This Thing of Darkness Read Free

still harbours a vague sense of guilt towards me – something to do with having let me be abducted by a bunch of homicidal gangsters – he’s happy to help out. He promises quick results, and SOCA’s quick is quicker than ours.
    The rain is clearing from the mountains as I ascend towards Gwyn’s farm. Light shines on floodwater. Pewter and tin.
    Beyond Crickhowell, a rainbow stutters.
    When I’m back, there’s a new car in the yard. A silver-grey Audi A3. Not the newest, but clean. A city car, not rural.
    In Gwyn’s kitchen: Detective Sergeant Jane Alexander. Navy-blue suit. Cute shoes. Unfeasibly blond hair. She holds a china teacup and a grim expression.
    ‘Fiona,’ she says, standing. ‘Study leave over. I’m sorry.’

 
    2
     
    ‘Fiona, you have detained an individual who is asking for an interpreter to help with a phone call. Under what circumstances can that request be refused and by whom?’
    I don’t answer.
    Jackson leaves the silence long enough to allow my non-response to register, then tries again.
    ‘A man is being prosecuted for arson, with insurance fraud as the suspected motive. His wife is believed to have knowledge of the alleged crime. No persons were present on the property at the time of the fire. Fiona, is the wife here a compellable witness?’
    I’m pretty sure Jackson knows the answer to his question, so I stay shtum.
    Rhiannon Watkins is sitting next to Jackson and has the peaceful demeanour of a barbarian army at the gates of Rome. She says, ‘If an officer’s behaviour has been deemed unsatisfactory, and has not been remedied by a first-stage disciplinary meeting, a second-stage disciplinary meeting will be held. What four things will the second-stage line manager do at that meeting?’
    I’ve never yet had a second-stage meeting, though I’ve had plenty of first-stagers.
    I say, ‘Look, I know you want me to pass this exam.’
    Jackson says, ‘Yes, and we gave you study leave so you could revise for it. But it turns out your books never left your desk.’
    He taps the pile of Blackstone’s manuals in front of him. My manuals.
    ‘I have read them,’ I say. ‘More than once.’
    More than once is a good expression. What I mean is ‘twice’, except that I skipped through the boring bits and smoked quite a lot of cannabis and ignored anything that I thought I already knew. But for all Jackson knows, I’ve read the books a million times.
    ‘Have you done the mock exam?’
    I want to say yes, but I’m struggling to remember whether the damn thing came in a sealed wrapper or not. Because I can’t remember, I stay mute and Jackson waves the exam at me. It is in a wrapper, the seal unbroken.
    I wave my hands helplessly. He keeps asking questions whose answers he already knows.
    Jackson resumes. ‘The questions we just asked you are more straightforward than those you will face in the exam. You will have to answer 150 questions in the space of three hours. That’s seventy-two seconds per question. The subject areas are incredibly broad-ranging. If it’s in the books, it can feature in the exam. Do you understand?’
    I don’t nod exactly, but I do twitch.
    ‘Most officers sitting the exam fail it. Not just in our force, but across the country. The pass mark is fifty-five per cent, but I know perfectly well you have the capacity to score better than that, and neither Rhiannon nor I will find it acceptable if you merely scrape a pass. We’re looking for an outstanding score, and if you don’t achieve one, I will ask you, in writing, why not. I am also going to place a note of this conversation on your record.’
    It’s not like Jackson to get all formal about these things. Normally, he just yells, looks like he’s going to rip my head off, then somehow my head stays on and everything carries on much the same as before. I say ‘yes sir,’ but roll my eyes at the same time, which maybe diminishes the overall effect.
    Watkins leans forward. Does her friendly voice at