Tipping out the old backpack that she’d placed in the hallway, Sam retrieves the black leggings she’s lived in for longer than she cares to remember. She sniffs them tentatively, then winces. She has no choice, though. She’ll just have to stand a meter away from anyone at all times.
“Fuck you, Prozac,” she mutters as she pulls the leggings on and repacks the bag. She finds an old, semi-smart polo neck at the back of the cupboard and stretches it over her head. It smells musty and she finds herself coughing as she emerges from the tubelike collar. She pulls out her old beige trench coat from the cupboard under the stairs. As she slides her arms into it, Sam catches notes of the luxury fragrance she used to spritz on each morning before she left for work. She can’t believe how well the scent has lasted. Six months and still going strong.Rouge Malachite has more fortitude than I do, she thinks, remembering the day she bought the bottle for herself as a birthday present. She can’t imagine ever finding the energy to spray perfume again, let alone going to a shop and buying it. Nonetheless, she enjoys the scent as she fastens her coat all the way up, to under her chin. The buttons strain in their holes but Sam doesn’t care. The tightness of it will help to keep her upright.
Picking up her handbag, she steps out into the brightness of the day, locks her front door behind her and walks down the path. She ducks to avoid an overgrown bramble and lifts the little garden gate open. Hers is by far the messiest garden on Acklam Terrace. Most of the neighbors have replaced their grass with decorative pebbles or marble-colored paving, but Sam has always loved snatches of metropolitan countryside.
Sam takes the narrow alley past St Paul’s—not the cathedral, but Clapham’s own church of the same name and lesser fame. It’s a pretty building in Sam’s opinion; just as worthy of a visit.
Sam emerges on to the high street and looks longingly at her go-to café, Bubbles and Beans, which she’ll be forced to bypass today thanks to her wardrobe issues. She jogs across the road and joins the orderly queue at the bus stop just seconds before a red double-decker squeals to a halt.
The bus is packed and Sam wedges herself into the corner near the emergency exit. She spends the journey concentrating on her breathing. In spite of her headphones and the heavy-metal playlist, she can still hear the woman next to her reciting English verbs into an app. Bodies sway as the bus stops and starts again. Teens in various school uniforms hop on and off. People sneeze noisily into tissues. A toddler writhes and a businessman yells into his phone—when Sam sees his eyes travel over one of the schoolgirls’ knees, she feels salt rise in her throat.
More passengers pile into the bus as it heads into central London and bodies begin to brush up against her. Sam’s arms tingle. By now, her mouth tastes like the ocean. Unable to bear it any longer, she hits the bell and jumps from the bus two stops early. Ten minutes later, she’s walking along the Thames embankment toward New Scotland Yard.
As she walks, Sam keeps her eyes away from the mangling murk of the river. Every time they ventured down to the sandy banks of the river in Somerset where Sam had spent summers splodging with friends from her primary school, her mum used to warn her that water killed more people than lions and tigers and bears ever had.
“Fresh water is the most dangerous of all,” Mum had said, squeezing on bright-orange armbands as Sam darted embarrassed looks at her friends who were already waist-deep. “Salt and chlorine add buoyancy, but in fresh water like this you’ll sink in seconds.”
“No one else has to wear these,” Sam had hissed at her mother. “I’m not a baby.”
Mum kissed her nose. “You’ll always be my baby.”
Sam reburies the memory with a few deep breaths. A moment later, the 1930s classical facade of what was once called the Curtis Green building is in front of her. The wordNewis simply to highlight that the building has been updated, not, as many people think, because there is anynewideology behind the policing that goes on there. Her father, a Detective Inspector himself, hadn’t lived long enough to see the work on the building completed. It was probably for the best. Detective Hansen had loved tradition. He’d have hated New Scotland Yard and all its modernity.
In front of the rectangular stone face of the main building, next to the world-famous spinning sign, is a glass anteroom through which all must pass. Sam signs in, and the receptionist tells her that DCI Blakelaw will be down to escort her inside and that a new security pass will be ready for her tomorrow.
Sam sinks into the black leather sofa in the waiting area and lets herself be swallowed by dread. She wipes sweat from her upper lip then buries her nose in the collar of her trench coat and breathes in air that smells like a stronger version of herself.Just keep breathing. She lets her mind wander out of the building and back to Holland Park, imagining Charlotte walking home. The terror the girl must have felt when she first noticed footsteps behind her.What have I got to fear?Sam reminds herself that Harry is here to watch out for her, and Lowry has been transferred over a hundred miles away from London.
By the time the towering figure of DCI Harry Blakelaw is striding toward her, Sam has calmed her heart rate. She stands and greets Harry as her old self would have done, although the once-familiar hug is a little stiff and awkward. Harry asks how she is and tells her that she looks well. She looks well to everyone, she supposes. On the outside.
Together, they take the lift to the fourth floor. As they wait forthe doors to close, she prays that no one else boards and forces themselves into her personal space. Mercifully, no one does, and Harry brings her up to speed with the team as they ascend. Anna has transferred, he explains, saying how sorry he is because he knows she and Sam were good friends.Until I ignored her for six months and didn’t turn up to her wedding, even though I was supposed to be her bridesmaid. He doesn’t mention Lowry at all, but talks about another couple of officers that Sam used to be friendly with who have changed teams or left the force entirely, meaning there won’t be many people here that she knows well.
“Except yours truly.” Harry smiles. “We’ll get through this together.” He gives her a friendly pat on the shoulder, a gesture that Sam recognizes from childhood. She leans into his warm hand and smiles back at him.
The lift doors open out on to the same open-plan space that Sam was carried out of all those months ago, paramedics holding her by the armpits. The office is entirely the same and entirely different, all at once. Police officers of varying ranks from the Homicide and Violent Crime divisions sit around desks, chatting, drinking coffee and typing at keyboards.
The space is a huge rectangle filled with islands of cheap wooden desks, each piled with lever-arch files and overflowing in-trays. There’s a small kitchenette against the far wall that serves the fifty officers and a dozen or so civilians who work on this floor. Ironically, Sam remembers, fridge theft is commonplace. Alongside the kitchenette is the breakout space: three small sofas, a dusty glass coffee table and a TV that’s always on but usually muted. Each corner of the fourth floor contains a soundproofed glass box. One is Harry’s private office; a second, much larger one is used for team briefings; and the other two are smaller meeting rooms. The carpet is brown and sticky, and the strip-lighting is overly bright.
Sam trails Harry to his office, noticing a few heads turn to follow their progress. A couple of officers call morning greetings to the boss, and Harry returns them without breaking stride.
Sam catches a glimpse of Lee Chen sitting at DS Lowry’s old desk. She can still picture him sitting there, just a few feet away from her, chatting with colleagues and showing them photographs of his daughter. Suddenly, Sam feels like she just swallowed a mouthful of seawater. She offers Chen a weak smile. He must barely recognize her—they met only a handful of times—but he nods and waves in return. A pair of officers—a tall, dark-haired man and a blond woman with her back to Sam—laugh together at a desk. They look so young and carefree, and she knows that once upon a time, not so long ago, she must have seemed just like that, too.
“Sam?” Harry calls, waving for her to follow him into his office.
He holds the door for her and then gestures for her to take the seat opposite him and his giant desk. Something’s different in the office, but she can’t pinpoint what. Fewer plants? Perhaps no one has watered them during her absence. She’s sure there used to be a photo of her and Harry on his desk. The one of his wife, Beryl, is missing, too. In fact, the only photograph that remains is a faded print of Harry and Sam Hansen, her father and namesake, taken in the eighties. She decides not to allow herself to read too much into such a trivial change.
Harry is talking but she’s missed the beginning, so can only offer a “Mmm?” when he breaks to allow her to respond.
“I was just saying again how good it is to have you back. The Met has missed you. I’ve missed you.”
Sam nods and jerks the corners of her lips upward as best she can as Harry begins talking again. She can tell by his tone that he is taking her phased return seriously, and with a dart of alarm, senses that he might be leaning toward keeping her out of the murder investigation altogether.
“Actually, sir,” she says, “I want to be considered for SIO in Charlotte’s… I mean, the Holland Park murder.” Harry makes to interrupt her, so she carries on quickly. “I know I’ve just come back to work, but no one has a better solve rate than me. Especially when it comes to women and girls. The crime scene was organized, and we could be dealing with someone who’s killed before. You need experience on this one, and that’s me. I’m your best detective—”
“Sam,” Harry says, not meeting her eye, “that wasbefore. Youweremy best detective. But you’ve been away for so long that I can’t throw you back in the deep end with a child homicide.”
“But—”
“No buts, Sam,” Harry insists. “I talked to Pete—Dr. Thomson, and we’ve got to take this phased return slowly and seriously. You’ll work Monday to Wednesday only, for the first month. HR will email you with check-ins, so please engage with them.”
