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She fumbled the phone to her ear. “Hello, sir?”
“Atkins. You got an update for me?”
“Well, sir. Right now, it is 6:20 a.m. here. I’ve just woken up and I have a very full bladder.”
A pause and a heavy sigh. “About the case?”
She fought back a yawn. “It’s proving a little more complicated than I anticipated.”
“Complicated. How?”
“Well, turns out the video evidence is fake. A local doctor, Dalton, paid the three boys to fake the video showing Marcus being attacked in order to incite a cull.”
“You got this doctor in custody?”
“He’s on his way to Anchorage morgue, sir. Suicide.”
“What? What does Chief Nicholls say?”
“Chief Nicholls is in the hospital with a broken leg.”
A long silence.
“And when were you going to call and tell me about this?”
“You just beat me to it, sir. But you can rest assured it will all be going in my report.”
She could picture him pacing, rubbing his bald head, itching for one of the cigarettes that he had given up five years ago.
“So, what are you saying? You don’t think this is Colony? You think it’s a human homicide?”
“I’m not sure, sir.”
A rattled sigh. “Atkins. I know you like to do a thorough job, but we cannot be seen to be weak on culling right now.”
“Making sure the right person is brought to justice is not being weak.”
“People need to have faith in the system.”
“Sir, the best way for everyone to have faith in the system is if I investigate the case thoroughly and follow the rules. Culls are only supposed to be a final…” She caught herself before she uttered the word solution. “They’re only supposed to be a last resort—when a colony won’t hand over a perpetrator or when the colony as a whole represents a threat to the human population.”
She heard him tut. “I can read the statute book too, Atkins, but you and I both know that the public don’t see it that way. They see that we’re toothless. Afraid to go up against the colonies. You know how close the VPA is to being repealed? If we don’t deal with this decisively, I guarantee it will be another weapon for the Helsing League.”
Decisively. She bristled.
“Sir, I am here to do a job, and I will do it to the best of my ability. Now if you’ll excuse me, I really need to pee.”
She ended the call, and then turned the phone on to silent. Not what she needed right now. She flicked on the bedside lamp and swung her legs out of bed. The room felt colder than ever, and the chill of the wooden floor permeated through her thick socks. Okay. She hoisted the blanket up over her shoulders. Plan of action. Brave the shower, dress and get her ass over to the police department to make an early start. She counted to three, threw the blanket off and scampered for the bathroom.
Twenty minutes later, she was stepping out into the dark and cold. A blast of icy wind snatched her hood from her head and almost knocked her off her feet. Snow coated the road and parked cars. It had fallen heavily in the night and, from the look of the bulbous black sky, there was plenty more where that had come from.
She clomped through the fresh snow (already halfway up her shins) over to the police department and fumbled Nicholls’s keys out of her pocket. She inserted one into the lock and pushed open the door. There was a light on in the office. She walked inside.
A strange man sat in front of her desk. Huge with roughly cropped hair, a badly shaven face and dressed in a heavy jacket, threadbare shirt and jeans.
“Tucker?”
He inclined his newly shorn head. “Yes, ma’am.”
