Partners in Crime

Начало книги

‘Sod…’ DI Steel stood on one leg in the doorway, nose wrinkled up on one side. ‘Thought I smelt something.’ She ground her left foot into the blue-grey carpet, then dragged it along the floor behind her as she lurched into the briefing room: a hunchless wrinkly Igor in a stain-speckled grey trouser suit. Today, her hair looked like she’d borrowed it from an angry hedgehog.

DC Allan Guthrie chucked another spoon of coffee in a mug and drowned it with almost boiled water. Topped it up with milk, and chucked in a couple of sugars. No point asking if she wanted one. ‘Guv?’

She stopped, mid-scrape. Standing completely still. Not looking at him.

Half past four and the CID room was quiet, everyone off dealing with Christmas shoplifters and snow-related car crashes, leaving the little maze of chest-high cubicles and beech-Formica desks almost deserted. The whole place smelled of feet and cinnamon.

Allan dumped the teaspoon on the draining board. DI Steel just stood there, like one of those idiots who appeared every summer outside the St. Nicholas Centre, spray-painting themselves silver and pretending to be statues. ‘Guv, is everything OK?’

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