Read Online Backlash by Sally Spencer - Free Book Online

them around the house.’
    â€˜Would you like to go for a drink tonight, sir?’ Meadows asked, out of nowhere.
    â€˜We always go for a drink when we’re in the middle of an investigation,’ Beresford said. ‘We’ve done some of our best thinking at the Drum.’
    â€˜I didn’t mean that, sir,’ Meadows said. She paused, as if considering exactly how to phrase what she wanted to say next. ‘You do know I’ve only just been posted to the Mid Lancs Division, don’t you?’
    â€˜Of course.’
    â€˜Well, I’ve got my flat set up – it’s small but it’s nice and cosy – and I’ve worked out where to go to do my shopping and where to take my dry cleaning.’
    â€˜Yes?’
    â€˜So I’m pretty much settled in. But I still don’t know anybody – socially, I mean. And so I thought it might be quite nice if you and I went out for a drink. Unless you think that might be inappropriate – what with you being my superior officer and everything.’
    â€˜No, it’s not inappropriate,’ Beresford said. ‘I often go out for a drink with the boss, even when we’re not working on a case.’
    â€˜Yes, but the boss is older than you, isn’t she?’
    â€˜And what do you mean by that?’
    â€˜Just that, since she is an older woman, there are not likely to be any complications, are there?’
    â€˜And do you see any complications in us going out together?’ Beresford asked, as his heart began to beat a little bit faster.
    â€˜I don’t know,’ Meadows said – and this time, when she used the phrase, she really was being honest. ‘Neither of us can know. We’ll just have to try it and see how it turns out, won’t we. If you’re willing, that is.’
    â€˜Oh, I’m willing,’ Beresford said – though he knew that he shouldn’t.

SEVEN
    T he tailback began about half a mile from the Piper’s Brook roundabout. Had Paniatowski wished to, she could have turned on her siren and shot along the hard shoulder. Instead, she chose to edge slowly forward with the rest of the frustrated motorists, because it gave her time to think, to examine what she’d learned – and to ask herself if she was seeing it as she should see it, or whether she was viewing it through a lens darkened by something that had happened long ago.
    At about a hundred yards from the roundabout, the two lanes shrank down to one, and she could almost hear the groans from the other drivers trapped in their own metal boxes on wheels.
    Several uniformed officers were on duty, waving the vehicles through to a twisting lane marked by bollards. Paniatowski swung to the right and parked on the hard shoulder.
    She was just climbing out of the MGA when one of the uniformed bobbies strode furiously towards her.
    â€˜What’s your problem?’ he called from the distance. ‘Are you blind? Or are you just stupid?’
    He was probably twenty-two or twenty-three, Paniatowski thought, as she watched him draw closer, and though that made him too young to possibly be the officer who had called Elaine Kershaw a pathetic dyke, he was cast from the same mould.
    â€˜You’re new to the force, aren’t you?’ she asked.
    â€˜That’s none of your bloody business, luv,’ the constable said.
    â€˜You should call me “madam”,’ Paniatowski told him. ‘I am, after all, a member of the public who you’ve sworn to serve.’
    â€˜You’ve got a nerve,’ the constable told her. ‘You’re too thick to obey simple instructions, and yet you expect me to call you . . .’
    He stopped, abruptly, when he saw the warrant card Paniatowski was holding out in front of her.
    â€˜All right,’ she conceded, ‘don’t call me “madam” – call me “ma’am”.’
    The constable looked down at the