Chapter Two #2
In front of the rectangular stone face of the main building, next to the world-famous spinning sign, is a glass anteroom through which all must pass.
Sam signs in, and the receptionist tells her that DCI Blakelaw will be down to escort her inside and that a new security pass will be ready for her tomorrow.
Sam sinks into the black leather sofa in the waiting area and lets herself be swallowed by dread.
She wipes sweat from her upper lip then buries her nose in the collar of her trench coat and breathes in air that smells like a stronger version of herself.
Just keep breathing. She lets her mind wander out of the building and back to Holland Park, imagining Charlotte walking home.
The terror the girl must have felt when she first noticed footsteps behind her.
What have I got to fear? Sam reminds herself that Harry is here to watch out for her, and Lowry has been transferred over a hundred miles away from London.
By the time the towering figure of DCI Harry Blakelaw is striding toward her, Sam has calmed her heart rate.
She stands and greets Harry as her old self would have done, although the once-familiar hug is a little stiff and awkward.
Harry asks how she is and tells her that she looks well.
She looks well to everyone, she supposes. On the outside.
Together, they take the lift to the fourth floor.
As they wait for the doors to close, she prays that no one else boards and forces themselves into her personal space.
Mercifully, no one does, and Harry brings her up to speed with the team as they ascend.
Anna has transferred, he explains, saying how sorry he is because he knows she and Sam were good friends.
Until I ignored her for six months and didn’t turn up to her wedding, even though I was supposed to be her bridesmaid.
He doesn’t mention Lowry at all, but talks about another couple of officers that Sam used to be friendly with who have changed teams or left the force entirely, meaning there won’t be many people here that she knows well.
“Except yours truly.” Harry smiles. “We’ll get through this together.” He gives her a friendly pat on the shoulder, a gesture that Sam recognizes from childhood. She leans into his warm hand and smiles back at him.
The lift doors open out on to the same open-plan space that Sam was carried out of all those months ago, paramedics holding her by the armpits.
The office is entirely the same and entirely different, all at once.
Police officers of varying ranks from the Homicide and Violent Crime divisions sit around desks, chatting, drinking coffee and typing at keyboards.
The space is a huge rectangle filled with islands of cheap wooden desks, each piled with lever-arch files and overflowing in-trays.
There’s a small kitchenette against the far wall that serves the fifty officers and a dozen or so civilians who work on this floor.
Ironically, Sam remembers, fridge theft is commonplace.
Alongside the kitchenette is the breakout space: three small sofas, a dusty glass coffee table and a TV that’s always on but usually muted.
Each corner of the fourth floor contains a soundproofed glass box.
One is Harry’s private office; a second, much larger one is used for team briefings; and the other two are smaller meeting rooms. The carpet is brown and sticky, and the strip-lighting is overly bright.
Sam trails Harry to his office, noticing a few heads turn to follow their progress. A couple of officers call morning greetings to the boss, and Harry returns them without breaking stride.
Sam catches a glimpse of Lee Chen sitting at DS Lowry’s old desk.
She can still picture him sitting there, just a few feet away from her, chatting with colleagues and showing them photographs of his daughter.
Suddenly, Sam feels like she just swallowed a mouthful of seawater.
She offers Chen a weak smile. He must barely recognize her—they met only a handful of times—but he nods and waves in return.
A pair of officers—a tall, dark-haired man and a blond woman with her back to Sam—laugh together at a desk.
They look so young and carefree, and she knows that once upon a time, not so long ago, she must have seemed just like that, too.
“Sam?” Harry calls, waving for her to follow him into his office.
He holds the door for her and then gestures for her to take the seat opposite him and his giant desk.
Something’s different in the office, but she can’t pinpoint what.
Fewer plants? Perhaps no one has watered them during her absence.
She’s sure there used to be a photo of her and Harry on his desk.
The one of his wife, Beryl, is missing, too.
In fact, the only photograph that remains is a faded print of Harry and Sam Hansen, her father and namesake, taken in the eighties.
She decides not to allow herself to read too much into such a trivial change.
Harry is talking but she’s missed the beginning, so can only offer a “Mmm?” when he breaks to allow her to respond.
“I was just saying again how good it is to have you back. The Met has missed you. I’ve missed you.”
Sam nods and jerks the corners of her lips upward as best she can as Harry begins talking again. She can tell by his tone that he is taking her phased return seriously, and with a dart of alarm, senses that he might be leaning toward keeping her out of the murder investigation altogether.
“Actually, sir,” she says, “I want to be considered for SIO in Charlotte’s …
I mean, the Holland Park murder.” Harry makes to interrupt her, so she carries on quickly.
“I know I’ve just come back to work, but no one has a better solve rate than me.
Especially when it comes to women and girls.
The crime scene was organized, and we could be dealing with someone who’s killed before.
You need experience on this one, and that’s me. I’m your best detective—”
“Sam,” Harry says, not meeting her eye, “that was before. You were my best detective. But you’ve been away for so long that I can’t throw you back in the deep end with a child homicide.”
“But—”
“No buts, Sam,” Harry insists. “I talked to Pete—Dr. Thomson, and we’ve got to take this phased return slowly and seriously. You’ll work Monday to Wednesday only, for the first month. HR will email you with check-ins, so please engage with them.”
“Sir,” Sam lowers her voice, “the reason I am so motivated to return to work … the reason I have overcome my—”
“Sam,” Harry says, holding up his hands in surrender. “I get it. You came back for Charlotte. I thought you might, erm, feel a connection to her case.”
“Yes,” she admits. “And honestly, Harry, if you put me on a different case, I doubt I’ll have the motivation for it.”
Harry nods slowly at her lightly veiled threat.
“Fine. You can be involved in the Charlotte Mathers case, but not as SIO,” Harry says, after a moment.
“What I need you to focus on is…” Harry continues but Sam’s distracted by the way her godfather tugs at his own eyebrows as he speaks.
It’s a habit he’s always had, but it’s never bothered her before.
Now, though, it’s incredibly annoying and she can’t concentrate on anything else.
Even her disappointment at not being considered for SIO doesn’t sting its way through as she watches his fingertips grasp his right eyebrow and pull it.
She bites her cheek and fights the urge to tell him to stop.
“Sam?” Harry cuts into her thoughts. He’s stopped talking again and is clearly awaiting her reply.
“Yes, sir,” Sam says, hoping that this response covers everything.
“Good,” Harry exhales, with what sounds like relief. “I think you’ll like her, the new DI. Tina Edris, that is. She’s a…” Harry waves his hand in Sam’s general direction, “you know … a woman.”
“Yes, sir.” Sam smiles, supposing that Harry is being thoughtful by assuming that she’ll feel safer reporting to a female senior officer.
She resists entertaining other possible interpretations of his comment, choosing always to see the best in him as he does in her.
She watches as he tugs his eyebrow again.
It’s a “he said, she said.” The words pop unbidden into her mind.
You know how these cases go. Sam shakes her head lightly to rid herself of the unwanted memories, but her eyes flick involuntarily toward Lowry’s desk.
Harry did his best for me, she reminds herself.
She takes a deep breath, holds, exhales.
“Sam?” Harry pulls her focus back to what he’s saying.
“I was just saying … Charlotte’s body was found in the early hours of Friday morning over in Holland Park.
She was strangled and left beneath an oak tree, with her initials carved into the tree itself.
Well, not just her initials. The exact inscription was CM + DB, inside a heart.
CM is obviously Charlotte Mathers. DB, we are assuming, is Denver Brady. ”
“A boyfriend?” Sam asks.
“No, Sam. I just…” Harry sighs. “Let’s go over it again.
Denver Brady is the author of a book called How to Get Away with Murder.
A copy of that book was found among Charlotte’s belongings at the crime scene.
I want you to run a line of inquiry within the homicide investigation to find the author, Denver Brady. DB.”
“How to Get Away with Murder? As in, a dummy’s how-to guide to committing murder?” Sam rubs her forehead.