I paused.
‘Yeah, I guess so,’ I said, watching a few joggers shoot us the oddest of looks as they ran by.
I realised that I still wasn’t particularly liked in the station. As I came into the room after popping my lasagne – lovingly prepared by Fran – in the fridge, I felt all the eyes of the office stop, fix, and glare at me, analysing and scrutinising every single move I made. Men’s-toilets-gate had clearly not yet been forgiven.
I sat down at my desk, ignoring the stares as best I could, and went over some of the other cases I had been working on. While I might have wished life was like a police procedural drama, in which murderers were considerate enough to take turns on a week-by-week basis (starting in September and ending around May), real life lacked such security. It seemed that murderers, burglars, and the rest were not a very thoughtful bunch when considering the time management of the people trying to arrest them.
The more I thought about it, the more I realised that maybe Cis was right. Maybe I had overblown this whole case in my mind as some kind of proxy obsession. It wasn’t even like there was a missing person’s family begging me to bring their lovedone home. My attempts to track down Mr O’Neill’s daughter had been in vain, so I imagined some estrangement must have taken place. It was like Gordon O’Neill had vanished into thin air, and no one other than me really cared.
As the hours passed, arduously and slowly, I felt like I was beginning to come to my senses. As Darren and Steve made frequent jokes about how I was wasting police time with this case, I had to accept that if there was something concrete and substantial to the disappearance of O’Neill, they would have found it by now.
Maybe Cis was right. Maybe the move, the new job and all of the baby-making stress had finally got to me, and some mental cracks were beginning to form. I had been trying so hard to stay calm and relaxed, and to not ask myself constant questions about why Fran getting pregnant was taking so long, or why sex now seemed like a chore, or, really, why had it been so long since I had had a blowjob? Just once, I wanted some kind of sexual gratification without it having to result in a chance of conception.
While I really wanted that blowjob, Fran’s lasagne was waiting for me in the fridge, and that seemed like the next best thing.
I went to the breakroom and pulled open the fridge, ready to have some Italian commiseration food. Strangely, however, after a quick scan, I realised my lasagne wasn’t there. Had someone moved it? I asked some of the other detectives if they had seen it, but they all shrugged their shoulders with genuine ignorance.
I checked my car, I checked my desk, I retraced all my footsteps, and even went to the front desk to ask Judith if she had seen anyone eating it. She said no, and that she would recognise the smells of Fran’s cooking anywhere. I was still dead certain I had put the lasagne in the fridge. I came back into the office and checked it over one more time. As I scanned thevarious desks, out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Darren and Steve sharing what looked like self-satisfied smiles and muffled chuckles. Trusting my gut, I headed straight for the notorious bad-smelling bin in the breakroom and pressed down on the pedal. As the lid flipped open, glistening Tupperware caught my eye, and the unmistakable fragrance of my favourite of Fran’s dishes wafted up, mingled with the less pleasant odours of rubbish.
I sighed, feeling that a few eyes were looking at me right now, waiting eagerly to see my reaction. I rolled up the shirt sleeve on my right arm, slowly popped my hand in the bin, pulled out the Tupperware, emptied it and walked over to the sink. I could have sworn I heard two men doing a terrible job to stifle their laughter behind me as I washed up, scrubbing off the pieces of stuck pasta sheets.
Steve’s eyelid swelled red as the fleshy purple began to creep across his face. Blood gushed from Darren’s nose as he tried to grimace through shattered teeth. My fist slammed into him again and again, his face becoming more and more unrecognisable. Now, it turned a fluorescent shade of red as my boxing glove slammed into the bag again. The images of physically assaulting my colleagues stuck on replay in my mind offered a strange sense of comfort, even as the other officers in the station gym watched uneasily while the crazed, newly promoted sergeant flailed exhausted punches at the boxing bag.
I knew that in a few days, the anger would subside and wash away, and I would go back to being friendly, charming, and offering them my biscuits during the unofficial mid-morning break, because I knew deep down, I couldn’t hold a grudge for more than a week. But right now, I didn’t want to be the guy in the office that everyone liked. I wanted to be the guy that theydidn’t mess with. I wanted to be one of those people who oozed natural authority, with a certain charming charisma to match. Someone for whom, when I walked into a room, everyone would instantly sit up, straighten their chairs, and actually say nice stuff behind my back. I felt like I had been that guy in my last place; why couldn’t I be here?
I shifted my feet slightly, bracing myself to deliver another right hook into the bag.
‘You know, it’s way past your lunch break, and I am sure you have cases that need your attention.’
Ugh, I thought. Who drew a pentagram and summoned her?
I pivoted my body to face Vivian and, without a word, began to yank at the Velcro on my boxing gloves. She raised a hand to stop me.
‘You’re still frustrated?’ she asked, stepping forward.
‘You know what they did?’
‘Yes. But they threw your lasagne in the bin; they didn’t shag your wife. You need to stop being so dramatic, Gareth.’
I thought about explaining that this was more of a straw breaking the camel’s back situation, but I didn’t think Vivian would care that much for an explanation of my internal feelings.
She pulled off her blazer, hung it on one of the coat racks in the gym, walked over to me, and then wrapped her arms around the bag. I stood there, slightly bemused. I was a six-foot man – or 182 cm, but who’s counting – and she was a relatively petite five-foot-nothing woman, presumably wanting to be my bag holder.
‘Go on,’ she said, slapping her hand against the bag, gesturing for me to start punching.
I hesitated; this was the prelude to one of those scenes that go viral on the internet. I could see it now: ‘Punching Bag Fail, Man Sends Boss FLYING’.
‘What’s stopping you?’ Vivian asked.
‘With all due respect, Vivian, I don’t want to be taking you to A&E. I don’t think that would be a good look for my appraisal.’
‘You’re overestimating yourself. Throw a jab,’ Vivian ordered.
It felt rude to underestimate her, so I launched my hand into the bag with moderate power. She wobbled a little, remaining firmly on both feet. She motioned for me to go again, and I began to slam into the bag.
‘I got a call this afternoon from Detective Carlota; she said that she’s happy to act as CSM on the O’Neill case going forward. Says it came across her desk, and she wants to nominate herself,’ Vivian said as I hurled a left hook to the bag.
So, Cis had clearly got my text from an hour ago, the one where I’d rather ungraciously begged her to be my CSM on the case. Maybe this was in fact some weird psycho-overcompensation from me, but I couldn’t just let it go, so I thought I may as well lean into it. I knew there had to be a killer hiding somewhere in my neighbourhood, and I was going to be the one to catch him. And all I could think about was the look that would be on Steve and Darren’s faces when I did. Maybe then I’d be invited for after-work drinks. Maybe then they’d respect me.
