The Sad Man Read Free

officer’s room – the hated DI Ashe.
    ‘Not the guvnor, Ashe’s not here. The boss.’ Bennett calls and points to the stairs. One floor up to Chief Superintendent Drake. Tom looks down at his uniform.
    ‘You look a right sodding mess.’ Drake opens a drawer and throws him a packet of baby wet-wipes. Tom sponges the worst of the snot away while Drake watches him from behind hisantique oak desk. No other office in the building has a wooden desk, the others are metal and grained plastic that does a very poor imitation of wood. Drake had his own desk brought in from home, it was meant to intimidate. Tom thinks it just makes him look like a show-off.
    ‘I apologise,’ he says as he wipes. ‘I was with a family this morning. Sir.’
    The sir is an afterthought. Tom has little respect for the man sitting before him – he is a political policeman. He plays golf with the mayor and hosts charity events for the local MP’s wife. He surrounds himself with policeman who think like he does and who don’t rock the boat. Tom hands back the wipes. They go back into the drawer. Tom looks at Drake’s uniform, crisp and clean. His hair, cut army-short, is like steel wool filed down. His cheeks and chin look polished. If Tom felt his own he would feel stubble; even ten minutes after shaving he feels stubble.
    Drake sneers a little. ‘That’s a bit better, I suppose. Sit down, Sergeant.’
    ‘Sir.’ Tom sits, one leg crossed over the other. As he does so he sees he has mismatched socks. He uncrosses them quickly.
    ‘I’ll get straight to the point,’ Drake starts, looking down at a pile of notes on his desk. ‘You passed both parts of your DI exam – the law part you’ve had for …’
    ‘Three years.’
    ‘And you passed the practical and field assessment six months ago.’
    ‘Yes.’ Tom’s face clouds over.
    ‘You applied immediately for promotion to detective inspector?’
    ‘Yes.’
    Drake smiles his snake charmer’s smile. ‘DI Ashe and myself have turned down your application.’
    ‘Three times.’
    ‘Three times exactly. Do you know why?’
    ‘No, sir.’
    ‘How did that make you feel?’
    ‘I don’t underst—’
    ‘Bollocks, Bevans. You pass both parts of the exam, the law section with the highest score this department has ever gained. You should have got automatic promotion, but you didn’t. Doesn’t that make your blood boil?’
    ‘No.’
    Drake looks at him for a few seconds, clearly trying to gauge what lies behind the mask.
    ‘Sad Man? That’s what they call you isn’t it?’
    He sighs a little. ‘Yes, sir.’
    ‘You lost your childhood sweetheart – murdered, wasn’t she?’
    ‘Childhood sweetheart?’ Dani-in-his-head laughs.
    ‘Yes.’ Tom fights to keep his voice neutral, controlled. He can feel the tears start to form. Breathe . He does not want to cry in front of a senior officer. ‘She was abducted and murdered.’
    ‘So you dedicate your life to help other victims like her?’
    ‘Nothing like that, I had chosen the police force bef—’
    ‘Do you have outside interests, Bevans? Outside the force, I mean.’
    ‘I don’t see the relevance.’
    ‘I play golf. I used to do battle re-enactments, Wars of the Roses was my favourite. I was Warwick, the Kingmaker. Military history serves the modern policeman well – you should remember that.’
    ‘I will, sir.’ He won’t.
    ‘DI Ashe recommended you be kept as a sergeant for two reasons. The first: because he felt you were the best family liaison officer he has ever seen – and I agreed with him.’
    ‘The second?’ Tom asks, his throat tight with a growing resentment.
    ‘He said that you had little ability to lead a team, that you were an outsider, that the empathy you seemed to show by the bucketful to the families, even scumbags, was totally lacking towards your fellow officers. Does that seem like a fair assessment?’
    ‘I …’
    ‘Maybe a bit unfair, let me turn the question around. DI Ashe – what do you