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Miles watches Joe at the end of the Ripper case. He watches him on the phone, pacing back and forth, completely given over to the moment.
'I'm all PR and paperwork'.
And Miles feels a small shoot of pride take root.
It's the first time in a long time. Years since they had a decent DI. Not some fast track graduate policeman but a proper one. The kind of copper who thinks on his feet, and runs down leads, and shouts at people to get the job done but only when it's the right time and the right place.
McCormack tells him later about Kent taking charge. Maybe 'cause Kent had the phone. Maybe 'cause Kent had the boss's ear. It doesn't matter. Miles lies in his hospital bed with a hole in his liver and thinks about Kent and Chandler, and who he'd like chasing his murderer if someone ever manages to finally do him in.
McCormack laughed, of course, but Miles is less given to laughing at people. Kent's the kid of the group. He's still green. He goes out to carparks and bogs and cries after bad cases. But Kent is clever. Like the Inspector.
Miles knows all about that kind of cleverness. It's not just intelligence, because God knows anybody can be intelligent. There are idiots up at the Yard who can give you any statistic you like. But when you're out on the bloody street in the early hours of the morning, scratching your head over a dead body and trying to figure out which bastard did it, statistics aren't much good as evidence.
After all, nine times out of ten, a mugging looks like a mugging because it's a mugging. And nine times out of ten a domestic looks like a domestic because it is a domestic. But the last time, it wasn't. And you only need that one chance that it isn't to make the difference between a copper and a good copper.
For the first time in a long time Miles lies back in his bed, and he thinks about his DI in the little glass walled office. He thinks about Chandler, with his things neatly lined up on the desk and his tiger balm in his pocket; he thinks of Kent in a new three piece suit, brushing off the tears and coming back every morning, no matter what, and he feels he can take a couple of days of rest.
Only a few, though. He can just imagine what'll happen with no one there to keep an eye on things.
And besides, he grins, things down at the station have only just got interesting.