Since then Kent had been trying to make more of an effortbut it was hard to change his ways after so many years of marriage. How couldhe be romantic and show her gestures of love after all this time? It feltforced and unnatural.
Was this just a normal state of affairs for a couple marriedso long? He was quite happy to maintain the status quo and he was pretty sureshe was, too. They might not be love’s young dream anymore, but they could justabout put up with each other and seemingly that was enough for them both. At leastthat had been the case when he had a job, which kept them out of each other’sway most of the time. What was it going to be like now? She only worked part-timethree days a week. He couldn’t be cooped up in the house with her all day. Theywould drive each other mad.
He turned the key in the lock and entered the long, narrow hallwaythat led down to the kitchen at the back of the house. Like all the houses inthe terrace it was long rather than square, with the rooms stacked one behindthe other. He took off his jacket, hung it on the end of the painted, white,wooden bannister to his left and headed for the kitchen, passing the doors tothe front room and living room to his right. At the end of the corridor he tooka deep breath and opened the kitchen door, steeling himself for what heexpected to be a very difficult conversation.
There she was at the kitchen sink in front of the backwindow, cutting up potatoes into chunky chips. There were a couple of pieces ofsteak on a white chopping board on the side and some mushrooms and onions alreadysliced. This was an unexpected treat for a Monday.
She turned to him and he wearily prepared himself for the almostinevitable verbal onslaught he got most days, but unusually she seemed calm andalmost friendly.
“Sit yourself down,” she said. “And pour yourself a beer.”
His eyes travelled across to the rectangular wooden table onthe left-hand side of the room. There were just two places set which meant theboys weren’t around. His favourite beer glass was already on the table with hisfavourite brand of bottled beer waiting beside it. There was even a red, litcandle in the middle of the table.
This was highly irregular. Was it his birthday? No, ofcourse it wasn’t. Some other special day he had forgotten about? But if it was,she wouldn’t be doing all this surely, and she certainly wouldn’t be in such anapparently happy mood. She would be angry with him for forgetting. Unless hehad done something horrendously wrong and this was all some elaborate plan tosoften him up before hitting him with it.
Whatever the reason, he really didn’t want to spoil the atmosphereby telling her about losing his job. Thankfully the next thing she said savedhim the trouble.
“Before you start beating yourself up about how to break thenews to me about your redundancy, I’ll save you the bother. I already know.”
So that was it. He’d expected her to react negatively to thenews but her current demeanour suggested otherwise.
“And you’re not angry?” he asked, tentatively.
“Quite frankly, I’m delighted,” came the unexpected response.“Let’s face it: you’ve been miserable in that job for years. They’ve treatedyou badly, your health’s suffered, and that’s just for starters.”
“All true,” agreed Kent. “But how am I going to earn aliving now? Aren’t you worried about how we’re going to pay the bills?”
“Is that all you think I care about?” she asked. “We’re notexactly in poverty. The mortgage is mostly paid off on this place, I’ve got myjob at Josie’s, and I imagine you got a decent pay-off, didn’t you?”
“I did. That was the one saving grace of all of this. Buthow did you know?” he asked.
“Hannah told me. She came into the café at lunchtime. She didn’tthink you’d mind.”
Kent did mind quite a lot. Hannah had been his second in commandat the station for the past few years. How long had she known? Was she afterhis job? He had never been quite sure how to take her. Sometimes he thought sheliked him, but she and her colleague, Adrian, spent an awful lot of time takingthe piss out of him.
The fact that she had told Debs was not in itself that bad,but the fact that she had known at lunchtime and he hadn’t been given thebullet until mid-afternoon did annoy him. No wonder she’d dodged the questionearlier that day when he’d asked her where she thought they ought to have the Christmasparty this year. She knew he wasn’t going to be around for it.
“It’s not like any of this can have come as a surprise, canit?” asked Debs. “After what happened at that conference in Hampshire a couple ofmonths ago. You were really unhappy when you came back from that.”
“Don’t remind me,” replied Kent. He hated what was happeningin the force. There had been a major shake-up in the organisation. The governmenthad decided that what was needed was stronger management, a more businesslike approach,and less actual policemen performing traditional police work.
It was reminiscent of what had happened in the NHS a few yearsearlier and various other government departments as well. Kent couldn’t see howthese changes were going to lead to the arrest of more criminals and had madehis feelings crystal-clear on the subject to his superiors. They had thankedhim for his input and this was what it had led to – being booted out on his backsideafter over twenty years of loyal service.
Kent felt his hackles rising as he thought back to what hadgone on at that conference. A new police commissioner had been recentlyelected, a former marketing guru who had promised to bring his business skillsto the task of reforming the police. He was only about thirty-five, way too youngin Kent’s opinion, and had no experience whatsoever of actual policing. He hadsummoned Kent and all the other
