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Right on cue, her voice boomed out of the Bowl. ‘Stacey, are you fucking kidding me?’
Bryant stood. ‘Hey, Penn, wanna go get some breakfast?’
‘Oh, hell yeah,’ he said, grabbing the carrier bag full of coffee-soaked paper.
Bryant closed the squad-room door behind them.
Whatever was going on between the two of them did not need to be heard by him and Penn or the rest of the station.
TWENTY
Kim saw the tactful exit of her two sergeants, but it didn’t defuse her temper enough not to repeat the question.
‘No, really, Stace, are you kidding me?’
Her rage wasn’t being eroded by the tears falling from the constable’s eyes either.
‘I couldn’t tell you. I thought I could handle it. I thought he’d get bored. I thought I’d invited it.’
‘That’s an awful lot of thinking for someone who seems to have taken a stupid pill. What the hell were you really thinking? How could you not tell me? How could you not report it?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t know,’ Stacey said, burying her head in her hands.
‘How long?’ Kim asked.
‘About two months.’
‘So right after the investigation tied up?’
Stacey nodded. ‘During it.’
‘And you knew exactly what he’d done to other women and still took no action?’
Stacey sniffed and shook her head.
Kim couldn’t allow the girl’s misery to soften her anger. Her actions were unforgiveable. She was a police officer. She knew better.
‘Did Devon know?’
‘Not until recently.’
Kim guessed the immigration officer was currently feeling even more pissed off than she was.
‘Jesus, Stace, anything could have happened, and we wouldn’t have had a clue.’
‘What can I do to make this right?’
‘You can start by sending me everything you’ve uncovered about Birch.’
‘Okay.’
‘And then sort out the archiving. Go,’ Kim said, needing Stacey not to be anywhere near her.
Archiving was done in a basement room when they had nothing else to do.
Kim let out a long sigh once the constable had left the room. Her anger hadn’t diminished one bit, but her control of it had returned. Right now, she couldn’t look at the girl without wanting to tear her head off, so it was best that she stayed out of sight.
‘Damn it,’ she roared, banging her first on the table. She wasn’t going to allow herself to think about what Stacey had been through in the last couple of months. Her performance and weight loss were good indicators, but she wasn’t there yet. She was still focussed on the deceit, the lack of trust and the poor judgement.
