Susan began to find fault with everything he did and said, as if only now noticing how socially ill-adjusted he was, counting up the friends they had lost, the people he had insulted, the senior officers who had promoted him sideways to claw him out of their hair. Where the children were concerned she had become increasingly possessive, coveting their affections and excluding him from the mother–children trio.
His response had been to retreat into himself, sitting up late at night alone in his attic office – when not on shift – immersing himself in study, as if somehow knowledge could fill all the empty spaces he had inside. It had become an obsession, from which only little Sophia was able to distract him. For some reason, she loved him, and Mackenzie knew only too well how love for a father had neither rhyme nor reason.
He felt his phone vibrate against his chest, and retrieved it from the breast pocket of his shirt with thumb and forefinger. It was Sophia on Facebook’s Messenger app.
– Hi daddy.
He wedged the phone between his hands and typed with his thumbs.
– Hi darling.
– Miss you.
– I miss you, too, sweetheart.
– Sorry mummy’s not speaking.
He paused on that one.
– Well, I’m sure she will in time.
She posted a sad face. Kids are not easily fooled.
– Will you be at my school concert on Tuesday night?
He hesitated, and almost as if she had read his mind, added,
– I’ll tell mummy it’s ok. Everyone else’s daddy’ll be there.
– Of course I’ll come, darling. I wouldn’t miss it for the world.
– Got a whole song to myself.
– I can’t wait to hear it. Pause. Baby, shouldn’t you be in bed?
– I am. A happy face.
– Under the covers?
– Shhhh. Several happy faces.
– You put your phone on the charger, baby, and go to sleep, and I’ll see you on Tuesday.
– Okay, daddy. Pause. Love you.
– Love you, too, darling.
In so many ways he didn’t want the conversation to end. If he’d been at home, he’d have sat on her bed, running his fingers gently through her baby-soft hair until she closed her eyes and drifted off. He waited a long time, almost willing her to say something more. But the cursor blinked emptily, and finally he slipped the phone back into his pocket.
He eased himself out of the chair and crossed to the desk to open his takeaway. It would be cold by now, and his appetite for it had passed. Still, he needed to eat.
It was only then that he noticed a red light winking on his desk phone, almost obscured by a stray sheet of paper lying across it and diffusing the light. He picked up the phone and thumbed the message-replay button.
‘Mackenzie, it’s Bill Beard here. I know you don’t start with us until Monday, but I wonder if you could come in tomorrow morning for a briefing?’
CHAPTER FOUR
The London headquarters of the National Crime Agency was tucked away in Citadel Place in a sprawl of industrial buildings south of the railway lines between Vauxhall and Lambeth. It was an unremarkable structure of brick and steel and glass. It came into view as Mackenzie walked along Tinworth Street, and he was overcome by the same depression which had afflicted him the previous evening. And not a little anxiety. Whatever he had believed or imagined when first joining the Metropolitan Police, he could never have envisaged ending up here.
Spring sunshine sprinkled light across the floor tiles in reception and he told the girl behind the desk that he had an appointment with Director Beard. She asked him to wait and lifted a phone. ‘Someone will be down in a few minutes.’
Six minutes and thirty-three seconds, to be exact. Mackenzie had watched every passing second counting itself off on his watch. He had arrived on time and was aggrieved that his new boss could not organize his schedule to reciprocate.
It was a woman in her early thirties who came through the door to greet him, offering a firm dry handshake. She was thin, with an awkward gait, blue tights beneath a grey skirt, and hair drawn back untidily. ‘Ruth Collins,’ she said. ‘You’re here to see Mr Beard.’
It seemed more like a statement to Mackenzie than a question, so he didn’t respond.
They entered the lift in an awkward silence, and Collins made a brave stab at breaking it as she selected a button for the third floor. ‘You start next week,’ she said, as if he might not have known. Again he felt no need to reply and she seemed a little disconcerted. She tried again. ‘Have you met the boss before?’
He nodded. ‘At the interview.’
She smiled. ‘Tread carefully, then. He can be unpredictable. Everyone calls him Mr Grumpy, and he’s not in the best of moods this morning.’ Mackenzie nodded, and they lapsed again into silence until they debouched from the lift on to floor three.
Beard had a corner office with windows on two walls. He was on the phone when Collins showed Mackenzie in, and he raised a finger to indicate that they should wait a moment. They stood uncomfortably just inside the door, unable to avoid eavesdropping on his side of the conversation.
‘Well, fucking tell him to get the finger out!’
And as Beard listened to the response from his caller Mackenzie took a moment to make an appraisal of him. His new boss was a big
