A Mark Of Imperfection by Rhys Dylan

Author:Rhys Dylan [Dylan, Rhys]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781915185105
Published: 2023-01-15T13:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

JESS DROVE ON AUTOMATIC, mulling over Warlow’s words as she hit the M4 at Llansamlet and pointed the Jeep west. Molly would say she’d lucked out by ending up working with him and, if asked, she would have to agree. Solid, dependable, able to think outside the box. All the things that KFC wasn’t. All the things Rick – she tried not to call him ‘Tricky Ricky’, Jess’s current epithet for Molly’s father – was not. She sucked in a lungful of air and let it out, slowly. Evan had her back should anything untoward come up in the investigation while she was trying to sort out the mess her life had become.

Warlow was right about lots of things, though he had his quirks. Some of them admirable, others, not so. His continued psychological battle with his ‘condition’, as he liked to call it, was one of the least understandable and most frustrating. Becoming HIV positive after getting deliberately stuck by a junkie’s contaminated needle was real bad luck. She’d chatted to a few doctors she knew. All nonchalant stuff. Vague enquiries, off the record. Needle stick injuries, even in the most careful of surgeons, were not that uncommon. But developing HIV from a contaminated hypodermic was, according to them, extremely rare.

Warlow wasn’t stupid. One of his sons was an ENT surgeon. But the fact was, Warlow caught the virus. He’d been the one case in a thousand. Concern over how that might impact his colleagues in the Force was the driver for him retiring early. Not so much the stigma of other people knowing, more the anxiety of worrying over scenarios whereby he, Warlow, might be responsible for further transmission.

Police officers dealt with violent individuals. Injuries came with the territory. Warlow’s contaminated blood remained a constant concern whenever he cut himself or got cut by others. But he’d got over that minor hurdle, with Jess and Superintendent Buchannan’s encouragement.

There were other means of transmission, of course. Other body fluids that could be exchanged. She’d touched on that with him. Gently hinting that there was no real reason for him to play the celibate hermit. She had colleagues and friends who lived with HIV. Some of them had families. It wasn’t a terminal illness anymore.

But in Warlow’s case, the psychological damage seemed much greater than the physical. The man hadn’t even told his sons yet. He’d need more help on that front.

Jess shook her head. She was a fine one criticising other people. Her own dirty laundry was nothing to write home about, even if it wasn’t her fault.

At least she didn’t think it was. She’d spent too much time mulling over the reasons her husband of twenty years had seen fit to indulge in some rumpy-pumpy in a Manchester Police station with a buxom sergeant. Friends had consoled her by saying that men were all animals at the base level. Driven by lust, the physiological need to procreate. If that was meant in any way to excuse his behaviour, it fell on deaf ears on the female side of the Allanby family.

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