3. The Briefing

DI Rosen and DS Vega return to the team and tasks are assigned. Tom Healy's murder is glossed over, and Vega wants to know why.

3

DI Rosen released the breath she hadn’t realised she’d been holding. She wasn’t sure if she had just received the answer she’d wanted or not. She clapped her hands on her thighs and stood.
     ‘Right. Let’s leave these good people to their work. Ask Rooker to drop me a line, soon as,’ Rosen said, a light touch to the shoulder of the youngest SOCO. The girl nodded keenly and received a smile in return from the senior detective. Vega had noticed that Rosen did that often; entrust the juniors with tasks to build up their confidence. On a night like this one, a little confidence was no bad thing. Vega followed the inspector out into the dark.
     ‘The marks on his cheek, they look like road rash to you?’ he said as they shed the protective clothing.
     ‘Now that you mention it, yes, they did bear a passing resemblance.’ Rosen tucked her hands under her arms to keep them warm as she strode towards the treeline.
     ‘There was grease on his laces, like they’d got caught in a chain. Could be he came off a bike.’
      ‘Could be.’ They trekked across the pitted pastureland in silence. The ground was solid beneath them, rigid with the frost, making their steps sound hollow. When they reached the bank that led up towards the road Vega followed her lead, albeit less nimbly.
     ‘Those Pilates classes paying off, eh, Dar?’
     ‘Behave.’
     Then they were back up in the lane again, the blue lights still blinking at either end. They stood a moment beside their respective vehicles �" Rosen’s Prius and his M5 �" and she waited while he rolled a cigarette on his dashboard. ‘I like the look, by the way,’ Rosen smiled, plucking at the open-necked paisley shirt he had on under his leather jacket. ‘Very trendy.’
     ‘Its bloody god awful and you know it.’
     ‘All right, so it’s a departure from your usual style, but I think you can work it.’
     ‘Cherry bought it for me. Seemed rude not to wear it at least once before I inflict it upon a charity shop.’
     ‘Is she well?’ Rosen asked, offering him her lighter when his sparked fruitlessly. ‘How did she do tonight?’
      ‘She was good. Could have been a bit more polished, but yeah, she was good.’ Vega sat in the passenger seat of his car, his legs slung out, and kept his eyes carefully on his brogues. ‘She misses you.’
     Rosen didn’t know what to say and so she said nothing. She stood by her decision. She had to. She attempted to sweep her fingers through her hair but her unkempt curls, more frizz than ringlets, refused to settle. ‘What is it you’re working on at the moment, Rich?’
     ‘Looking into a spate of sexual assaults around K College.’
      ‘Anything serious?’
      ‘Not yet, but it’s escalating. I reckon it could get nasty.’
     ‘Well I’d like you on my team, at least for the first few days. Hand over to DS Kite, please.’
     ‘Yes, ma’am,’ he said with a half-hearted salute. She passed a look over him, a look he recognised; like she was eying up a stray dog, trying to assess whether or not it would snap. She should have known by now he was all bark.
     ‘It’s not going to be awkward for you, is it?’ she asked. ‘You working under me, so soon after…’
     ‘I’m a professional, Dar.’
     ‘I know that. I just…I wouldn’t blame you, if it was.’
      ‘It’s a small department. It was bound to happen eventually. Besides,’ he said with a smile somewhere around his eyes, ‘you’ll go easy on me won’t you?’
    ‘Not even a little bit.’
    He chuckled and flicked his f*g end into the verge. Rosen turned and walked to her car. ‘Now go home and change into something respectful.’
     ‘Gladly.’

*

The Major Incident Suite was packed shoulder to shoulder when Vega arrived. By the time he had driven back to his apartment and changed into something more sombre �" a charcoal M&S suit, navy shirt and tie �" the briefing was almost over. His late arrival went largely unnoticed and he found himself a spot towards the back of the room where he could prop himself against a wall.
     Almost everyone was on their feet and their posture was that little bit sharper in those early hours. Despite their grim expressions there was a frisson of nervous energy crackling about the room. Photographs of the crime scene were already being played across the interactive whiteboard and Vega could feel the ensuing shockwaves. That shock either motivated or debilitated. Vega’s attention wandered to the detective constables, most of whom were repulsively young. He didn’t envy them.
     With age, Vega had calcified. He wasn’t hardened, not yet. A hardened copper was no use to anyone; like a hardened rubber seal, cracks appeared and what was meant to be kept back began to bleed through. Anger, or worse, apathy. No, he wasn’t hardened but he was resilient. The young felt everything acutely. DC Carmichael in particular looked bad; his patchy pubic beard didn’t conceal the paleness of his cheeks, or how his chin quivered. Carmichael had a degree in Digital Music and Sonic Arts, and Vega gave him a year, tops.
    One set of eyes had turned to him when he’d entered. Detective Chief Superintendent Bishop sat slouched behind Rosen, happy enough to let her run with it for now as she held the team’s attention better than he did. Vega gave a nod to his seldom-seen superior and Bishop wiggled one thick finger, beckoning him over.
     ‘A word,’ he said once Vega had shimmied through the group to reach him. ‘After the tasks have been assigned.’
     ‘I’ll bring the biscuits.’
     Bishop tapped his nose, and Vega tuned back in to the briefing.
     ‘Without an identity, a motive is going to be difficult to establish,’ DI Rosen was saying. ‘For now, our focus is going to be on finding out who this boy is. We need a name. Someone will be missing him.’
       ‘Not necessarily,’ Vega muttered, and felt the room’s attention swivel towards him.
     ‘Care to elaborate?’
     ‘Well, his description doesn’t match anyone reported missing.’
      ‘Not yet perhaps, but we’ve only just begun to check him against MisPer.’
     ‘Yeah, and fair dos, but if we don’t get a result then maybe we should consider that whoever would usually report a kiddie missing, a parent or a carer or whoever, had a reason for not reporting him gone.’
     ‘What sort of reason?’
     ‘Guilt.’
     Conspiratorial chatter began and Rosen raised her voice over it. ‘Which gives us even greater incentive to find out who he is. We’re hoping to have an appeal put together for mid-morning, with an e-fit of the victim to be circulated in print and through social media. Meanwhile, the enquiry will continue with maximum numbers. I want both uniform and CID out canvassing door-to-door for the next forty-eight hours. After that time, we will step it down to two teams of one DS and three DCs. Thank you.’
     That’s it? No mention of Tom Healy? All around him people began to move. There was a sense of purpose now, a channel for the upset. Vega waited for the crowd to disperse and then followed the detective super out and down the cheaply carpeted hallway.
     He hated Bishop’s office. It wasn’t the stink of body-odour or the plastic plants which bothered him, but the photographs of Bishop’s family. The pictures were a litany of loss. Vega knew as well as any other copper under Bishop that he hated his family and they him. The smiling faces of his wife and toddler son (who was in his thirties now) were like hunting trophies, showing the kills he’d had to make to get to where he was. Vega hated Bishop’s office because it was as lonely as his was, just bigger.
      ‘Did that polyp of a DCI at least bother to call you?’ Bishop demanded as he slotted himself behind his desk. No preamble, no pleasantries, just straight in for the jugular. Vega knew that Bishop used to box, and he didn’t need to see him in the ring to know what sort of fighter he would have been. The detective super was a bit softer now though, around the middle at least. Vega took the promised garibaldis from his dog-eared briefcase and in return Bishop gestured his personal coffee maker.
     ‘Yeah. DCI Lytton dropped me a line last night,’ Vega said as he chose an espresso capsule. ‘Although I got the impression that it was an afterthought. It was just before midnight and I could smell the gin through my handset.’
     ‘Lytton’s only acting on a tip-off. It doesn’t mean he’ll find anything.’
      ‘It was from credible enough a source for him to dig up the bloody flyover. Must be a logistical nightmare, closing the whole stretch of road like that.’
     ‘Adrian Lytton doesn’t give a monkey’s about budget and logistics. This is a chance for him to take the city forcefully up the backside. Trust me, the smug b*****d will be loving it.’ Bishop took the coffee Vega had made and took off his spectacles to drink it. ‘All right. Supposing he does find human remains…how do reckon you’d feel about that, Rich?’  
     ‘Not a clue,’ Vega said. ‘So why no mention of Healy this morning?’
     Bishop grimaced. He looked about to volunteer an answer when his phone began to shudder along the desk. When he saw who was calling he waved Vega towards the door. ‘DI Rosen will fill you in on that, but listen, if they do find something I’ll try my best to get you a day’s leave. It’s going to be chaos though these next few weeks. I can’t promise anything.’
     ‘It won’t be necessary, sir. Thanks all the same.’
    Bishop gesticulated at the door again as he clamped the phone to his ear. Vega let himself out, still without his caffeine fix.
      Rosen was waiting for him in the hall, and her lips parted as if she was about to ask him something before thinking better of it. She headed for the security doors and Vega fell in alongside her. ‘So no talk of Tom at the briefing, I noticed.’
      ‘No, not yet,’ she admitted. ‘Until we hear back from Rooker I don’t want to muddy the waters with speculation. Right now I’m going to have a word with a local taxi firm; their drivers use that lane as a cut-through all the time, if anyone is likely to have seen something suspicious it’ll be them.’
     ‘That’s not a bad shout.’
     ‘I want you to catch me up en route. Tell me what you can about the Healy case.’
     ‘Is there a coffee in it for me?’
     ‘I think I could stretch to a latte.’
      ‘Best make it an Americano. I’ve gone up a belt notch.’
     ‘Well I wasn’t going to say anything but…’
      He barked out a laugh but she saw how he suddenly sucked in his gut. It was true he’d let himself go lately, and she felt badly about that. She had seen the footage on the news that morning, of cadaver dogs sniffing in excited circles around a spot on the flyover near Hammersmith.
     Rosen had wanted to ask Vega how he was and what outcome he was hoping for, but she supposed she had forfeited the right to pick through the debris of his personal life when she’d emptied her drawer in his bedroom and ended whatever it was they’d had by text message.
     ‘So come on then,’ she said with a touch too much enthusiasm. ‘Tell me all I need to know about the boy who murdered Tom Healy.’

Author's Note

All constructive criticism gratefully received.

Reviews

[IK]

Good bits:
I like the calcified description of Vega and juxtaposition with the new cops. Also great tension with Rosen. Also love the description of Bishop, his background, and his office. Really quick and hits all the important points so we have an idea of the man in our head.

Bad bits:
The briefing could have been a bit longer and you could use it to introduce perhaps another character and get some tension between him and someone else. or perhaps have Vega interacting with a new cop and show rather than tell us that he feels old and that they are a bit green.
Other issue I had was the ending - it was too much show rather than tell - a better reveal of the Rosen Vega thing would have been that Vega confronts her or Rosen tries to apologise about it. Here it just sounds far too quick and not enough has been made of it.

[SLD Bailey]

Thanks, as ever, for your review :) I actually had the same reservations about this chapter, but decided to leave it as it is (for now at least) because I'm hesitant to introduce too much too quickly at this early stage. There will be more in depth briefings and better introductions to the other detectives later on. As for the reveal of Vega/Rosen's relationship, I will take a second look at that. The issue I have is they're both so damn repressed that I don't think they'd discuss it...!

[Stephen]

Now I think, the mystery of "Healy" is gonna reveal in the next chapter, as far as I learnt through this write. Yeah, this chapter`s good ~~ you know what? This`s all about detectives what they do ~~ how they work ~~ talk & just work revealing the mysteries ~~ I`d visualized the clear pic. of characters on my mind ..when I was totally lost in readin` this great chapter. The title`s well suited with the chapter, you done a great job once again, Bailey. The characters you`ve plotted here are very nice & Ummm .. yeah ..the suspense`s every-time I find in your chapters & that`s all what I love about you & your skills that you never get divert from your theme. ~~ Very good ~~ I appreciate it~

All the best for your upcoming chapters!

[SLD Bailey]

Really glad you're still enjoying this Stephen, and thanks so much for taking the time to write down your thoughts on it :) I'm pleased it still has an effective level of suspense, and that you got lost in it. Muchly appreciated!

[NoelHC]

I like how you have developed the back story of these characters, and of some of the inner office politics that always go on. Well written.
Please be sure to send me a read request when you publish more.

[SLD Bailey]

Thanks so much for reading this through in its entirety, cannot tell you how happy this makes me! I'm really pleased that you enjoyed it and that it's working for you, and I will very gratefully send you a read request when the next chapter is up (which should be sometime later today). Ta again!

[knapp darko]

really liked this story, needs some work here and there but nothing major, l liked the relationship between Rosen and Vega and how that worked out and I think you do well not to over explain things and get to the point quickly, a good story, some interesting points and I really enjoyed reading it

[SLD Bailey]

Thanks for taking the time to read this! It's always great when someone sticks with your writing, and I really appreciate you taking the time to comment. I'm particularly pleased that the relationship between Vega and Rosen works for you as this is something I was keen to get right. Could I trouble you to elaborate on what could use some work? I'm always looking to improve!

[W.k.kortas]

I think you've handled the establishment of the relationship between Rosen and Vega very nicely; it would have been quite easy to go overboard in terms of description and emotional dialogue replete with a gaggle of expletives and exclamation points. This is one of those occasions where less is definitely more.

[SLD Bailey]

I'm so glad you thought so :) It's always tricky, beginning a book and introducing characters. I have to fight the urge to dump a whole lot of backstory in the first few chapters. I find it works best to ease the reader in though, revealing a character slowly. Their relationship with others is best shown the same way, I think. Thanks for taking the time to read this!

[W.k.kortas]

There is a very fine line between being a bit too vague and trusting your readers; I think you negotiated that very nicely.