Hearts of Blue

“Anything interesting?” I asked after a minute or two of quiet.

She let out an impatient sigh. “If this is about the application for sergeant, then you’re wasting your time.”

“Don’t worry — I’ve long since given up trying to get on your good side, Katherine. And I’ll keep applying for sergeant until you finally get sick of me and decide to give in. Simple as,” I replied with confidence.

She glanced up from her paper. “Well, then, what do you want?”

“Is it so strange to imagine I might be here for the pleasure of your company?”

Je

“I find that terribly hard to believe,” she said stiffly.

“Don’t sell yourself so short. If you’d actually take that stick out of your arse and quit treating me like a particularly unpleasant fungal infection, you’d realise we actually have a lot in common.”

Closing over her paper and giving me her full attention, Je

I held up all five fingers. “Well, for one, we’re both tough bitches, and for two, we can handle working in a male-dominated environment without buckling under the pressure. Three, let me see, we both hate my dad. Four, we’re fu

Five, we both had love affairs that jeopardised our careers. I left the fifth finger standing.

“Fu

“The other day when Co

“That falls more into the bitch category, if you ask me,” said Je

“And a bad attitude. You give put-downs where they’re due. Well, except for with me, but I guess you have your reasons for those, which I’ll allow,” I told her cheekily. I was pushing my luck, but if I knew anything about this woman, it was that the only way to get on her good side was to stand my ground. If I tried licking her arse, she’d tell me exactly where to stick it. Sure, I was complimenting her, but with bite. In this instance, the bite was key.

“You’re persistent,” she said, eyeing me shrewdly.

“I have to be, with the likes of you.”

At this she surprised both of us when she huffed a begrudging laugh. “You remind me a lot of your father in that way. And just to be clear, that’s not a compliment.”

“Don’t worry, I know.” I paused to lower my voice. “He does feel bad for what he did to you, though. Well, as bad as a man like my dad can feel about anything, which isn’t much. Usually, his way is the right way, no ifs or buts.” I paused to eye her seriously. “You do know he’s been working so hard on the McGregor case so that he can finally get justice for you.”

“Yes, well, it’s all a bit too little, too late in that regard.”

“Maybe, but we’re all fallible. It’s the ones who can’t accept they’ve made a mistake who have problems.”

Je

“Well, I’m happy to break you in.”

At this she let out another laugh, a real laugh. I looked out the window again. Yep, still pig-free. “Keep applying for sergeant, Sheehan. Who knows, maybe after ten or fifteen more attempts, you’ll finally get what you want.”

With that she stood and gathered her things, leaving me alone at the table. I picked up my sandwich and took a bite, and after a couple of chews, I started to smile.

***

“I’m telling you, the answer is 9 p.m.,” I told Tony as we discussed the riddle he’d given me weeks ago, the one Stu had solved. It was one of those puzzles that even when you had the answer, it still took a while to get your head around.

“Nine p.m.,” Tony repeated. “Nah, I’m still not seeing it.”

“Just keep thinking, and it’ll start to make sense.”

His brow furrowed, and I gri

I heard the scratchy sound of the radio coming on right before a call from dispatch came through. My heart rate picked up when I heard the details of the report. The panic button had been pushed at a city centre bank, and all available units were being called in to investigate. Before the call had even cut off, I hit the sirens, put my foot down on the gas pedal, and hightailed it to the scene.

It was mid-morning, one of the quieter periods, and everything looked like normal when we arrived on the street where the bank was located. I sca

I swore when I saw two of them were carrying Kalashnikovs, the others with weapons more discreetly hidden. They were also lugging a number of black gym bags. Tony was already on his radio, reporting what we were seeing. The men looked in our direction, the sirens drawing their attentions, then ran straight for the transit van, pulled open the back doors, and hopped inside.

Within seconds they were speeding away from the scene. Clearly, there’d been a driver waiting. Not even bothering to stop, I gave chase, calling out the van’s licence plate number as the dispatch operator did a search.

“It was reported stolen two days ago,” he told me, but I wasn’t surprised. Stolen vehicles were business as usual for a bank job.

We were halfway to Ca

“Where’s my ARV?” I asked dispatch.

“On its way. Just keep your distance and follow the van until they get there.”

We were entering a rundown residential district, a jungle of tower blocks with half the windows boarded up. They weren’t going to be able to lose us here, not in the van, anyway. The buildings were too close together, no space for them to speed up and make a break for it.

Almost as though confirming my thoughts, the van screeched to a halt about two hundred yards ahead of us and the men emerged. I had to stomp hard on the brakes to stop the patrol car before it collided with the van, and by the time we’d ground to a halt, the men were climbing the metal ladder that ran up the side of the nearest building.

With barely a second to think about it, both Tony and I got out of the car and ran after them. I was first to get on the ladder, and as I looked into the distance, I saw the ARV approaching. If we could just keep track of the thieves until the armed unit caught up with us, then maybe we had a chance of catching them.

I was probably six or seven rungs ahead of Tony, and the final thief had already disappeared over the roof of the building. By the time I reached the top, all four of them were on the other side. I got there just in time to see the first man jump and breach the gap between one building and the next, and all at once a niggling sense of dread fell over me.

I ran across the roof, my legs pumping on the flat concrete. I was too slow, though, and all of them bar one had already made the jump, headed for the next building. There was anywhere between fifteen and twenty towers all in the same vicinity, and with them able to jump from one to the other so easily, who knew where they’d end up.