct was the ruined apse of the medieval minster itself, its stained limestone tracery all that had been left standing when a stick of Luftwaffe bombs had reduced the rest of the building to rubble. A dozen years ago, the viaduct and the minster had bookended a higgledy-piggledy scrum of random buildings, half of them empty and decaying, their window frames rotten and their rooflines sagging. The canal district had been the least lovely and least loved of inner-city Bradfield’s precincts.
    Then a bright spark on the city council had discovered an EU fund aimed at reinvigorating depressed and deprived inner-city environments. These days, the canal basin was the hub of a lively area. Craft workshops, indie publishers and software developers worked cheek by jowl, flats and studio apartments occupied the upper floors and a sprinkling of bars and bistros provided somewhere for locals and visitors to mingle. One of Bradfield Victoria’s premier league stars had even lent his name to a Spanish tapas bar that he occasionally deigned to grace with his presence.
    The basin itself had become a mix of permanent residential moorings and short-stay marina slots for the narrowboats that provided holidays and day trips where once they’d shifted cargoes round the country.
    Attractive though it now was, it had never previously crossed Tony’s mind as a possible home. He’d sat outside one of the waterside pubs with Carol Jordan once, when they’d been pretending to be normal people who could have a drink and a conversation that didn’t involve the interior life of fucked-up individuals. Another time, he’d shared a clutter of tapas with a couple of American colleagues who’d come to look round the secure mental hospital where he worked. More than once, he’d walked the canal from one side of the city to the other while he mulled over a