With A Vengeance

Chapter 3

3

The overriding thought going through Detective Sergeant Wendy Knight’s mind was that she’d hoped she’d seen the back of these Blackstone’s manuals. The police guidance books were heavy going, and it was at times like this she wondered if a more laid-back career might be good for her.

Deep down, though, she knew she was kidding herself. She could’ve thrown the copies of Blackstone’s away after becoming a Sergeant, or at any time since, but she’d kept them around for a reason. Probably the same reason she’d kept all the updated guidance that had been issued from above, spiral bound and stored away in her spare bedroom ready for future reference. Because she’d always known, always hoped, that there’d be a need for future reference.

She wasn’t afraid to admit that the first feeling that crossed her mind when DCI Culverhouse had suggested she go for her inspectors’ exams was overwhelming pressure. At first she thought it was the fear of failure, of having to go through all this extra effort at a time when they were already overworked and understaffed. But she had gradually come to realise that she wasn’t afraid of failing. She was afraid of succeeding.

Reaching the rank of Detective Inspector would mean she’d have achieved the same level of career progression as her father, DI Bill Knight, before he’d been cruelly taken far too young, trying to intercept a bungled robbery whilst off duty. Achieving parity with her father, the great man that he’d been, felt to Wendy as though she was betraying him. And knowing that DCI Jack Culverhouse was quite likely grooming her as his eventual successor as Detective Chief Inspector would mean she’d ultimately outrank her father — if she chose to do so, that was.

Many times, people had tried to tell her that she couldn’t let her father rule her career from beyond the grave. They told her Bill Knight would have been proud of her, would have wanted her to go far beyond what he’d managed to achieve in his own career. But that didn’t mean it felt any less wrong to Wendy.

It had always felt grossly unfair that her father’s career and life had been cut short. Of course it did. But it felt somehow perverse that she should be able to achieve a higher rank than he did purely because she’d been fortunate enough not to die young.

That said, she knew what her father’s response would’ve been. It would have been the same as her mother’s. They both would have told her to go for it, said they were proud of her and would’ve give her all the support she needed — and more.

She poured herself another glass of wine and sat back for a moment. If she were to become a Detective Inspector, it would change her life and her career quite significantly. Apart from the pay rise of almost ten grand a year after a couple of years in the job, it would mean more responsibility and more time spent at work. She was already wedded to the job, though, and she saw no reason not to do even more. After all, it wasn’t as though she had much of a personal life to write home about. No partner, no family — other than a brother banged up in prison — and no real prospect of any of that changing any time soon.

If she didn’t pass the exam, she’d have to wait another year to take it again. Culverhouse, though, seemed confident. He’d already started giving Wendy more responsibility, as if priming her for becoming a DI. As far as Wendy was concerned, nothing was a foregone conclusion. There would be up to one hundred and twenty questions from across the board in policing terms, and that was a hell of a lot to swot up on. She’d always kept across things in general, but then again it had been a long time since she was tested on it in an exam situation.

She took a swig of wine and lay down on her side on the sofa, spooning her cat, who was curled up on the cushion next to her.

‘What do you reckon, Cookie? Think I should just forget the whole thing and enjoy the small amount of time I do get off work? You’d like that, wouldn’t you?’

Cookie buried his head further into the cushion and pressed himself against Wendy, as if answering her question.

‘Yeah. Well, maybe we’ll just have to work our cuddle sessions around paperwork and personal progress meetings. Or we’ll wait for Bring Your Cat To Work Day. You’d like that. You could eat all the bits of bacon sandwich Steve drops on the floor.’

Detective Sergeant Steve Wing, one of Wendy’s colleagues at Mildenheath CID, had something of a reputation for not being the fittest or tidiest of the team.

She kissed Cookie on the head and sat up again.

‘You don’t really care unless you get fed, do you? Sometimes I think life would be a lot easier if I was a cat.’

Wendy had got used to living alone. She’d done so for years, and there’d never been any sign on the horizon of it being otherwise, other than an ill-fated romance with a local accountant, Robert Ludford. That had ended in tragedy and heartache, with both her lover and her unborn child losing their lives within a short period of time.

If she was completely true to herself, she had hoped a relationship with Xav might have been on the cards, but that had very definitely been halted in its tracks recently.

Wendy and Xavier Moreno, a civilian IT expert from police headquarters at Milton House, had been attempting to develop a relationship for quite some time. After ending up sleeping together following too much wine one night at Wendy’s, they’d tried to do things properly — dates, restaurants and everything. But, as it always did, work had got in the way on more than one occasion and Wendy had let Xav down. They’d barely spoken in a couple of months, and she’d thought things had been left on bad terms.

She took another swig of wine and went to reach for the bottle to give herself a top-up, but stopped when she noticed her mobile phone vibrating on the coffee table. The screen showed Jack Culverhouse’s name as it danced across the surface. Why was he calling her at this time of the evening? She wasn’t on call tonight. That didn’t tend to mean much at all, though. When Jack Culverhouse wanted you on his team, you didn’t have any other options. Being as short-staffed as Mildenheath CID was, they were generally fine to rotate their on-call hours, but when a major case came in it was all hands to the pump. This, then, could only mean one thing.

Wendy took a deep breath and answered the call.