T.M.E. Walsh - For All Our Sins

With his unwashed hair and two-day-old stubble, he was still a handsome man, but the insomnia suffered last night through to the early hours of this morning was taking its toll before the clock had struck nine this morning.

He’d been out the office for a few hours, and now that he was back in time for lunch, he didn’t feel like working.

Haverbridge had that effect on him. Nestled in the county of Hertfordshire, the large town was fast becoming a haven for outsiders and, despite the recession, a construction haven.

Just thirty miles north of London, Haverbridge was attracting people from all walks of life and, being somewhat averse to change, Michael barely raised a smile at the prospect of more investment in his home town, despite the prosperity it could bring.

He hated what was overflowing from the London boroughs. He liked the old, hated the new.

Modernisation was something he was reluctant to adapt to. Like Haverbridge Police Station’s CID room, situated on the second floor in a modern part of the building.

It was a recent extension to the original building that’d been updated and refurbished despite impending government cuts, and although it was fairly spacious, Michael always felt claustrophobic in it.

He knew it was something that came from an experience rooted deep in his past.

Something he didn’t like to dwell on. He tried to push it from his thoughts.

He turned to glance around the room, and sipped his coffee.

The walls were lined with maps, photographs and notes for ongoing inquiries, including several pictures from the case he was investigating. He saw the photograph of the suspect involved, whose eyes looked like they would burn holes in Michael’s flesh and carve his name on his soul.

Pushing the thoughts from his head, his eyes swept over the room again. There were groups of desks broken up in sections for detective constables, sergeants and inspectors, and behind floor-to-ceiling glass wall partitions was Detective Chief Inspector Claire Winters’s office.

Her lair.

There she could keep an eye on him, watch his every move.

But not today. Not so far anyway. In fact he didn’t know where half the people were right now for that matter. Harper had been rushing off to his car when Michael had reached the station, something too urgent to wait.

It wasn’t Harper that bothered him anyway. It was Claire.

He hadn’t even caught a glimpse of her, which, whilst it was unnerving, pleased him somewhat. He conceded that he was just too tired to fight with her today, although part of him still enjoyed the banter.

He walked back to his desk and slumped down in his chair. He flicked the switch on the old desk fan beside him. It blew warm air at his face but it was better than nothing.

He grinned to himself. All the money that’d been spent on this new office, with air con, and it chooses one of the hottest days in August to break down. Change wasn’t always for the better.

He pressed the plastic cup to his lips, drinking the rest of his coffee in one go. He crushed the cup in his palm and, aiming it at the wastepaper basket, he threw it. The crushed cup hit the rim then fell on the floor.

Shit .

He needed sleep. Quality sleep, not just a few captured hours while working a case in the early hours of the morning, while living off a diet of caffeine and cigarettes.

Michael looked at his reflection in the window next to him, which overlooked the station’s car park.

He looked terrible, even by his own standards.

Dark circles created the illusion of crescent moons under his brown eyes, and the corners of his mouth were turned down in a fixed sorrowful pout.

He returned his gaze to his desk, which was cluttered and stacked high with paper and files. There were dirty coffee-ring marks on the wood and month-old dust congregating around his computer monitor and keyboard.

Michael hated computers.

Computers were for the ones who were no more than a number on the payroll system. Michael was more than that and he knew it, and he had no time for modesty. Not in this job.

He was disturbed from his thoughts by the vibrating of his mobile phone in his pocket.

He glanced at the caller ID.

Claire Winters. So much for not locking horns with her today .

He sighed and tried to ignore it. After the call failed to divert to his voicemail, he decided to answer it.

‘Where have you been, Diego?’

In a bad mood, as per-fucking-usual…

‘Sorry, Guv, I’ve been out of the office for a bit and I’ve been ignoring my phone, trying to catch up on work.’

‘Well you’d better pull your finger out your arse and get down here. I’m on Ryder Way, St Mary’s church.’

Michael paused, rubbing his eyes hard as a headache began to emerge, crossing over his forehead. The blood in his ears began to pound. ‘What’s going on?’

‘We found a body.’

‘Claire, I’m working on the Hargreaves case, do I really need to be down there?’ He heard her sharp intake of breath and cursed himself in his head.

That was not the attitude to show the Guv right now, or ever.

She could bust your balls just by giving you one icy look from her emotionless blue eyes. He awaited the inevitable lashing of her tongue.

‘Look,’ she said, ‘I’ve had a rough morning. Don’t be another pain in my arse.’

Michael paused. ‘Where have you been anyway?’

‘It’s…it’s personal.’

‘Something wrong? You can tell me.’

She paused, part of her wanting to offload her frustrations of the morning, but then her resolve hardened. ‘What are you, my therapist? Just drop what you’re doing and get down here.’

He bristled at her words, his shoulders locking up. He lowered his voice so the next words out of his mouth came in a forceful hiss. ‘I can’t just drop everything. I’ve been working flat out and I’m this close,’ he said, miming a small distance between his thumb and finger, despite knowing she couldn’t see, ‘from getting the lead we’ve been after. The Hargreaves case needs—’

‘ Fuck the Hargreaves case,’ she cut in, her patience waning. ‘I’ll reassign it to Matthews.’

Michael was silent, his face twisted. His eyes wandered back to the picture on the wall he’d studied earlier.

Gavin Hargreaves was a local thug, dealer and complete thorn in his side.

He was a man who’d been in and out of police custody for years, served a prison sentence for a drug-related offence, but this hadn’t deterred him. He carried on with his little enterprise, controlling Haverbridge’s seedy underbelly, and he’d just been accused of a serious assault.

Trouble was there were no witnesses and little evidence of Hargreaves’s involvement. If they wanted Hargreaves away for a long time, they had to gather more evidence than they had already but it was a shitty investigation.

No one would put the finger on Hargreaves, such was his power and the fear he exerted over those in his pocket. Even local gangs feared him.

Michael had been working the Hargreaves case for two months now and had no intention of letting it go to anyone, especially not DI David Matthews.

Claire sensed his anger in the silence. She let him stew a few more moments before she gave a half smile.

‘Trust me, Diego, you’ll want to take this one. Right up your street.’

‘You’ve lost me,’ he said, beginning to lose patience.

‘When was the last time you went to church?’

‘Why?’

She paused then said, ‘The deceased was a priest.’

CHAPTER 4

Michael had left the station as soon as he’d ended the phone call with Claire. The roads had been unusually empty for that time of day but the closer he’d driven towards the crime scene at St Mary’s, the heavier the traffic had become.