breath. Then: ‘Ma’am.’
Oh yeah, babysitting this one was going to be bags of fun.
‘Off you go then.’
Franklin turned on her heel, face all pinched and flushed. Narrowed her dark-brown eyes and bared her teeth at Callum. ‘Do we have a problem, Detective Constable?’ Voice like a silk-covered razorblade.
Wow. She was just … wow. Completely … like a model or something. Not just pretty, but totally—
‘I asked you a question.’ She curled her top lip, exposing more perfect teeth. ‘What’s the matter, never seen a black woman before?’
‘I … It … No.’ He blinked. Stood up straighter. ‘I mean: no. No problem. Welcome on board.’ He stuck out his hand for shaking, but she just pushed past and marched from the room, slamming the door behind her.
‘Bloody hell …’ Callum leaned against the wall.
‘I know. Magnificent, isn’t she?’ McAdams grinned at the closed door, then laid a hand against his chest. ‘Skin like warm midnight. Her eyes are moonlit rubies. Her heart: frozen steel.’ A sniff. ‘See if I hadn’t already ticked “threesome” off my bucket list?’
Mother smiled. ‘Congratulations. Anyone I know?’
‘Nah: Beth got someone from her work. Miranda. Nice lady. Presbyterian, but very open minded.’ He frowned at Callum. ‘Still here, Constable? Haven’t you got an angry detective constable to babysit?’
‘Yes, Sarge.’
Sodding hell.
Bright yellow diggers and tipper trucks lumbered about on the massive Camburn Roundabout, rearranging it’s grass and earth into swathes of rutted mud. The Vauxhall’s windscreen wipers made dying-squid noises as Callum took the first exit. He snuck a glance out the corner of his eye at the simmering lump of resentment sitting in the passenger seat.
She’d ditched the uniform in favour of a black suit with weird puffy shoulders, a white shirt, and thin black tie. As if she was on the way to someone’s funeral. ‘What the hell are you staring at?’
He snapped his eyes front again. ‘Nothing.’ Yellow-brick cookie-cutter houses stretched out on either side of the road. Bland, safe, and predictable. ‘Actually …’ He bit his lip. ‘If you don’t mind my asking …’ Deep breath. ‘What did you do?’
She turned and gave him the kind of look that could strip flesh from the bone.
‘I mean, you know, to end up working for DI Malcolmson?’
DC Franklin faced front again.
‘Only, it’s not usually—’
‘Do you always talk this much?’
‘Just thought, if we’re going to be working together, we—’
‘Let’s get something perfectly clear, Detective Constable MacGregor: I am not your friend. I am not your colleague. I am someone who will be out of here very, very soon.’ She shot her cuffs, making them exactly the same length where they stuck out of the sleeves of her shoulder-padded jacket. ‘I don’t intend to spend the remainder of my career lumbered with a bunch of dropouts, has-beens, and never-weres.’
The houses gave way to greying fields and austere drystane dykes. All hard edges softened by the incessant drizzle.
Franklin pulled out her phone and poked away at the screen. Glowering down at it in silence. Ignoring him.
OK, well no one could say he hadn’t tried.
About three miles south of Shortstaine, a pair of dark lines swooped out from the tarmac, dug through the roadside verge and punched a hole through a barbed-wire fence. A patrol car sat twenty yards further down, parked up on the side with its flashers going.
Callum indicated and pulled in behind it. ‘There’s a couple of high-viz jackets in the boot, if you want to … OK.’
She was already out of the car, stalking her way across the verge and down into the field beyond.
‘Fine. Catch your death of cold, see if I care.’ He helped himself to one of the fluorescent-yellow monstrosities and followed her. Arms out to keep his balance on the slippery grass slope.
A hatchback sat about a hundred yards into the field, on the other side of the fence, at the end of those curling dark lines. Its front end had made friends with a chunk of rock, leaving the bonnet twisted like a sneer.
Franklin was halfway there already, back straight and rigid. Presumably because the stick rammed up her backside was of the extra-large variety.
Callum picked his way down the hill until he stood beside her.
The hatchback was an old Kia Picanto – the kind that looked like a roller-skate on steroids. Originally blue, it was now a muddy grey, with deep scratches along both sides where the barbed wire had raked it. A ‘Police Aware’ sticker covered most of the driver’s window.
Franklin stared at the car, then pulled out a sheet of paper and stared at that instead. Then back to the car. ‘Is this it?’
Callum walked over to the back window and peered in through the rain-flecked glass.
Inside, the car was a mess. Not just the usual burger wrappers and sweetie papers, but splashes of paint and crusts of what looked like plaster dust. A tool bag lay in the rear footwell, next to two drums of flooring adhesive and a packet of slate tiles.
A voice behind them: ‘HOY!’
Callum turned.
A young bloke in uniform was stomping his way across the field towards them, one hand holding the peaked cap on top of his head. ‘YOU! WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING? GET AWAY FROM THERE!’
Franklin waited till he was six feet away, before hauling out a standard-issue warrant-card holder. ‘Constable. Care to explain why I’m wasting my time with a road traffic collision?’
PC Shouty peered at her warrant card, then pulled a face. ‘No offence, but could you not have introduced yourself back at the roadside and saved me a trip down …’ The expression on Franklin’s face must have finally worked its magic, because he shut his mouth with an audible click. Blushed. ‘Sorry?’
Her voice got even colder. ‘I’m listening.’
‘Yes. Right.’ He pointed at the car. ‘Someone called it in this morning, no sign of the driver or any passengers.’
She stepped closer, looming. ‘And I give a toss, because?’
‘The boot! There’s a body in the boot and we thought … well, I thought – thinking isn’t exactly Tony’s forte – but—’
‘There’s a body in the boot?’ Her eyes widened. ‘YOU BLOODY IDIOT! Why haven’t you cordoned off the scene? Where’s the common approach path? Why aren’t you logging visitors? And where the buggering
