My calendar was closing in on an anniversary, and sadness dogged my steps. The closer that date came, the harder it was getting, and I didn’t want to fall to pieces again. Staying in bed all day had been appealing, but I’d taken the choice to double down on how I felt and complete all the crappy tasks I’d been avoiding, hence why I was at the police headquarters.
Of all the buildings in the city of Deadwater, I liked this one the least.
It worked in my favour by distracting me from the dark cloud of emotion I was battling. If anyone pushed me too hard today, I’d probably burst into tears, but this still beat sitting at home and moping.
I hadn’t felt safe under my own roof in at least a couple of days. That needed to change.
I crossed the path, weaving through people on the busy pavement, and with a glance spared for the grey, towering building next door. It was Mila’s solicitor’s office, the peoplewho had been calling her when we’d met at the skeleton crew’s warehouse. I owed her some answers.
Obtaining those, and another I needed, meant spending the afternoon here.
I stepped into the glassed-in lobby and waited for a lift to take me up. Tapping my foot, I wrote out a quick message to our Skeleton Girls Detective Agency group.
Lovelyn: I’m at police HQ this morning. Should have some answers for us soon.
Hopefully “answers” would outweigh the nervous breakdown I was flirting with. A reply came from Mila almost immediately.
Mila: I’ll be right next door to you! Solicitor appointment.
Nothing came from the other members of the group. It was too early for Cassie to be awake, and Genevieve, wife of the leader of the skeleton crew, would be studying. The final member, Everly, was pregnant, and the last time we’d talked about the topic I had in mind, she couldn’t stomach the details.
We still had a murder to solve, separate from the bodies on the boat. Esther had been a school acquaintance of Mila’s who’d become involved in women trafficking. She’d been found floating in Deadwater’s harbour, drowned. Another woman silenced and unable to give evidence.
The lift arrived, and I travelled up to the ninth floor.
When I exited, heads popped up from booths, people I knew through my father and from working in the building. I wasn’t employed by the police directly, but was contracted in to handle pieces of data intelligence work as and when needed. In addition to that, in an attempt to be close to my father, I’d interned forhim, and continued to take boring admin off his hands so he could focus on casework.
Partially, that had been a ploy. I wanted access to the information he, as chief constable, had. My corrupt, career officer father enjoyed the easy life, and whether he trusted me or not, he didn’t care enough to refuse the free help, so long as I kept my meddling low-key and off the radar of internal audit.
Yet I couldn’t always rely on systems being updated in a timely fashion. The data on Esther’s post-mortem hadn’t been completed, though I was certain it had been carried out. As she’d been a sex worker, her death hadn’t made the headlines, but it was suspicious enough for me and the skeleton girls to know there was more to it than an accidental drowning.
That was task number one on my list of getting out of my own head.
The wall to the right side of the open-plan space was made up of individual offices, all with glass fronts. My father had the corner office, but I headed in the opposite direction to the small team of data entry clerks. It was their job to manage the main database the officers used, pulling in and integrating data from other sources. Including the pathologist.
I stopped at the desk of the oldest member of the team, a peevish woman named Soames. Like me, she was a civilian rather than a sworn officer, and also the kind of woman who treated database fields with religious reverence and colleagues with mild contempt and a side of superiority.
Soames peered up at me over rimless glasses. “Can I help you, Miss Wells?”
I glanced around then stooped to speak quietly to her. “I don’t want to cause any problems with your team, but I heard there might be an issue.”
She set down her pen. “What kind of issue? Whose fault is it?”
Straight to the blame. A woman after my own dark little heart.
I faked unease. “There’s a meeting happening later which needs intel from the pathologist’s reports, but apparently it hasn’t been updated in a while. You know how poor data management can get heads rolling. I just overheard someone mid-rant, and it’s unfortunate that this is happening right as they’re considering a team review. I knew you’d be the person to tell because you’re discreet. Have you any idea what’s going on?”
Soames gulped. Her gaze darted to the other members of the team then back to me. A team review meant numbers would be cut. It was fictional, but if she wanted to secure her job, having an example of her excellence would be irresistible.
She leaned in. “If I get it done now, can you drop a hint that the systems were slow and they should try again?”
I raised my eyebrows. “Are you sure you’re not too busy? I can pass on the message, say in twenty minutes?”
She pushed her glasses back up her nose, fingers already flying over the keyboard. “Consider it done. I can’t tell you how much I loathe sloppy task management. If only they knew how hard I worked.”
I left her to her hustle, the first part of my plan underway.
The second was more delicate. I approached my father’s office where his PA was setting a stack of papers on his desk.
