Call & Response Read Free

good for the stats and great for the blood pressure. She takes the crime, and doesn’t ever have to do any time. Everyone’s a winner.’
    ‘Except her kids.’
     
    Pepper looked at him sharply. Was that a dig? No. The lad was clueless, and anyway it wouldn’t be bloody fair. There was absolutely no comparison between her and Amanda. Absolutely none at all.
    ‘You’re right, Henry, of course the kids suffer. And if you’re seriously concerned about them then have a word with her social worker or her probation officer after, though you’ll not be telling them anything that they don’t already know, worst luck.’
    ‘I was just trying to find out what’s behind it, that’s all.
     
    Pepper only just resisted the urge to shake her head. ‘How much previous has Amanda got? Just as an adult, let’s say.’
    Armstrong opened the file and flicked through a few pages.
    ‘About 40, maybe a few more.’
    ‘Exactly. She’s a thief. And she nicks stuff because she wants to get hold of things that she doesn’t have to pay for. It’s the whole idea of the job, like.’
    ‘That’s not fair, boss. She’s just trying to take care of her family.’
    ‘Cobblers. Do you know how much she gets in benefits, every week? Have a guess.’
    ‘I don’t know. Honest, I don’t.’
    ‘Go on, how much?’
    ‘All right, a hundred quid.’
    ‘No way. I bet it’s £400 at least. Cash in hand that is, too.’
    ‘That can’t be right, boss. She’d be able to feed the kids on that, no trouble.’
    ‘Exactly, and that’s my point. Well, I’ll tell you what, Henry. You go back in there and you ask her how much it is. And then you get her charged, OK? We can carry on with this conversation later. Because I’ll tell you one thing for nowt. If you don’t get on with it PC Jackson will leave you holding the baby. Literally.’
     
    DC Armstrong was a little flushed when he returned to the interview room, and he almost knocked PC Jackson’s empty mug off the table when he sat down. And then he asked the question, straight out.
    ‘What’s it to you?’
    ‘Come on, Amanda. It’s a simple question. How much do you get?’
    ‘I’m entitled, I am.’
    ‘I didn’t say you weren’t. I bet it’s £400 a week, isn’t it?’
    ‘Aye, about that’ said Amanda. ‘But it don’t go right far, not these days.’
    ‘Gotcha’ said Pepper, from the observation room. She did enjoy it when she was right and a subordinate was wrong. In fact, the only thing that she enjoyed more - at work at least - was when she was proved right, and a superior officer was shown to be wrong. And that happened all the time too, now that she came to think about it.
     
    PC Jackson managed to book Amanda out at just before noon, and DC Armstrong went looking for Pepper Wilson. She wasn’t in the observation room, and she wasn’t at her desk on the open CID floor, nor in the DI’s office. A PC who was using one of the empty desks, which had previously belonged to a DC who’d taken voluntary redundancy a couple of month before, said that Pepper had been called in to see the Super. So he returned to his own work-station, and before he set to on his accumulated paperwork he had a look online to see how benefits were calculated. Surely no-one had more children just to avoid having to go to work?
     
     
    Superintendent Mary Clark wasn’t yet comfortable in her uniform, and it showed. It just looked like rather convincing fancy dress on her, she thought. She was sitting stiffly at her meeting table when DS Wilson walked in, and Pepper told herself - not for the first time in her career - to keep an open mind. Just because the new Super had been recruited from outside the job didn’t necessarily mean that she’d be utterly shit at it, although Pepper had to make an effort not to call to mind the jokes about Mary Clark that had been going round the station for weeks. But then, what could the bosses expect? Because the Super’s round-robin introductory