A Walk With the Dead by Sally Spencer Page A

Jeffries replied evasively.
    â€˜I mean the sheets on which you keep a record of which officer is on duty at which particular time.’
    â€˜That would be me – or one of the junior officers working under my supervision,’ Jeffries admitted.
    â€˜I’d like to see all the ones relating to the times Jeremy Templar was attacked,’ Baxter said.
    â€˜I don’t really see the point of that,’ Jeffries replied.
    â€˜You will – if you really put your mind to it,’ Baxter promised him.
    There was no sign on the corner table in the public bar of the Drum and Monkey to say that it was reserved, but then there didn’t need to be. The regular customers got vicarious pleasure from seeing DCI Paniatowski and her team in deep and urgent discussion on – say – a Tuesday night, and then reading about her making an arrest in the evening newspaper on Wednesday. They knew she wasn’t
their
bobby – that she was nobody’s bobby but her own – but occasionally, when they gently pointed non-regulars to another table, they could not help feeling a little pride over the fact they were, in some small way, contributing to the investigation.
    The whole team was at the table that Sunday lunchtime, and Paniatowski looked at them all with the fondness of a mother hen who knows she has raised some very fine chicks.
    There was DI Colin Beresford, whom she had worked with since he had been a young detective constable, and she had been a sergeant. A big, solid man in his early thirties, he was her best friend, and though he had almost gone off the rails in their last investigation, she would trust him with her life.
    There was fresh-faced and film-star-handsome DC Jack Crane, who she sometimes thought of as barely out of nappies, while fully acknowledging the fact that she would not be in the least surprised if she ended up working for him.
    And there was DS Kate Meadows, the newest member of the team, and her bagman. Kate was still something of a mystery. She had a sex life that Paniatowski couldn’t even begin to comprehend, but was gradually learning to accept. She had the cavalier investigative style of someone who was working for her own amusement, rather than because she needed the money. And she had an expensive taste in clothes that she should never have been able to indulge on a DS’s salary. A mystery then – but a bloody fine bobby, for all that.
    Paniatowski became aware of the fact that the rest of the team were watching her, and waiting for her to speak,
    â€˜I don’t want to put a jinx on the search by assuming it will end with what Superintendent Potter chooses to call a “negative result”,’ she said, ‘but we have to accept the fact that Jill’s been missing for over eighteen hours.’ She paused to take a deep breath. ‘That means that the prospects don’t look good, and if things do turn out badly, we need to be ready.’
    â€˜I’ve already informed the divisional commanders that we may be drawing on them for manpower,’ Beresford said.
    Paniatowski nodded. ‘Good. If the worst does come to the worst, I’ll want your lads to trace Jill’s movements from the time she left the wedding.’ She took a drag on her cigarette. ‘Kate, your job will be to go to Jill’s school, and find out what you can about the parts of her life that her mother probably has no idea of. And before you ask,’ she continued, turning to Crane, ‘the reason I’m sending Sergeant Meadows is because most of the information she’ll gather will probably come from the girls.’
    â€˜I don’t quite follow, boss,’ Crane admitted.
    â€˜It’s not your fault, but you have an effect on girls of a certain age,’ Paniatowski said. ‘They quite lose their heads when they’re talking to you. And don’t deny it – because I’ve seen it happen.’
    Crane grinned