Dan Waddell: Blood Atonement

If she's not dead already, you have three or four days maximum or you're looking for a corpse.'

After the meeting broke up, Harris asked Foster to stay behind.

"I owe you a coffee,' Foster said to Susie as she left.

"I'll hold you to it,' she replied.

Harris closed the door behind her. 'Grant, how does it feel to be back?'

'Good. I suppose there have been gentler

reintroductions,

though.'

'Yes. Nasty business. But it's good to have you back when something like this breaks.'

He's flattering me. This is definitely not good news, Foster thought. Well, it's nice to know I'm appreciated.'

'Do you remember the evaluations and tests you underwent prior to your return to work?'

Remember? How could Foster forget? After three months' convalescence he'd decided to explore the idea of going back to work. It soon became clear that it might be easier to retrain as a brain surgeon. First he met with the force's medical officer, a schoolmarmish woman in her late fifties with a double-barrelled name and a fearsome bedside manner. Then he met her again. Then he met with Harris and other members of the management team. Alongside the physiotherapist he was already seeing as part of his recuperation, he was sent to see a young doctor who took it upon himself not only to check Foster's pulse and tap his chest but for some other unfathomable reason stick a gloved finger up his arse. He also underwent something called psychological evaluation with a young blonde woman in her thirties. He was then referred to a counsellor, whom he was still seeing monthly. That, actually, had been the thing that proved beneficial.

Once his evaluation was complete he went back to see the Medical Officer, who took off her glasses and sucked one of the arms before asking what was his rush, wouldn't he rather spend time at the police convalescence home in Harrogate? Foster said he would spend time in a home when he was eighty and unable to wipe his own backside, at which point she accused him of being hostile. He was referred back to another psychologist for a second opinion because his outburst was apparently in keeping with the first signs of post-traumatic stress disorder, and then sent to see Harris who tut-tutted at his attitude and told him if he wanted to return to work then being aggressive towards the person whose job it was to allow him back might not be the most politic thing to do. The second opinion agreed with the first: Foster was fit to return, though with a few caveats. He then spent countless hours in meetings with a dreary woman from Human Resources to discuss a 'return to work plan'. When he pointed out in his most patient voice that he wanted that plan to be 'return to work', she'd shaken her head slowly as if he was a drooling vegetable. By this stage he'd switched off and just agreed and nodded and agreed and nodded, anything to stop the tests and the meetings and the action plans and get back to doing what he believed he did best. The upshot was that he was now back at work, with a letter at home explaining the terms of his return, but beyond noting his first date back he'd not taken any of it in.

'Vaguely.'

Harris didn't detect the rueful irony in his voice. 'One of the conditions of you returning so soon was a restriction on your working hours. For the first six months, we agreed that you should work no more than forty-five hours a week.'

He knew that bit. 'Yes, no more than nine hours a day'

And how many hours did you work yesterday?'

Foster furrowed his brow. Was he being serious? What do you mean?'

'It's hardly a difficult question, Grant. How many hours did you work yesterday?'

He was up at four, home at midnight. Take an hour or so off for getting dressed and driving to and from home.

About nineteen,' he said to Harris.

'Ten more than you should've done.'

Foster tried to speak but the words wouldn't come.

Instead his jaw flapped open like a fish. Did Harris really just say that? He ran the words through his mind again.

Yes, he had said it.

'Brian, are you being serious? A woman was murdered, her daughter kidnapped. I was on duty -- I was at the scene.

Do you expect me to clock off and go home just because it's teatime?'

'You have an action plan . . .'

'Action plan? I'm a detective. I solve crimes. I put people in prison. A fourteenyear-old girl is missing, maybe murdered. You honestly expect me to ignore all that and go along with some spurious timetable created by bureaucratic, time-serving pen-pushers with no idea of what actual police work entails?'

"I helped draw up that timetable,' Harris snapped back.

Foster put his hands on his hips, shook his head. What can I do in the face of such lunacy? he thought.

Harris took a breath and continued. 'It's my job to do what's best for this department, this police force and the people of London. And for you.'

What about what's best for Naomi Buckingham?'

Harris's face darkened once more. 'Don't flatter yourself, Grant. There are two other DCIs working full time on this case. I'm in charge. If she's alive, we'll find her.

You will help us do that, but within the bounds of your return to work action plan.'

If I hear the words 'action plan' once more then I'm going to run to the window and hurl myself into the street below, Foster thought. He ran his hand down his face.

And you've also missed your last two counselling sessions. You must keep going -- when's your next one?'

'Tomorrow, 5 p.m.'

'Then you'll go. We can cope. We need you fit and well and able to give of your best.'

Foster shook his head. It was beginning to ache. No one had been this concerned about him since his gran passed away when he was seven. His mental health appeared to be of more concern to his DS than the safety of a missing girl. The world has gone bloody mad, he thought.

'So what's happening today?' he asked, eager to switch the subject back to the investigation, even if he was to have only a peripheral role in it.

We're going speak to every paedo and pervert in a fifteen-mile radius. I will save you that particular pleasure, however, in favour of some victimology. I want you to get out there and have a word with Katie Drake's colleagues at the charity shop. Find out as much about her as you can. There's some news from forensics. Good news. A hair was found on Katie Drake's clothing. Apparently, because of its length, first impressions are that it belongs to a male. I need you to try and find out who the men were in her life. The hair's being tested as we speak. Should be something new on the details later today. I'll make sure forensics give you a shout.'

'Make sure it's not too late,' Foster said. 'My action plan says bedsocks and cocoa by nine.'

Heather was waiting for him in her car outside the charity shop on Chamberlayne Road, a drab traffic-choked street that bisected Kensal Rise, a suburb that still carried a crackle of danger despite gentrification.

He parked up and walked to her new Saab, battling great gusts of wind that transformed the fine rain into blasting hoses of cold water. He got in the passenger seat and looked around. 'Very nice,' he said, inhaling the heady scent of a new car. 'Came with the promotion, did it?'

She smiled. 'Felt like treating myself 'Yeah, I heard about your mum's death. Why didn't you tell me?'

'You were off work, recovering. I didn't want to bother you with personal stuff.'

Well, you should have. Anyway, I was sorry to hear about it. How've you been?'

"I won't pretend it's been easy,' she said.

He paused, looked out of the window and watched the rain spatter against it in the breeze. 'I happen to think the death of your mum is the one that feels the most profound.

The body that carried you, brought you into the world, reduced to dust. You never get over that one -- you just learn to live with it.' He turned back to face her.