Harry found Dempsey on a terrace around the back of the building. It's one of several places for illicit coffee and fags, although a kind soul brought in some plants and there's a bench, on which to enjoy the views over this ever-changing view of London. A collection of cranes arch up over the skyline of the docks as a symbol of how crime catching is changing and with it, their jobs and lives too.
This troubling case was making them work hard mentally and she sensed that it's some of Dempsey's frustration. The forbidding feeling of being trapped in the building with the threat isn't unusual but the proximity was unnerving. So much more of what they do seems bedded in the psychology of the criminal. It's where Dempsey excels at, and she'd seen it when they first tackled Keith Ryman.
Harry hesitated and then with the confidence that comes from really knowing her partner, she spoke his name softly from the doorway.
This guy is close, Harry. I can feel it." He looked up at her, his green eyes glinting in the light and she sees how tired he is. "I know it."
She nodded and sat next to him, pushing her hair from her eyes so she can look at him properly. "It's all the more reason to take Spikings' help."
"His orders." Dempsey grumbled but he's quieter; she knows he's giving in serious consideration.
"He's our boss." She reminded him gently as he stood up and paced the small space, like an animal caged, marking what he could whilst he had some freedom.
"I'm not sitting at home pretending this isn't happening." He said finally.
"Nobody has said you need to do that, James. Work on what you know and leave the leg-work with Chas. Just this once."
He rolled his shoulders, his neck clicked audibly. "Do they really think I'd kill my colleagues?"
Harry paused, she felt it was a low shot by their boss when Dempsey least needed it, "People aren't thinking straight…"
"Yank gone and lost it this time huh?" Dempsey's voice was light but she knew him too well. His entire body looked coiled and taut, it wouldn't take much for him to react.
'I suppose I'd better start going to the gents with you then?" Harry chanced a smile which was briefly returned.
He looked hurt as he thought over the heated exchange, "If they thought I'd hurt you…"
"They'll find the killer. It's not as if just anyone can wander into the building. Spikings and Chas can take this. You didn't sleep last night."
"I've got my report to finish." He looked over the view and then back to her impatience taking over. "There's something I'm missing. I need to figure it out. If I'm not on the case, I can't."
"You don't have a choice. Spikings meant it."Harry brushed his shoulder and then reached to move his errant fringe from his eyes. "Go home and get some sleep. The report will write itself a lot better if you do."
"In a bit." He said and paused."If I'm under protection, I can't just turn up at yours, they'll ask why."
To that she had no answer.
XXX
Richard Owen was two floors down from Spikings office, working at his computer as the software tracked the phone lines to SI-10. He was the best in the team at this sort of work. Fiddly stuff and the computer was prone to crashing but he had the patience that his colleagues lacked. In a fatalistic way, he was recognised for the boring jobs.
He sat, Walkman stuffed in his ears and his fingers on the keyboard actually listening to nothing much apart from Spikings berating someone on the phone line. The software was working so he could hang up. Then there was a voice.
"Sir, he'll take the protection but I'd like to be one of the team…. it makes sense…" It's Harriet Makepeace. He likes her soft and precise tones, there's something so right about them.
"Hotheaded…bloody Yank." He heard Gordon Spikings respond and then listens closer.
Dempsey was being taken off the case and given protection? Blamed for the killings. What a load of codswallop, as his mother would say. Owen peered over his cubicle and wondered what went through his colleagues minds. He felt faintly angry at this turn of events and wondered if the American needed any help.
It was all very well Spikings sending his two detectives off. Owen heard about Makepeace getting kidnapped by a man who shot himself in his van. That, Owen thought, was the oddest thing of all. How the bosses in this place used their teams but were happy to place the blame on them when it went wrong too.
XXX
Dempsey looked up from his phone, as he checked to see if the blip of the tracker was audible at his end. Makepeace turned with a frown at Dave who stood before them. /p
"I've been assigned as your protection." Their colleague stood up, still inches shorter than Dempsey and not so bulky in his suit. Harry glanced at her partner and then back to Dave and was tempted to ask him where his sunglasses were. It was rather laughable. Dempsey was by far a better shot, and so was she. But in Dave's favour he was good at karate and a fast runner. But then again so was her partner.
"You are my protection?" Dempsey looked at him with barely concealed impatience.
'Security if you want." Dave replied shifting on his feet.
"Forget it." Dempsey got to his feet and looked at Harry and spoke tersely, "She's my security."
Dave blocked his exit. "I'm under orders from Spikings to not let you out of my sight on my shift which starts now and ends at ten when your next babysitter takes over."
Dempsey sneered, "Crock of shite."
Dave leaned back with a sigh. To his horror, he realised belatedly that there was a second exit and Dempsey had already moved through it, his long legs eating up the hallway as his security chased him./p
