Watching the Dark (Inspector Banks Mystery) by Robinson Peter

Author:Robinson, Peter [Robinson, Peter]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hachette Littlehampton
Published: 2012-08-15T18:30:00+00:00

‘What little secret would that be?’ Banks asked.

‘Nobody wants to stay in Professional Standards for ever. Annie Cabbot didn’t; I don’t. As you know, it’s not possible, anyway. There’s a strict time limit on the job.’

‘Don’t tell me you want to work Major Crimes,’ said Banks.

‘Well, I’d like something a bit more juicy than PS, yes, and something that earns me a bit more respect from my fellow officers.’

‘And this is a way of getting some on the job experience? In the back door, so to speak.’

‘Something like that. Believe or not, I asked for this job. I wanted the opportunity to work with you.’

‘You were out to get me from the start?’

‘No, you idiot. Stop it. I’m not out to get you, I’m out to learn from you. You might not be aware of it, but you have a reputation, whether you know it or not. Yes, you’re a bit of a maverick and all the rest, and as I’ve just found out, you have a cruel and selfish streak, too, but you’re generally thought of around the county as a pretty damn good detective. Just don’t let it go to your head.’

‘I should have known. Gervaise is grooming you. She’s—’

Joanna waved him aside. ‘She is doing no such thing. She gave me an opportunity to work with you, said if I was lucky I might pick up a few pointers on how a homicide investigation is conducted. That’s all.’

‘But she does know about your ambitions, and she was willing to encourage them?’

‘Area Commander Gervaise is an enlightened woman. We could do with more like her around the place.’

Banks liked and respected Catherine Gervaise, but he had never quite thought of her in that way. He sat in silence for a moment, digesting what he’d just heard, joining the dots. Why hadn’t he figured this out before, right from the start, at that meeting in Gervaise’s office? It gave him choices he hadn’t considered before. He could either continue being an arsehole and leave Joanna out in the cold, or he could make use of her, work her hard, test her skills, treat her as a member of the murder team and try to forget the Professional Standards angle, see if she had the makings of a good homicide detective.

But could she forget the Professional Standards angle? Banks doubted it. He didn’t care if she found out that Quinn was bent. If he was corrupt, then his corruption deserved to be exposed, especially if it had spread to others close to him and allowed a toerag like Corrigan to thrive. Besides, Quinn was dead. What could they do to him now except cloud his reputation? And what was a dead copper’s reputation worth to start with? The ones who found out would soon forget; the rest would neither know nor care. The ones who would be hurt most would be his two children, and they were grown-up enough, resilient enough, to deal with it in time. He already knew

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