“I’ll have one of those, too,” she declared. “And as many meat hooks as it’ll take.”
Meanwhile, in a sparsely furnished cubicle in a cheap office in Clapham, an operational asset known to senior management as ABLE ARCHER was reading her latest work assignment with increasing displeasure. “What the—” fucking fuck, she continued silently, biting her cheek in disgust, hyper-aware of her manager breathing stertorously as he leaned over the back of her chair—“whatting what is this about?” Her voice cracked and Bill retreated a half step. “I’m on a zero-hours contract and they seriously expect me to get by on two half-day shifts next week? What is this? Is it some kind of punishment for not brushing my teeth last Tuesday? I mean, what the hell?”
“Don’t blame me, Darling, I don’t hand out trial dates!” Bill’s nasal whine rose to a tooth-grinding pitch. “There’s not much call for escorts this month, that’s all! Computer says you’re blocked from doing foot work in preparation for some other job that hasn’t come through, so I can’t reassign you. Otherwise I could put you back on the stands for Saturday’s Millwall friendly. So, eh, two mornings on prisoner transport between Wandsworth nick and the courts is all you’re getting until the other job turns up.”
“But that’s—” Wendy did the numbers—“fuck, I’ll be relying on Universal Credit.” She shook her head in dismay. At £10 per hour the two half shifts would pay her a measly £100, about a quarter of the weekly rent on her bedsit. UC would kick in eventually, but the money would take at least six weeks to come through, and the rent was due in just over a fortnight. Never mind food, heat, her phone … “I need at least two whole days’ extra work to make ends meet, otherwise I’m fucked.”
“Language, Darling.” Bill invariably had a fit of the vapors whenever a woman used strong language in his presence: just another of the ways he pissed Wendy off without even trying.
“You know that’s not my fucking name!” Not that complaining yet again would make him stop. He only Darling’d her because he knew it annoyed, and he could get away with it. She bounced to her feet. “Fuck, I’d be better off turning tricks on the harborfront in Portsmouth.” She unclipped her rentacop tie, loosened her collar, and turned on her heel. “If you’ve got no fucking work for me until Thursday I’m fucking out of here.”
“Not so fast, Wendy Deere. Got a moment?”
Wendy froze. Bill recovered first: “Mister Gibson, sir? Sorry, I didn’t see you.”
Gibson actually wore the company uniform as if he meant it, unlike Bill, who occupied his uniform like a hermit crab living in an abandoned Coke can. Aside from the lack of police insignia, Gibson was the spitting image of Wendy’s old Chief Inspector—which made her jaw muscles clench and her hands instinctively curl for other reasons. But that was unfair to Gibson. He’d never been a cop. He’d left the army to pursue a career in HiveCo Services management, and he ran her (and Bill’s) division reasonably fairly, which was more than she could say for Chief Inspector Barrett.
“Of course you didn’t see me,” he agreed. He looked at Wendy. “Deere, Bill’s missing your job because it came through to my desk. Come up to my office and we’ll discuss it.” To Bill, he added, “You’ll need to find someone else for the prison transport. I’m pulling Wendy off your roster indefinitely.”
“But there’s a level three prisoner due up in front of the beak on Tuesday and Darling’s my only certificated escort for level threes!” Bill whined. “Where am I going to—”
Gibson waved Wendy towards the door with something suspiciously close to a wink. She hot-footed it to the stairwell, despite the impulse to eavesdrop on Gibson, who seemed set to tear Bill a new one. Halfway up the stairs she remembered her clip-on tie. This had better pay more than a tenner an hour, she thought, ducking into the toilet to smarten up before she stepped into management country.
Her grandboss had an office with a door of its own, although his name card fitted neatly inside a slot as impersonal as the label on a filing cabinet. Wendy knocked just in case, then let herself in and sat in the visitor’s chair, leaving the door ajar. A minute or so later Gibson entered. “Make yourself at home, why don’t you,” he said, sliding into the much nicer office chair behind the desk.
Wendy shrugged, thought of a sarcastic response, then reconsidered her position and asked, “What do you want?”
Gibson fixed her with a stare that probably terrified hung-over second lieutenants, but bored Wendy. More bloody male posturing. “Bill gets away with it because he’s a superannuated bouncer. What’s your excuse, Detective Constable Deere?”
Wendy crossed her arms. “Ex-DC,” she griped, “who does not play well with assholes. I’ve been having a really bad month so far. Can we get to the point so I can hand in my notice and go look for a real job—one that pays my rent on time?”
Gibson’s brows furrowed. “Really?” he asked, mirroring her crossed arms. It was so transparent she nearly laughed.
“Yes, really. You heard Bill giving me ten hours this week? Last week it was fourteen, and I’m on a zero-hours contract, no side-hustles allowed. Seriously, I’m living on cat food and lentils—”
“—Would a raise change your mind about quitting? Say, to fifty an hour?”
Gibson’s offer caught her by surprise. Wendy blinked. “Is that some kind of joke? Because it’s not funny.”
Gibson looked displeased. “It’s not meant to be. Someone fucked with your personnel file and assigned you the wrong—lower—grade. Your basic hourly rate—you’ve been getting a tenner an hour for rentabody work, haven’t you? You should have
