The Trespasser

The other thing Ds are good at, as well as using their own instincts: wrecking other people’s. Suspects don’t make mistakes because they’re morons, or at least not all of them. They make mistakes because we know how to baffle them into it. Someone wants me to make a mistake. And I’m a couple of hundred miles out to sea with all my systems going hay

When I finally, when we finally . . . that was when I realised: she honest to God cared about me. She . . . It . . .’ A quick involuntary catch of breath. ‘That blew me away. Just blew me away.’ The wonder in his voice. He sounds like a teenager, lifting with joy and amazement, he sounds so tender you could bruise him with one wrong touch. Time aft

After a long minute, the line of Lucy’s spine resets. She’s not gonna cry or puke, not now anyway; she’s got other things to do. I’m pretty sure she’s just decided to lie to us.

Lucy wants us to know Aislinn, or at least her version of Aislinn; wants it badly. Sometimes we get that: the friends and family want to shove a holy innocent in our faces, so we won’t think this was all the vic’s fault. Usually they do it when they think it was at least partly the vic’s fault. Aislinn shagging a married man might be enough to do t

Your fifth option is to drop a couple of hints and get in on the action. Maybe you actually want to join in the fun; maybe you just want a little off the top of the other guy’s kickback, in exchange for keeping your mouth shut. I don’t like money enough to sell myself for it, and I don’t like anything enough to tie my life to some scumbag who’s alr

Just for a second, like a fool, I get my hopes up. If a case comes in through the gaffer, instead of through our admin straight to the squad room, it’s because it’s something special. Something that’s going to be so high-profile, or so tough, or so delicate, it can’t just go to whoever’s next on the rota; it needs the right people. One straight fro

Gary is ten years older than me and perfect for his job. A big chunk of Missing Persons is getting people who stay far from cops to talk to you – street hookers to tell you about the new girl who matches that teenager on the news, homeless addicts to drop by and mention the guy who tried to sleep on their patch last night and looked a lot like that

Me and my partner are finishing up another night shift, the kind I used to think wouldn’t exist on the Murder squad: a massive scoop of boring and a bigger one of stupid, topped off with an avalanche of paperwork. Two scumbags decided to round off their Saturday night out by using another scumbag’s head as a dance mat, for reasons that are clear to

Dozens and dozens of people, they just keep coming, and every single one of their heads is crammed with stories they believe and stories they want to believe and stories someone else has made them believe, and every story is battering against the thin walls of the person’s skull, drilling and gnawing for its chance to escape and attack someone else