Hard Rain, Cold Hearts by Niall Illingworth

Author:Niall Illingworth
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781803813080
Publisher: Grosvenor House Publishing
Published: 2022-11-07T11:35:32+00:00

Chapter 13

The light drizzle that had started to fall through the night had now turned to heavier and more persistent rain. Probationary Constable Stuart Carroll did up his top button and pulled up the collar of his waterproof jacket. Standing by the flagpole on the high ground on Queen’s Park southside, he gazed across the twinkling lights of a slumbering city pondering how he would pass the last two hours of tedium before his shift was due to finish. It was now after 5am, and aside from the odd taxi returning revellers home from the clubs of the city centre, the streets of Govanhill and Strathbungo were eerily quiet. Rain, as the old saying goes, is the world’s best policeman, and in the wee small hours of a cold Sunday morning in December, those wise words were proving to be true. There wasn’t a soul about.

The creatures of the night, sheltering deep in the dark woods out of reach from the icy rain, had long since fallen silent, save for the occasional creak of an ancient tree, bending its limbs to the will of the wind. Those guardians of the night, sentinel and strong, watchful while the people sleep, casting long watery shadows by the light of a winters moon.

This, the penultimate night of Constable Carroll’s run of nightshifts was mercifully coming to its end. It was his first block of nightshifts since he had returned from his advanced training course at the Scottish Police College. It was also the first time he had been sent out by his Sergeant to patrol unaccompanied. It was something of a rite of passage for probationary officers to be allowed to be out on their own. It was an unwritten rule that they should do so, only after returning from their advanced training, that came when they had roughly 12 months service. But it was far from a given. If your supervisor didn’t think you were up to it, you would be kept working under the watchful eye of a Tutor Constable for a while longer and, of course, no probationer worth their salt wanted that.

Being let loose on your own was therefore a feather in your cap, it was a sign that you were deemed capable and ready. If anything were to go wrong it could reflect badly on your Sergeant, so the decision to let you ‘fly solo’ was not one that was taken lightly.

For a Saturday night it had been unusually quiet, even allowing for the rain and cold. He’d attended the report of a sneak in theft at the Battlefield Rest where someone had levered open a store door and helped themselves to half a dozen bottles of red wine. Just before his break, he’d assisted other officers deal with a brawl outside the Church on the Hill pub. But since then, he hadn’t had a call. Most of his colleagues, certainly those out on foot patrol, would now be ensconced in a warm howff, out of the rain, drinking tea, before it would be time to head back to the office for the debrief and home time.

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