Chapter 10 #2
The correct answer is yes. Protect yourself. Keep the line. Give him the safe version. The one that does not show where the bruise is.
Instead I say, “Use it carefully.”
His eyes meet mine.
“I will.”
I believe him.
That is the worst part. Not because he has earned complete trust. He hasn’t. Four days of not being awful is not a moral transformation. A clean kitchen and a decent apology do not erase a careless article.
But I believe that he wants to use it carefully.
I believe that matters to him.
“When did you know you wanted command?” he asks.
I almost laugh. “That’s a very dramatic way to put it.”
“You don’t like the word?”
“It makes it sound like I stood on a hill during a storm and chose destiny.”
“Did you?”
“No. I was in Manchester, in a briefing room with bad coffee, watching a man explain a decision badly to a room that deserved better.”
AJ’s smile appears slowly. “Romantic origin story.”
“Very. There may have been a broken printer.”
“I’ll make sure to include the printer.”
“You will not.”
He writes something, probably just to annoy me.
I ignore it.
“I didn’t think, I want power,” I say. “It wasn’t like that. I thought, I could do that differently. I could explain things clearer. Calmer. Safer. I could be the sort of person who knows the job and knows the people and can hold both in her head at the same time.”
“That sounds like power.”
“It sounds like responsibility.”
“Can it be both?”
I look at him.
He holds my gaze, then adds, “Not in a villainous way.”
“Good clarification.”
I breathe out through my nose, nearly a laugh.
“Yes,” I say. “It can be both. But power is only useful if you remember it affects people. Some people like the authority. I like the moment when people trust the authority enough to do what needs doing.”
His pen moves again.
This time, I let him write.
“What made Fellside different?” he asks.
“From Manchester?”
“Yes.”
I glance towards the window. From here, if I lean slightly, I can see the edge of the yard, a slice of grey sky, the back end of the fire engine inside the garage.
“It’s smaller,” I say. “That changes everything. Not easier. Just different. In a city, you can do the job and never see someone again. Here, you might go to a road traffic collision and then see the person’s mother in the Co-op two weeks later.
You might fit a smoke alarm for someone who knows your sister.
You might attend a fire at a farm and then have half the village talking about it before you’re back at the station. ”
His expression flickers at that.
I do not soften it.
“Everyone knows everyone,” I say. “Or thinks they do. That can be suffocating, but it also means people notice when someone needs help. The station is part of the place, not separate from it.”
“Was that hard to adjust to?”
“Yes.”
“Because you came in from outside?”
“Partly.”
“And because you came in above people who were already here?”
I raise an eyebrow. “That was almost tactful.”
“I’m improving.”
“You are asking if people resented me.”
“I am.”
“Yes. Some did.”
He waits.
The waiting is becoming a problem.
“Not necessarily cruelly,” I say. “Not everyone who resists change is a villain. Some had been here years. Some wanted the role. Some didn’t know me. Some only knew I’d come from Manchester and Josh backed me. That was enough for opinions.”
“And being the first woman watch manager made those opinions louder?”
“Sometimes. Sometimes people were careful because of it. Sometimes they were kinder than they needed to be. Sometimes they were worse. Most people were just people.”
“That’s generous.”
“It’s true.”
“What won them over?” he asks.
“Work.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s most of it. Showing up. Knowing the job.
Making decisions. Admitting when I needed information.
Not pretending. Backing people when they deserved it.
Challenging them when they needed it. Taking the rubbish shifts, doing the boring things properly, not acting like I was above the place because I’d come from a bigger station. ”
“Josh helped?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“He made it clear I had the role because I’d earned it, not because he was making a statement. Then he stepped back enough for me to prove it.”
AJ’s pen pauses.
“That’s hard to do,” he says.
“For Josh?”
“Yes. Back someone publicly, then not crowd them.”
I look at him. “That’s a very management-aware observation for a man who made a note yesterday that said ‘do not move biscuits’.”
“That was an important note.”
Despite myself, I smile.
A small one.
He sees it anyway, because apparently noticing things is his whole professional issue.
“Can I ask something more personal?” he asks.
“No.”
He smiles. “Excellent.”
“AJ.”
“I’ll ask, and you can refuse.”
I should refuse on principle.
“Go on.”
“Do you ever wish it didn’t matter so much?”
I look at the recorder, then at him. “What?”
“Being first. Being watched. Being the example. Do you ever wish you could just do the job without it meaning anything beyond the job?”
My throat closes before I am ready for it.
I hate that.
I hate that he sees the answer before I give it.
“Yes,” I say.
The word is smaller than I intend.
He does not move.
“Yes,” I repeat, because the first one was not enough. “Sometimes. Of course. I’m proud of it. I know it matters. I want girls to walk into stations and see women in charge and think that’s normal. I want younger women in the service to know there is space for them. I want all of that.”
I press my thumb against the edge of the desk.
“But sometimes I would like to be allowed an ordinary bad day. Or an ordinary good one. Sometimes I would like not to be inspirational before breakfast. Sometimes I would like to be tired without it being a statement, firm without being a stereotype, proud without having to make it palatable.”
He is not writing now.
“Is that too much?” I ask, then immediately hate that I have asked.
“No,” he says. “It’s not.”
The softness in his voice is not pity.
I do not know what to do with it.
So I look away.
Outside the office, Kev laughs at something, loud and sudden, and the sound breaks the moment enough for me to breathe properly.
AJ reaches for his pen again, but he does not write.
“Can I ask something slightly less operational?”
I shrug. In for a penny in for a pound, I guess.
“The hours. The call-outs. The things you carry home. I’m trying to understand what the job asks of people beyond the station.”
“That wasn’t a question.”
“No.” His thumb moves along the edge of his notebook. “I suppose the question is whether there’s someone at home who has to live with that too.”
I look at him for a second too long.
“Are you asking whether I have a partner?”
His pen stills.
“Yes.”
“For the article?”
A faint colour touches his cheekbones.
“Partly.”
“Only partly?”
He meets my eyes then, which is either brave or reckless.
“No.”
Something warm and inconvenient moves through the room.
I should not like that answer.
I like it far too much.
“No,” I say.
His expression changes, but only slightly. He is trying very hard not to look pleased, which is unfortunate for him because he is not as good at it as he thinks.
“No partner?” he asks.
“No partner.”
He nods once, as if writing the information somewhere more private than his notebook.
“And is that because of the job?” he asks.
“Mostly because I’ve yet to meet anyone who improved on being alone.”
His mouth curves. “That’s a high bar.”
“It’s a reasonable one.”
“I’m sure it is.”
I should move us on.
I do not.
“The job doesn’t help,” I say. “The hours are difficult. The responsibility is difficult. Sometimes people like the idea of someone who does this job more than they like the reality of living with it.”
“The missed plans?”
“The missed plans. The tiredness. The fact that I don’t always have the energy to make myself softer when I get home.”
His face quietens.
I realise too late that I have said more than I meant to.
Then he says, “I don’t think softer is always better.”
And there it is again.
That small, dangerous thread.
Not charm. Not exactly.
Understanding.
Which is worse.
He looks as if he is about to say something else.
Something gentler, maybe.
Something I am not sure I want to hear in my office with the recorder still sitting between us.
Then the alarm goes.
The sound cuts through the room, brutal and immediate, and everything else disappears.
AJ’s head snaps towards the door.
I am already moving.
The station changes shape in seconds. Chairs scrape. Voices sharpen. Footsteps hit the corridor. The ordinary noise of the day vanishes beneath the controlled rush of response.
I grab my radio and head for the door.
“What do I do?” AJ asks behind me.
“Stay with me until I tell you otherwise. Don’t get in the way. Don’t argue. If anyone gives you an instruction, follow it.”
“Understood.”
Details come through the radio as we reach the garage. Road traffic collision. Single vehicle overturned. Two people trapped. Ambulance en route. Police notified. Rural road outside Fellside, near a bend I know too well because everyone knows it too well.
My stomach tightens, but only once.
Then the job takes over.
The crew are already pulling on kit, checking equipment, moving with that fast, practised rhythm that looks chaotic to anyone who doesn’t know what to watch. I point AJ towards the safe side of the garage, near the line I gave him on day one.
“Get in the appliance and listen to Dan,” I say.
He nods.
No questions.
No performance.
Just nods.
For one brief second, I notice that.
Then I am in the cab, door shut, radio alive, the engine pulling out into the yard.
There is always a strange stretch of time on the way to a call.
Too fast and too slow. You gather information, plan for possibilities, adjust the plan as more comes in.
You think about access, fuel, casualties, glass, metal, weather, traffic, bystanders, the ambulance’s arrival time, whether police will get there before the road snarls into a mess.
You do not think about the fact that two people left home this morning expecting to come back.