The Stranger You Know Read Free

Matter-affiliated messageboard on the Internet with a list of names and addresses for family court judges and their staff. Everyone is very jumpy about it. They’re expecting parcel bombs and anthrax and God knows what.’
    ‘How did I miss all of this?’ I felt as if I hadn’t done my homework and I’d been caught by my least favourite teacher – which was basically what had happened.
    ‘Dunno. Maybe you’re too busy concentrating on what’s right in front of you to get a decent idea of the big picture. That’s why you’re a DC. You do all right at the small stuff, but you need a bit of a flair for strategy at my level.’
    Maybe if you didn’t leave all the paperwork and form filling to me I’d have time to read about the big picture . ‘Thanks for the advice.’
    ‘Freely given,’ he said. ‘Listen and learn.’
    ‘I do. Every day.’ It was true. If I wanted to know about misogyny, right-wing conspiracy theories or competition-grade swearing, working with Derwent was roughly equivalent to a third-level education.
    Our route took us close to where the protesters stood, rain-blasted and pathetic, huddled in their anoraks like penguins in nylon hoods. Most were middle-aged and a touch overweight. They didn’t look dangerous.
    ‘They can’t all be evil, and they must miss their children,’ I said.
    ‘Pack of whingers. If they loved their kids so much they wouldn’t have left them in the first place.’ He glowered at them. ‘Anyone who’s got the nerve to sit under the statue of the greatest Englishman who ever lived and make it look like a gypsy camp has got no principles and no soul.’
    ‘Winston Churchill?’
    ‘Who else?’ He looked at me as if he was waiting for me to argue, but I knew better than to try. Derwent needed a fight occasionally, to do something with the aggression he seemed to generate just by breathing. But I was not going to be his punchbag today.
    I could have sworn his ears drooped.

Chapter 2
    Back at the office, Derwent threw himself into his chair and waved at me imperiously.
    ‘Go and find the boss and tell him where we are with the case.’
    I felt a thud of dismay. ‘Don’t you want to do it?’
    ‘I’ve got things to do.’
    ‘So have I.’
    ‘Mine are more important.’
    ‘How do you know?’
    ‘Because I’m senior to you so whatever I have to do is bound to be more important.’ As he said it he was reaching over to pick up a copy of the Standard that someone had left on a nearby desk.
    ‘Look, I’d really rather not—’ I started to say.
    ‘Not interested. Tell someone who cares.’ He glanced up at me. ‘Why are you still here?’
    I turned on my heel and stalked across the room towards the only enclosed office, where Chief Superintendent Charles Godley was usually to be found. I rapped on the door and it opened as I did so, Godley stepping towards me so that we almost collided. I apologised at the same time as he did. My face had been flaming already because I was livid with Derwent, but embarrassment added an extra touch of heat to my cheeks. I was aware of Derwent grinning at his desk on the other side of the room, and the speculative glances from my other colleagues across the tops of their monitors. I knew, even if Godley didn’t, that there was frequent, ribald speculation he had brought me on to his team because he wanted to sleep with me. I knew that Godley attracted rumours of that sort like roses attract greenflies; he was head-turningly handsome with ice-blue eyes and prematurely silver hair, and I was the first woman he had recruited in a long time, though not the last. I also knew that people had picked up on the fact that I was extremely awkward around him all of a sudden. The general theory was that we had had an affair and I had ended it, or he had ended it, or his wife had found out and she had ended it.
    They couldn’t have been more wrong.
    ‘Did you want something, Maeve?’
    ‘DI Derwent asked me to update you about the