the ground. My nose is stung by a gush of air, ripe with hot metal, engine oil and rubber. I step back and bark a warning, then there’s a fearful scream from the other side of the hedge. It tears by so fast it’s gone in seconds, its bright eyes glaring at me through gaps in the foliage. My tail is up and curled over my back like a question mark, my legs wide set, then I charge forward and growl at the creature. I must defend us. I bark at Rose to move away, but she stands there laughing, her ponytail bobbing.
‘It’s all right, Monty, just a train. You’re going to have to get used to it. The line’s on the other side of the hedge.’
She strokes my head and I relax. Not sure about this train thing. Never met one before and until I’ve thoroughly sniffed it, I’ll be on my guard.
Rose kneels down and looks me in the eye.
‘The fence is pretty rotten and I can’t afford to fix it. So I need you to promise me you won’t run away.’ She scratches behind my ear.
Oh yeah! Up a bit, that’s it. A bit more. Ah yes, bliss!
‘Okay?’
For you, anything! I promise.
Unless …
Truth be told, I have an Achilles Heel. My nose might be my greatest asset but it’s also the chink in my furry armour. I’m a food addict. There. I’ve said it. An addict. Food’s the reason I’m no longer a guide dog. The most embarrassing moment of my life. But then, that’s how I met the Professor. Life’s confusing, isn’t it?
‘Hungry?’ Rose asks.
Something tells me we’re going to get along just fine.
I walk back to the house, so close to Rose she almost trips over me. She unlocks the stable-style kitchen door. It scrapes the worn yellow and brown, diamond-patterned lino floor. I am hit by a smorgasbord of smells: some very old indeed. What better place to inhale the house’s history than the kitchen? Rose’s scent is the newest: vanilla and honey, peppermint and the sea. She must’ve spent her childhood near the ocean because the sea is part of her make-up now. But her clothes carry the odours of her work: bitter coffee, stale cigarettes, plastic chairs in over-heated rooms and someone else’s sweat that’s tinged with the vinegary smell of fear. Ever wondered why your dog sniffs you when you come home? He wants to know where you’ve been and who you’ve met.
There’s a loud ringing coming from Rose’s pocket. I feel her body tense. She answers.
‘Sir?’ Her hand trembles.
I look around, searching for the threat, ready to defend her.
A man yells down the phone. ‘Sidebottom, get in here now!’
If you asked Rose Sidebottom to describe herself she would say she was of average height with a forgettable face, had average mousy hair tied back in a plain ponytail, and graduated from police college with an average pass.
However, there were two things about her that were far from average. One was her embarrassing surname. She’d heard every single bottom joke ever invented. Her school days had been plagued by taunts, police college with practical jokes, and it was now proving a handicap in her struggle to be taken seriously as a trainee detective constable. The other unusual thing about Rose was her instinctive ability to know when somebody was lying. A tingling feeling, much like pins and needles, would spread from her hands and feet all over her body. As a child, it had sucked big time. Rose knew from a very young age that there was no Father Christmas or Tooth Fairy, that thunder wasn’t God moving His furniture, that at twelve her best friend had betrayed her secret crush on a boy to a gang of girls who hated her, and that her father was cheating on her mother. Life would have been so much easier simply not knowing.
However, as a police officer, her in-built lie-detector had sent her conviction rate through the roof, and at one domestic incident, she’d saved the life of a woman whose polite and helpful boyfriend had claimed all was well, as the woman lay bruised and bloodied in the back room. Her skill for ferreting out the truth helped her earn a coveted position on the Major Crime Team, much to the surprise and envy of her uniformed colleagues.
But it hadn’t saved her from committing the mother of all cock-ups earlier that evening, which is why she now stood in front of DCI Craig Leach, wishing the ground would open up and swallow her. Her boss sat behind his messy desk; his shaved snooker-ball head welded to a heavy-set, bull-like body without, so it appeared, a neck.
Rose tried not to fidget.
‘Do you realise what you’ve done?’ he said, his voice a low rumble, his Mancunian accent as strong as ever, even after twenty years working down South. He didn’t wait for her answer. He yelled, red-faced.
‘You’ve blown Operation Nailgun!’ Boom! Like a volcano erupting.
Nailgun was a Drugs Squad operation.
He continued, ‘DI Morgan’s livid, and I don’t blame him. Five months of surveillance up in smoke!’
The flats of his fat-fingered hands slammed down on the desk, the piles of files quivering. Rose jumped, and knew that through the glass wall behind her, DI Pearl heard every word. Why was he still here? They’d been working non-stop on the Salt case all weekend. Everyone else had gone home to get some much needed rest.
‘Sir, I had no idea who he was. I’m not involved in Operation Nailgun.’
‘You walked straight past two undercover detectives in their car, and then Gary and Meg in the pub. They couldn’t believe it, and nor can I. What are you? Blind?’
‘Sir, I barely know Gary and Meg.’
The Drugs Squad was on level four, Major Crime on two.
Rose naturally spoke quietly, with a soft West Country accent, unwilling to engage in the loud banter and often coarse language of her fellow detectives. She knew Leach found her voice irritatingly mouse-like, so she raised it as best she could. But it sounded more like a croak.
‘I stopped at the pub to have a quick drink on my way home. To be honest, sir, I was a bit shaken up.’ She paused. Was she sounding weak?
Leach nodded. ‘Go on.’
‘Sir, he started chatting me up. I was flattered. He’s a good-looking bloke. Charming.’
‘Ray Summers? The charming bastard deals in Class A drugs. The real nasty stuff. He’s … no, he was our only lead in an international drugs trafficking ring. Summers was meeting the local gang leader tomorrow. One more day and we’d have had those scumbags behind bars. Do you see what you’ve done?’
‘I’m sorry, sir.’ Close to tears, she stared at the floor.
‘What the hell did you tell him?’
‘Nothing, sir. I didn’t even tell him I was a police officer.’
Revealing her job sent any potential boyfriend running for the hills. It was a more effective turn-off than body odour, flatulence or a history of chain-saw massacres.
