After Ariel: It started as a game Read Online Free PDF Page A

Police HQ and drove off to stash the car in the car park. I threaded through the myriad bustling for the railway station, dodging to avoid those vigorously texting, and scurried up the steps. The usual crowd of police and public had thinned. I had no trouble spotting my good friend, Amanda Sinclair, coming toward me through the ‘cattle-grid’ As she slapped her ID on the scanner and pushed through the turnstile, her eyes lit up. ‘Susan! I was going to ring you!’
    ‘Hey, how are you?’ I noted the circles under her eyes. Amanda, a youth counsellor probation officer, was heavily pregnant and should have been on leave some time ago, a fact which appeared to have escaped her husband. Aloysius insisted that she needed to stay on a bit longer, ‘to keep her busy.’ More likely he wants to pick up gossip from here... I held my tongue with difficulty because Amanda has a tendency to shoot messengers.
    She smiled wanly. ‘You’ll be happy to know I’m on leave from today. Don’t know what Loy will say though.’
     ‘He’ll just have to wear it.’ Suck it up, Al, you prick. ‘So, you want to have lunch one day next week?’
    Her face brightened. ‘Love to! By the way, I heard they got Winslow again.’ Word travelled fast in the Force. Amanda rolled her eyes and her shoulders slumped. As Grant’s court-appointed counsellor, she knew his life of crime would escalate, as would her workload.
    ‘Yep! Zeus got him by the backside.’
    ‘How come?’ Police dogs normally go for the arm.
    ‘He scrambled up the side of a dumpster and they thought he was going to jump onto the wall behind it. So did the dog.’ Reluctantly, she laughed.
    A thunder of corporate-looking ‘teenage’ detectives swept past, pub-light in their eyes. Amanda watched them go, shifting from one foot to the other. Getting the message, I made a move. ‘Okay, I’ll phone. Better get upstairs and fill out my report, then get home. David might be there before me tonight.’
    The CIB room, normally chaotic, was pretty much deserted. No recent murders, but we all knew that could change in the flick of an eye. Evan had beaten me upstairs and I could hear him scuffling around in his corner at the far end. He was taking up a position in a couple of weeks as Senior Sergeant at a country town and looking forward to it. Genevieve, his wife, made no secret of the fact that she hated the city and wanted their four children to be brought up in a rural town.
    Anxious to leave work before I got caught up by another case, I dived into my miniscule office, booted up my computer and commenced my Sig Event. There were few things which I could thank my mother for when I was young, but insisting I learn to type –’You’ll always have a job, Susan’– was one. It didn’t take long to fill the details in and sign off. Gathering up my handbag and briefcase, I made to leave.
    Evan is a comfortably-padded, great bear of a man with kind brown eyes and a shock of receding dark brown hair. He straightened a pile of papers in his hands. ‘I’m going to miss you a lot –’ he glanced around the cluttered room – ‘and the rest of the team. How’s Anthony Hamilton shaping up?’ He dumped the papers on his desk and grabbed his jacket off the chair.
    ‘Good, and looks the part, too.’
    Evan had been on short leave and hadn’t yet met his replacement. I knew he felt guilty at what he saw as desertion after so many years of our working together.  ‘And how old is he?’ Evan asked, as we turned for the lift.
    ‘Early thirties, built like the proverbial brick you-know-what. He looks like a Russian assassin – in fact “the Assassin” is his nickname already.’
    Evan laughed. ‘So, able to leap tall buildings at a single bound, then? Glad he’s watching your back then! I can’t wait to get home. It’s Genevieve’s birthday tomorrow and I’ll be in the doghouse if I miss it again.’
    ‘Well, you’ve no excuse this time. We’re both going home early