‘You’re fucking mental,’ the man exploded. ‘I’m a bloody copper.’
Paula laughed. ‘That’s the best one I’ve heard for a long time.’
Then from behind, she heard a chuckle. ‘He’s not lying.’
Paula had only been working for Detective Chief Inspector Ian Rutherford for three days. But already she recognised his soft Borders accent. Slowly she turned to face him. ‘Sir?’ It was a question whose answer she already knew.
‘Today isn’t just about team building, Inspector McIntyre. It’s also about me finding out how you operate under pressure.’
‘Is somebody going to get me out of these cuffs? She needs to learn about not making restraints too bloody tight. Not to mention my knee feels fucked.’ The man sounded as pissed off as he had every right to be, Paula thought. She didn’t imagine he’d expected to be done over by a woman at least ten years older than him.
‘Meet DC Thwaite from South Yorkshire. Drafted in for today’s little operation. You can release him now.’
As he spoke, the ‘victim’ pushed her way through a thicket and back into the clearing, closely followed by Stacey, who had lost her hat and gathered a random crop of leaves and twigs in its place. One leg of her trousers was streaked with dark mud. She looked furious. ‘And this is DC Vaughn from Manchester,’ she said, her mouth tight, her voice clipped. ‘Who very kindly helped me out of a ditch.’
‘She’d already caught up with me by then, in fairness,’ DC Vaughn said with a grin.
Releasing Thwaite, Paula could feel the adrenaline draining from her. DCI Rutherford looked very bloody pleased with himself. He was, she thought, a man who liked to feel pleased with himself. He clearly worked at keeping himself in shape and wore clothes that made sure nobody could miss that. His hair was always beautifully groomed – cut close at the sides to reveal the beginning of silvering, longer on top to prove he still had plenty of it. He could look stern or friendly; his jaw was as square as Clark Kent’s. He came with the reputation of doing things by the book, which was also, she thought, all about keeping up appearances. What this episode had shown her was that he was as capable of being devious as Carol Jordan.
To hell with Rutherford and his games. Paula turned to face Stacey and made a point of consulting her watch. ‘We’ve got a rendezvous to make, DC Chen. We’ll need to get a move on.’ And she retraced her steps towards the track, not needing to check whether Stacey was at her back.
Later, the real team-building exercise happened after they’d all shaken off Rutherford and gone to the pub. Paula and Stacey were joined by their long-standing colleague DS Alvin Ambrose and Steve Nisbet, a new recruit to their team. Nisbet was a recently promoted DS from West Yorkshire police. The grapevine said he was quick on the uptake and a good team player. That didn’t necessarily mean he’d be at home with this bunch of misfits, Paula thought.
Alvin and Steve had faced a test too, within fifteen minutes of setting off on their orienteering assignment. They’d rounded a bend and stumbled on a man dragging a woman out of the woods towards a van parked on the track. She was wearing a low-cut short dress, her hands were tied behind her back and she was snarling and shouting in what sounded like Polish. She had one shoe on, its spike heel hanging loose. ‘This is the last time you’ll fucking run out on me, you fucking whore,’ the man yelled.
They were a couple of hundred yards away. But they didn’t need to say a word. Whether it was people trafficking or a woman who’d failed to escape an abuser, the only thing that mattered was putting a stop to it. Both men took off at top speed. Steve Nisbet had the wiry build of a runner, but although Alvin was burly, he was fit too and kept pace as they raced down the track together.
There was nothing subtle in their approach and before he could get the woman in the van, the man saw them coming. He moved faster, wrenching the door open and forcing her inside. He slammed the door and made for the driver’s side just as the two cops reached the van. ‘The girl,’ Alvin grunted, cutting to the side to go for the man, already half-inside. Steve opened the door but before he could grab the woman she’d kicked out at him with her bare foot, catching him a glancing blow on the jaw.
‘I’m a bloody cop,’ he yelled. She recoiled, scrabbling further into the cramped cubicle and screeching incomprehensibly. He tried to climb after her, but she was kicking out like a madwoman.
Meanwhile, Alvin reached the man before he could shut the door. Alvin grabbed it and hauled it open as the driver jammed the key in the ignition and started the engine. Alvin didn’t pause for a moment. He leaned in and thrust his arm round the man’s neck in a headlock and unceremoniously hauled him out of the van. The man tried to fight free, but Alvin was far too strong.
That was when Rutherford emerged from the
