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Chapter Twelve;
Spark

Max tapped the desk impatiently, his eyes scanning the report he'd just been emailed, an analysis of the day's events at the Roxon house, courtesy of a still irate Beth Green. Naturally the Witness Protection constable hadn't beat around the bush in her displeasure at Millie's behaviour.

Normally Max would have simply printed the whole thing off and let Millie bear the weight herself, but today he felt strangely more accepting of Millie's stance. She'd proven before that she had a skill for reading people, and the fact that Max agreed with her this time certainly helped sway the cause. He highlighted Beth's two lines on Millie, hit the delete button, and then printed it off. He signed it as it slipped out of the printer and didn't feeling the least bit guilty about it. Beth's report wouldn't go to court anyway so what did it matter?

Max date-stamped it and walked it to the DI's inbox just outside his office door. His timing seemed to be too perfect as DC Hayleigh Spark chose this exact moment to emerge from the office looking like someone had drowned her kitty cat. She glanced at Max as he passed, her face blank as she passed him back towards her desk. Neil followed her from the office frowning briefly at Max as he passed, somewhat questioning about why Max had taken to lurking outside his office during seemingly deep discussion with the out-of-town DC. A DC Max had managed to alienate on more than one occasion.

Max didn't blame the DI for the look, instead simply motioning to the report he'd just placed in the DI's inbox.

"Witness Protection are moving the Roxons again, report just came through. They'll inform us of the new place by the end of the week."

Neil nodded mutely and Max seized the chance to escape back to his desk. "We're going to have a new member join the team on Monday," Neil explained, his attempts to be nonchalant failed as he scanned Beth's (slightly edited) report. "Detective Sergeant Faison from Manchester will be aiding our investigation."

"Keeping an eye on us you mean?" Max muttered, watching Hayleigh flick through a folder, stop, then flick through again. She looked agitated but Max paid her no heed until she spoke.

"Guv, I have a witness report to follow up on, if that's alright with you?"

Neil nodded, barely registering the request. As she stood, grabbed her notepad and rushed from the room, Neil looked at Max. "Go with her, make sure she doesn't get herself in any more trouble." Max made to protest but Neil shook his head. "No Max, just go." With a sigh Max stood and followed her from the room. Neil filed Beth's report then re-entered his office.

"Well he was a charmer, wasn't he?" Stuart hopped back into the car, taking the passenger's seat this time. Stevie was still fuming as she returned to her car and, after making a call to Kingmarsh, had driven off to talk to them, leaving Stuart and Millie with a broadly smiling Libey. He'd excused himself quickly, his moves rushed but in no way alarmed by the DS and PC.

Millie shrugged. "I know a few people who are worse."

Stuart glanced at her but she didn't elaborate, staying silent as she started the car. The rest of the trip was silent until Stuart got a call, turned towards the window and lowered his voice. Her interest piqued, Millie's ears pricked up. "Yeah, did you find anything about her?" Stuart murmured through the response as Millie's mind listed every single name she could think of. If it were case-related then why drop his tone? So who was Stuart talking about? "Where? Mhm, yeah I can meet you there in five. Okay." He hung up, glancing at Millie. "Take Bordlan Avenue." He said nothing else until they came to the corner and Stuart suggested she pull over.

"Need any help sarge?" Millie asked.

Stuart shook his head. "No problems, just drop me here, I gotta go see a man about a dog." He jumped out and started into the pub nearby. Millie just drove off without a second thought, but still she couldn't help wondering what Stuart was hiding from everyone involved.

Max didn't like babysitting, especially not for someone he barely knew like DC Spark, and she didn't seem too happy with the job either. "You don't have to follow me around, I'm not a child."

"This isn't out of choice DC Spark, this is out of necessity. If anything happens to you it's not your head on the chopping block, it's mine."

Hayleigh gave him an incredulous look. "If something happens to me then it most certainly is MY head on the block, literally."

He waved her response off nonchalantly. "You know what I mean."

"Fine, since protecting your job is seemingly all I'm here for, I promise to be good. Now, if it's okay with you, I'm going to retire to the nearest café where I can pretend that in the coming days I won't have to deal with Arthur Faison."

His interest piqued, Max followed her into a small red wallpapered café house with garish red seating and pictures of coffee on the walls. It looked like it had been designed by something with a knack for disgusting and his tongue firmly wedged in his cheek. "Who is this guy anyway and what's your problem with him?"

"His was an old workmate in Manchester. I do, of course, use the term 'mate' sparingly because to be honest the guy had it out for me." She looked away from him for a second to order a large café latte, takeaway. When she turned back she saw Max's frown. "I know it's hard to believe but apparently some people don't automatically warm to me."

Max understood what she meant, but said nothing. "What'd he do though?"

"He didn't do anything exactly, but he set about psyching me out for the rest of my time there, second guessing my work ethic and connections to the Bolt case. When he found out I'd been placed on the investigation instead of him he was furious." Hayleigh picked up a few straws of sugar and started to slap them upon the inside of her wrist as she reminisced. "He had been doing the leg work on the case, I wouldn't deny that, but he was absolutely abysmal when it came to undercover, couldn't lie to save himself. In the real world that's wonderful but I don't think I need to tell you how bad it is when you need to lie on the daily basis to a man who will happily kill you if you don't do exactly what he wants and when. So I was put in instead and Arthur was furious. At first it was little things – snide remarks, a few drive-by visits and even once threatened to charge me right in front of Bolt. Craig 'came to my aid' of course which seemed to make Arthur even more unhappy, I'd won over the suspect in a way he knew he never could, he'd been outdone and he didn't like it."

Max frowned as she took her coffee from the waitress with a smile, opened it and tipped the three sugars inside before blowing into it quickly and repositioning the lid. "So that's why you're worried he's come back?"

Hayleigh laughed coldly. "Oh no, that's not why Arthur Faison worries me." She shrugged. "That's typical 'green-eyed monster' stuff, stuff we can all admit to, but he went further." She sighed. "Faison promised he'd bring me down after the second time Craig got away with minor misdemeanours. He didn't understand why I kept fishing him out; unaware we had bigger fish to fry than a drink-driving offence and a drug possession. Faison didn't know about Natovnia and the connections, wasn't trusted with the information because of past connections, a few crooked friends in olden days. Faison wasn't someone you left your kid with, that's all I'll say, so he wasn't in the loop. When he realised he wasn't, saw that I was getting Bolt away with charges he'd worked hard on, he wasn't happy."

"And?" Max couldn't deny that he was now intrigued.

"He wants to bring me down for corruption, is certain I'm in on the whole thing, that I've gone under." She shrugged. "And when it comes to Arthur Faison who really knows what he's capable of. He's a dangerous man Max, that's all I can be certain of, and he's got his sights set on me."