It was quieter in the office than normal, Rose thinking now the excitement had died down everyone was hoping for an easy ride but she'd had a taste and now wanted more. In her last station she had been given menial tasks which was why she'd found someone to sponsor her for detective constable – the quiet life was not for her. She wanted to be the middle of it like all the TV cop show re-runs from the seventies but they didn't make them like that any more, the only one she still liked was one about a New York detective and a mystery writer but one about a female deputy chief was her second favourite.
Watching such shows growing up had made her more determined to become part of it. She was thinking about what could happen next to make things more exciting when Alec Hardy stood in front of her without her realising so she pretended she was reading through some old case files. She had learnt at her last post how to look like you were doing something even if you weren't and get away with but she wasn't fooling him for a minute.
"Tyler, my office."
Rose got up and followed him after picking up her notebook and pen. She liked to get everything in writing in case someone changed their mind and tried to trip her up.
"You won't be needing that," Alec quipped, switching off his monitor and rubbing his eyes since he'd not been wearing his specs.
Rose knew he'd given the game away he should be wearing them but didn't want to be seen.
Alec continued. "So, DC Tyler, quite an entrance you made last week, that gang had been taking thousands of pounds from pensioners, well done."
"Thank you Sir, it was just a matter of watching them, DS Moore was an easy mark for them and when he planted that homing device, it was all cut and dried."
"Yes, well he said he could not have done it without you so make the most of it, they won't all be as easy as that. I have read your record, you were not content being a WPC?"
"No Sir, the male officers treated me like the tea lady, I could have got an office job if I'd wanted that."
"Well your training officer spoke very highly of you so let us hope you can prove yourself again. I expect certain things from my DC, the last one did not see things my way."
Rose thought the rumours going around had been right then when his last one suddenly decided he missed his girlfriend after three months. She was going to need her notebook after all, Alec thinking it was amusing as he rattled off a list in rapid succession, making her head spin.
"Excuse me Sir, can I have a chance to write that down, I don't want to make any mistakes."
"Going too fast for you am I?" he asked, raising his eyebrows as she tried to keep up.
"If you don't mind me saying, you don't give people chance to take things in. I'm not trying to be rude."
"Point taken Tyler, maybe I should spell each one out for you?"
"That's not necessary Sir," she replied, thinking this was a good start and he would now make her life a misery.
"Finished?" he asked as she clicked the pen off.
Rose tried not to blush.
"Now you have finished writing down the finer points, I have some unwritten rules of my own. I do not use any junior officer as the tea lady for one thing and another, I expect my DC to keep up with me at all times. Understood?"
Rose gulped. She had really put her foot in it now. He would surely go on at ninety miles an hour and look at her like she had dribbled all down her blue shirt.
He continued. "I expect my officers to be smart, women to wear trousers so I get no reports of sexual harassment filed and if you don't wear a tie, only one shirt button undone, not several, then I get no reports of male officers trying to look down them? Clear?"
She nodded, wondering if that was why his wife got so jealous, since all last week she'd worn a skirt and noticed all the other women wore grey or black trousers.
Alec dismissed her, saying he was going out later and for her to go with him and she was driving so she picked up her desk phone and got the transport sergeant to have a car ready at two. She was glad when it was lunch time, she had to leave early to get some breakfast in the canteen since it was a fraction of the cost compared to the local cafes and that had seemed hours ago.
As she sat at a table, two other female officers came to join her.
"You escaped the lion's den then?" one of them asked
"Yeah, he was giving me a list of do's and don'ts, not that I've not heard them before but he seemed to enjoy laying down the office rules. I don't know why he just doesn't print them out and stick them on the wall."
"You'll just have to get used to him love. Annie and I just stay away from him when we can. So have you had 'The' lecture from his wife yet?"
With a mouthful of mashed potatoes, Rose shook her head.
Annie and the other officer, Peggy, nudged each other.
"Oh, that will come, trust me. You know why you got to replace his other DC?"
"No," Rose admitted before she took another bite of her slice of steak pie, which she thought was the best she had ever tasted.
"She warned everyone off and so the chief only assigns him male DC's but one just left and the others that are still here are all single with no girlfriend and she thinks they'll encourage him to wander off, not that anyone would blame him, poor bloke. I hate to think what she's like at home. Watch out, she's here. I expect she'll be going on about her daughter's birthday again."
"I heard her last week, she was looking for someone who knew where to hire an entertainer or something," Rose replied.
"Daft cow, can't she entertain her own daughter?" Annie asked quietly as Tess held her tray, trying to find her husband, who was still in the relative safety of his office and was planning on eating when she'd finished.
"I heard all is not well with their domestic arrangements, if you know what I mean?" Peggy asked, pretending she'd not seen Tess, who had given up looking for Alec and was looking for any spare seat where someone would talk to her.
The only spare seats were where DS Dave Harris and his mates were sitting and she didn't fancy that, well maybe Dave on his own, he was her only ally in the place, then she saw the chair next to Rose.
"Mind if I sit here?" Tess asked, taking things off her tray and putting it at the side of the table.
"No, I'm almost done," Rose told her as the other two looked across at her while Tess was messing with her cup of tea.
"So, did DI Hardy talk to you about what he expects from you being his DC?" Tess asked casually.
"Yes Ma'am, he did."
"Good, if you have any problems, come and see me, he can be quite challenging. He expects people to keep up with him and never gives them a chance, no wonder Jones couldn't get out fast enough last Friday."
Rose just hoped she didn't bring up the subject of having to give her a ride home in the cab last Friday night, not that people wouldn't have seen her leaving with them and the look on Tess's face as Alec had allowed Rose to go in front of him. Rose also hoped the DS wouldn't start giving her a lecture in public about keeping her hands off the DI.
Rose was just finishing her coffee when Dave Harris had got up and had to pass by their table.
"Afternoon ladies. Tess, you could have sat with us or do you prefer the lower ranks?"
Rose was about to tell him who did he think he was calling the lower ranks but Peggy mouthed a 'Don't' to her across the table.
"Why would I want to sit with your cronies DS Harris?" Tess replied, Rose noticing she'd left him out of it.
"Suit yourself, maybe the gossip is juicier over here?"
"Maybe it is? Don't let me keep you."
Rose swore the way they looked at each other was a bit suspicious but surely she wouldn't have anything to do with him, when she was giving female officers single and married the 'back off' treatment? She went to the ladies room and was just coming out as Alec was about to go into the men's.
"We keep doing this Tyler," he half smiled, looking around in case his wife was hiding somewhere.
"Yes Sir and I apologise for inferring you go on too fast, I should keep up."
"You at least admitted it, maybe that is where I go wrong with any other officer assigned to me?"
"It's not my place to say Sir."
"Yes, well. Was my wife in the canteen by any chance?"
Rose wanted to say yes, flirting with DS Harris but thought better of it, he probably chatted all the higher ranking officers up but DS Henchard was not looking that flustered and there again, she was a cool character to start off with, if she went around warning other women off.
"Yes Sir, she was at my table. She was still there five minutes ago, I was sat with two other DC's though they may have also left."
"Oh, maybe I will wait then, she might be talking with them?"
Rose also wanted to say they would probably be glad to be rescued but he looked like he was the one who needed the rescuing.
"Maybe Sir. Excuse me, I should get back to work."
"Going through old cases?"
"Someone has to, what about all the families who've had no closure after losing their loved ones? It's one of the reasons I joined the police. My old boyfriend lost his dad, no-one knew what happened to him. They thought he'd gone to Spain but there was no proof."
"Sometimes Tyler, people just disappear without a trace, no-one can do anything about it."
"I like to think I can try."
"That's very commendable Tyler but some of them are lost causes, you have to learn the difference."
Rose excused herself before she told him that was why she'd been sent there, to learn from the benefit of his experience but when all said and done, she was there to learn but maybe just not by him.
Tess had given up and was about to leave when she saw Alec join the short queue at the counter, which had reminded Rose of the school canteen and the short spell she'd had before being accepted to the police training academy as a dinner lady. Tess went by the queue and grabbed his arm.
"Where have you been Alec? I was looking for you."
"Finishing some work, I have to go out later."
"With your new DC?"
"I need her to drive, you know I don't use my car for work."
"Some poor excuse that is, maybe you should get the chief to give you your own?"
"Why when someone can drive me? You are going to be late back."
He shrugged her hand away and turned to get served, asking for the special, which Rose had already sampled.
Tess huffed and went back to her office – if Tyler was taking him out for the first time, she was going to get the full works of how she was expected to behave, well as far as Alec was concerned anyway.
Ten minutes before two, Rose was called to Tess's office.
"So, you're driving DI Hardy around as well?"
"Yes. Is that a problem?"
"Don't let it become one. Take him where he's going and wait in the car unless he tells you otherwise and from tomorrow, you're expected to wear trousers to work. You do have some?"
"Yes Ma'am but it was warm, I prefer to wear a skirt."
"Well get some thinner trousers suitable for work. Did he not tell you?"
"Yes Ma'am, earlier, I was not told on Friday wearing trousers was a requirement."
Rose wanted to scream out that the officer would be better off in the fashion police, not the criminal investigation department of Sandbrook West Police Station.
Rose went down to collect an unmarked car as Alec waited by the front entrance and he got in the front passenger seat and put the seatbelt on.
"Where are we going Sir?" Rose asked, putting the car in the 'Drive' position, thankful she'd been able to get an automatic.
"Just drive Tyler, I will give you directions."
Rose set off thinking he'd better know where he was going, she only knew the route the bus took twice a day. He gave her instructions until he finally told her to stop in front of a school.
"This is my daughter's school Tyler, her name is Daisy. If for any reason my wife or myself cannot collect her or if her grandmother cannot be contacted, I will authorise you to be allowed to do so and you will bring her to the station. Understood?"
Rose was a bit surprised he was trusting her already with such a task.
"Understood Sir."
Alec got his wallet out and showed her a small school photo.
"She's very pretty Sir, how old is she?"
"She will be twelve on Friday. Have you not heard my wife talking about it in the canteen? You must be the only one."
"I don't listen to conversations I'm not a part of Sir."
Alec raised his eyebrows again and Rose wished he'd stop doing it.
"So you were being polite last Friday night and joining in with two tables of conversations?"
"That was an exception, I was expected to join in. I had been working with DS Moore all last week, I was sorry to see him leave."
"You would have preferred to have stayed partnered with him?"
"Yeah, he was nice and I learned a lot, I'd not really done any surveillance before."
"Then what did you do at your last station?"
"Make the tea?" Rose laughed, then straightened her face.
Alec had seen the funny side.
"Well, you had better get used to some real police work Tyler, no time for making the tea now."
"Is that why I was given another pile of folders to go through where cases had not been solved?" she asked, as more had been placed on her desk after her conversation with him earlier.
"You admitted you did not like to see people not getting justice, it should keep you busy. If you find anything interesting, tell me."
"Yes Sir, I will."
"Did my wife speak to you earlier?"
"Yeah but it's not my place to repeat what she told me."
"She gave you one of her 'keep off my husband' speeches then?"
"Did she need to?"
"She does it with every female officer who enters the building Tyler. You are not the first and certainly not the last."
"So it's not you she doesn't trust, she doesn't trust how women react around you?"
"Something like that. You can take us back now before the school report we are watching. Do not tell my wife we were here, understood?"
"Understood Sir but can I ask you, why does she feel she has to warn women off?"
"Just drive Tyler. The other reason I brought you here, which was a longer way around, was to test your driving abilities and to test you could take directions, without a satnav or a map. You never turned the satnav on."
"Well maybe it was because you said you would give directions – Sir?"
Alec let it slide, he'd just asked for that.
"So what do I tell her when she asks where I took you?" Rose wanted to know as she dropped him at the main entrance.
"Tell her to ask me and you work for me, not her. From now on, you tell her nothing about what I ask you to do or where you take me, clear?"
"Crystal Sir. I won't tell her anything then but she won't report me will she?"
"Only to me, the chief will throw her out and tell her to get a grip. Trust me, he is past listening to her gripes about me."
Tess had been livid when first Rose had gone out, followed two minutes later by Alec, putting his jacket on. He'd been out so fast that'd he'd gone before she got to her office door. Right, she would ask Tyler when she got back where they had been but as Alec passed her office when he got back, he burst in announced.
"Stop interrogating my DC Tess, I mean it."
"What are you going on about Alec?"
"You know very well. Where I go is my business, I do not interfere with what you are working on."
"That's a laugh, I'm the chief's personal secretary these days, handing out assignments for him when he finally makes his mind up. I wish we'd got that other one now, at least he had some idea how to run his staff."
"It's not our place to judge the chief, think yourself lucky it keeps you occupied with enough free time to go pick up Daisy after school."
"About that Alec, we really need some arrangements if my mother can't collect her if there's an emergency."
"I already have it covered, don't ask any questions. Now about Tyler, back off Tess, I give her orders, not you."
"Well excuse me. You stop looking at her then, like you do all the others and don't think I've forgotten we had to give her a ride home last Friday, it almost cost me another hour with the sitter."
"Don't go on about it Tess, she could not afford a taxi, she just moved here."
"It should be cheaper than where she just came from."
"Maybe it is but how about extending a welcome to her?"
"She seems to be doing ok on that score Alec. She was talking with Walker and Ashby in the canteen."
Alec was going to say before she butted in probably, knowing her she'd have seen he wasn't there and picked on someone who was too afraid to tell her to sit elsewhere. From now on, he planned taking his lunch later, since everyone stared at them and expected an argument to break out, now they didn't keep them exclusively at home for fear of upsetting Daisy.
Rose had come back in and gone to her desk, seeing Alec standing over Tess's desk and her sitting back in the chair. She just hoped now she'd been partnered with him, he wasn't going to bring all his complaints about his wife with him whenever they went out.
