Nasreen couldn’t help but stare as Freddie left the room with him. What was that about?
Nasreen had to stop this fixation with Burgone. Superintendent Prue Lewis’s disciplinary words played over in her mind: ‘I forbid my officers to have relationships with their colleagues because it ruins their careers. Especially the women. People will always assume you got to where you are because of who you slept with, Nasreen. You will have to work twice as hard to prove them wrong now.’ Nasreen couldn’t let her own mistakes stand in the way of doing the job she loved. She had to believe she was still of use. The tension in her stomach solidified into a hard, heavy millstone. The pretty fifteen-year-old Amber Robertson was Nasreen’s shot at redemption, if she could find her.
Fifteen years old and on the run. It’d make a good film, but it was bleak in real life. Freddie wanted to look into Amber Robertson more; no one else seemed that bothered about the missing girl. She still didn’t get that about police: how could they just compartmentalise all this shit? She opened Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat on her phone. Would a fifteen-year-old really give those up as well as everything else? She herself wouldn’t, and she had nearly ten years on her.
‘I’ve just come from a meeting with the Superintendent,’ Burgone was saying.
She tapped in Amber Robertson and pressed search. A number of profile squares appeared on Facebook. One looked familiar: same girl, same hat. Freddie clicked.
Burgone was still talking and she’d tuned out: ‘And so you can see my problem,’ he finished. His face had a look of concern on it.
Her gut twisted. ‘Sorry, what did you say?’
He sighed. ‘I feared you might find it difficult to hear.’ His sharp navy-suited arms rested authoritatively on the table. His face solemn. ‘We’re having to make cutbacks. I’m sorry, Freddie, but I no longer have the budget for a full time Intelligence Analyst.’
What? ‘Is this a wind-up?’ Burgone had offered her this role when she was broke, and she’d been surprised to discover she loved it. Putting together the pieces of the puzzle. Making a difference. She’d found the link between the Spice Road website and the Tower Hamlets Massive. She could find Amber Robertson. And now he was going to take it away from her? Hell, no. ‘You approached me.’
‘And you’ve done a brilliant job,’ he said.
‘Do you know how late I stayed working on that Paul Robertson lead?’ She was up out of her chair now. Throwing an accusatory finger at him. Burgone’s eyebrows had reacted, but he’d kept the rest of him admirably still.
‘I appreciate you’re upset, Freddie.’
She thought of his privilege, his entitlement. What she’d done trying to scrape together enough for a bloody rental deposit. The fallout to the L word this morning. Had that been a mistake? Now was not the time to think about that. Burgone had probably never worried about money in his life. ‘I don’t think you do, mate.’
‘I will always be grateful for what you did for me and my family.’ Burgone looked uncomfortable whenever he mentioned how they first met: a tense investigation involving his sister.
‘I did what anyone would have done,’ she said, cutting him off. Did he really think she would try and hold it over him? ‘I don’t know how you were raised, but I was brought up to help people when they’re in trouble.’ She thought of the embarrassment in her mum’s eyes when she’d found out that her dad had pinched the money she’d been scraping together for Freddie. Gone in an optic. Literally pissed against a wall. The anger fizzled out. Burgone wasn’t the enemy.
‘I haven’t finished yet, Freddie. I’ve given it a lot of thought, and there is a way I can make it work with the budget. But it will require effort on your behalf.’
She slumped back into the chair. ‘I can’t work any more hours.’ The booze had gone months ago: too expensive, too risky. She often wondered what her dad would have been like if he’d been broke as a lad. If rent was as high as it was now. Would he have become an alcoholic sooner, or never succumbed in the first place? ‘Go on then, spill?’
‘I can afford to keep you on part-time as an Intelligence Analyst. But I also have funding for another different part-time role.’
‘That makes no sense,’ she said.
‘It’s down to how funding is allocated.’
‘Bloody government, screwing everything up as usual,’ she said.
Burgone had shifted his attention to a pile of papers on his desk, looking for the right form. ‘I have budget for a Civilian Investigator. They’re designed to relieve pressure on active officers, thus improving police effectiveness: it’s seen as a saving in the overall budget.’
‘What does it involve?’ Investigator sounded promising. She missed being out looking into leads. Not that she should ever have been meeting the public, she thought, smiling to herself, but there’d been special circumstances before.
‘Your role would include interviewing victims of burglary, assault and car crime. The training programme is three weeks long, and will include briefings on interrogation techniques, how to structure an interview, and a number of aspects of the law that are relevant.’ Burgone said. ‘Some of it you’ll know from your analytical training, and, er, previous experience.’ He handed over a printed worksheet. ‘And if I assign you to Detective Sergeant Cudmore for management, we may handle some of the training in-house.’
‘I could go out and interview suspects?’ she said.
‘Perhaps not that.’ He smiled. ‘But certainly supporting statements from witnesses and other interesting parties. If you complete the training and probationary period, as before.’
‘Will I get a business card?’ She’d always wanted one of them. Was jealous of Nas’s when she’d handed them over to people. It made her official. Real. She’d send one to her mum.
‘Well, yes. I guess it will be useful for you to have something with your contact details on to leave with interviewees,’ Burgone said.
‘Okay,’ Freddie said. ‘I’ll do it.’
‘There is one more thing: this is a slightly sensitive issue,’ he said.
Ah: the catch. Here it came.
‘This is a fairly new scheme within the force, and not everyone is a fan. Some officers have registered concerns over the limited training and accountability of civilian investigators – this won’t win you any friends, Freddie.’
She shrugged. ‘No worries. I haven’t got any anyway.’
He smiled. ‘Then I’ll make sure DS Cudmore has the relevant training criteria to cover. Hopefully you can run it alongside this Amber Robertson case. And we’ve had a bit of luck: another recruit has had to drop out of an existing training course, so we can get you over there today and get you started.’
‘Cool.’ She’d come back to the office after, to start work on finding Amber: that’d give the phone company time to get the records over.
‘And it should be quite fun for you,’ Burgone was saying.
Oh, yeah, I love sitting in a room being lectured to.
‘It’s being held at the Jubilee Station,’ he said.
‘What?’ Her mouth fell open.
He mistook her dismay as delight. ‘I know you worked with the officers there on your first case.’
Yeah, and I’d rather forget it. He handed her another printout: a