HEART OF OAK

“There’s something I have to tell you,” said DC Meera Mangeshkar. “Let’s grab a sandwich.” Meera and Colin were returning from a fruitless visit to Owen Mills’s neighbours, who had treated the officers with a mixture of disdain and mistrust. “My sister Jezminder works here.”

Bimsley noted the family resemblance the minute he saw the girl behind the counter of Cafe Nero in Camden High Street. Jezminder was older and taller than her sister, more graceful of limb, more downcast of eye, although, he noted, she wore Meera’s trademark toe-capped boots and men’s baggy jeans. They ordered tea and toast as Meera circled sections of her copious notes. “That girl on the top floor fancied you,” she remarked with studied casualness.

“The one with the blond plait?” He folded a whole piece of toast into his mouth and couldn’t speak for a minute while he tried digesting it. “I didn’t notice,” he finally managed.

“Oh, come on, all that guff about why you weren’t in uniform and where you go in the evenings. She didn’t answer any of your questions properly, and kept watching you from the corner of her eye.”

“She didn’t know Owen Mills.” Bimsley dunked his second piece of toast in his tea, filling the saucer. “She was just a time-waster.”

“Then you shouldn’t have kept on asking her questions. If you fancy her, you can go back there on your own time, not the unit’s.” Meera pointedly tore the girl’s interview form into quarters.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with you,” he complained. “I can never do anything right.”

“Let’s just drop it.”

“Is this what you wanted to talk to me about? Or did you just want to have a good old go at me somewhere warm, where your mouth could work properly?”

“No, it’s about Finch. You know I admitted I was there on Tuesday morning.”

“I heard. You wanted to sit in on the autopsy.”

“Yeah. Actually, I had a bit of a row with him. He wouldn’t let me stay, said it violated the privacy rights of the victim. Started going on about dignity in death, and how I didn’t have the proper qualifications. I answered back, you know how I do, and he virtually started pushing me towards the door. It wasn’t like him. He was agitated, sweating and red in the face, really angry, and the room was really warm, like he’d had the wall heaters going full blast, but he always says how much he hates the heat in there.”

“Why didn’t you tell Raymond all this?”

She looked sheepishly down at her tea mug. “I was upset. I get treated like the office junior even though I’ve got years of experience in some of the toughest cop shops in London. Even May’s granddaughter gets more respect, and she’s got no formal training. I didn’t go for sergeant because it would have meant I couldn’t stay at the unit, with Janice already occupying that position. I just want to be taken seriously.”

“For what it’s worth, I take you seriously,” said Bimsley. “You’re a true professional, Meera. You’re just too hard on yourself. All you need to do is lighten up a bit. But you need to tell the others about arguing with Oswald.”

“I’ve a feeling some of them suspect me,” she said miserably. “I haven’t exactly made friends at the unit.”

“It’s never too late to start,” said Bimsley, giving her an encouraging smile.

He thought about the young Indian detective constable while she went to speak with her sister; perhaps the fault had lain with him. He had assumed that her anger was an issue connected with race and class, some kind of attitude she was working through. Now he saw that she simply wanted to be accepted as a team player.

His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of raised voices at the counter. Glancing up, he saw an emaciated young man with a shaved head attempting to grab Jezminder’s arm as Meera warned him off. Bimsley instinctively pushed back from the table and made his way over.

“Let go of the lady, mate,” he warned.

“I’ve told him,” said Jezminder, “he can’t come in here while I am working.”

“Who is he?” asked Colin.

“He used to be her boyfriend,” said Meera with a grimace of disapproval. “Jake, she’s told you before about turning up here. She doesn’t want to see you anymore.” He was half as tall again as the little detective constable. Meera was prepared to take on anyone, but even she stepped back as he tried to slap her with a bony fist.

“I’m her man, not yours, all right? So I’ve got the right to-‘

It took barely a second for Bimsley to assess the situation. The boyfriend was chasing cash, and he could see why; the urgency burned fiercely within his hollow eyes, robbing him of rationality. Heroin addicts were usually wheedling, pathetic, needy, but this one was dangerous. He grabbed at Jezminder’s bag, breaking the strap as the two girls tried to push him away.

Colin had trained for six years at the Hoxton Boys’ Boxing Club until his instructor had warned him to stay away, not because he lost his matches or failed training, or even because he lacked the essential hand-eye coordination of his profession, but because his reach was too short and his wildly swinging fists were potentially lethal.

He unleashed one now, the right, and listened as it connected with Jake’s jaw. There it was, the sound he remembered hearing at the gym, the tearing of jaw muscle as Jake went down.

“Ganesh!” said Meera, watching as he slammed onto the tiled floor, for her mother had taught her to invoke Indian gods rather than swear like a navvy whenever she was surprised. Jake was out cold.

“Do you want him in rehab, or do you just want him gone?” asked Colin, sitting his opponent upright and checking his jaw.

“Gone,” whispered Jezminder.

Back on the street, Meera looked at him warily, as if seeing a new side of her colleague.

“What?” he asked, not liking to be stared at. “I’m sorry about that. I’m usually a bit of a pacifist. I didn’t mean to hit him so hard.”

“Never mind.”

“Then don’t stare at me. You make me uncomfortable.”

“I was noticing. You have a heart of oak,” she said finally. “Probably got a head to match, though.” She saw that the knuckles of his right hand were scraped, dripping dark sap.

“I’m fine,” he told her. But he could sense that something had changed between them. For the first time, she was looking upon him with kindness and, unless he was imagining it, something altogether more interesting.