Divorced

Carla almost laughs when she drives past the precinct and sees the teenager she now recognises as DS Swain’s daughter vaping by the swings with a group of lads. Of course the detective’s daughter would be a tearaway. She had to admit that she had been a little shocked to learn the detective was a mother, but has no doubt her sternness as a police officer extends to her parenting. Or perhaps not, given what she’d seen of her daughter.

She’d been playing over the moment they saw each in the cafe in her mind, cringing at her putting her foot in it with the marriage comment. She must be divorced. Like Carla’s about to be - yet again. Perhaps they have more in common than she previously thought, but she can’t help imagining what Swain’s ex-husband would be like. She seems like the type who would be married to her job, so perhaps he was the high powered career type too.

When she gets home, she finds the flat in a state - yet again. She knows Bobby hasn’t been home long, and the flat was immaculate when she left home that morning, but somehow he always seems to leave a trail of destruction and chaos in his wake. He’s made himself a cup of tea - she can tell by sugar on the floor, the spilled water by the kettle, and the wet tea bag he’d dumped on the side rather than putting it in the bin. It’s lucky she likes cleaning - and she’d certainly found herself stress cleaning a lot more regularly since her nephew rocked up in her life a couple of months ago. She sets to cleaning up the mess immediately, and order is restored by the time her other nephew arrives home.

“Hi,” he says, shrugging off his coat - and actually hanging it up. At least someone in this flat doesn’t just throw it on the floor.

“Hiya,” Carla smiles at him. “You stopping for dinner or are you working?”

“I’m working - but I’ve got time for something quick.”

“Pasta?” she suggests.

“Yeah, go on then,” he says, sitting himself down on the sofa.

“Guess who I ran into today?” Carla asks as she makes a start on dinner.

“Dunno,” he replies absentmindedly as he flicks through the channels on the TV.

“That DS Swain.”

“Oh right. She wasn’t arresting you was she?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she snaps.

“Is you getting arrested ridiculous? Stranger things have happened,” Ryan laughs, wiggling his eyebrows. Carla hates it when he does that.

“Oi. I’ll have you know I’m angel me,” Carla shoots back. “No, I bumped into her in the cafe. Her daughter barged into me. She’s a right gobby cow.”

“What Swain or her daughter?”

“Well I meant her daughter, but she is and all I reckon. Anyway, never saw her as a mother. She’s divorced too.”

“You know police officers have lives outside of work? They don’t live at the police station,” Ryan quips, earning him an eye roll from his auntie.

“Yes, I know, but she’s quite scary isn’t she?”

“Yeah, big time. We got any lagers in?”

“Yeah, there’s some in the fridge,” Carla responds, disappointed by how uninterested Ryan is in her encounter with the detective. Weirdly, she finds herself wanting to talk about her with someone. Maybe she’ll try Bobby later.

***
Two days in a row, Bobby has managed to irritate Carla. Yesterday it was the mess, this morning it was the banana. Or rather the lack of banana - Bobby having taken the last one. The one she needed for her 10.30 snack. She wasn’t entirely sure when she got so stuck in her ways - it had sort of crept up on her the nearer she got to 50. When she stopped by the cafe for a coffee before work, Roy had kindly listened to her Bobby rant and graciously offered her one of his own bananas from upstairs.

Coffee and banana secured, Carla plans what she’s going to say to her nephew when she gets hold of him - but she’s so deep in thought that she doesn’t look before crossing the road, oblivious to the fact that she’s stepped out in front of a car until she hears the horn blaring and feels a strong arm yank her back. For the second time in as many days, Carla finds herself face to face with Detective Sergeant Swain. A furious Detective Sergeant Swain at that.

“What the hell are you doing?” Lisa demands. “He nearly hit you. You could’ve been killed.”

“Well if I had been, it’s a good thing we had the local bobby nearby to investigate it,” Carla jokes, her voice slightly shaky as the adrenaline from what just happened rushes through her body.

“It’s not funny,” Lisa says sternly. “You ought to be more careful. You can’t just waltz around not paying attention.”

“Ok, I’m sorry, I get it.”

“Do you though? Next time, you might not be so lucky,” Lisa snaps, turning and marching off - leaving Carla reeling.

***
It’s nearly lunchtime by the time Carla’s fully recovered from the incident, her mind replaying Swain’s harsh words. She’s just starting to forget, when she sees the detective come into the factory. Every single machinist stops what they’re doing to watch as she walks across the factory floor and knocks on Carla’s office door.

“Mrs Barlow, have you got a minute?” she asks.

“Come to tell me off again?”

“No,” Lisa says, after a moment’s pause. Her facade seems to break for a moment, something fleeting flashing across the face that Carla can’t quite place, before she continues as DS Swain. “There was an incident last night, in the street behind the factory. We’d like to look at your CCTV.”

“What sort of incident?” Carla inquires.

“A teenager was threatened with a knife,” Lisa states simply.

“Sarah,” Carla barks out. “Can you log in and check the CCTV?”

“Yes, of course,” Sarah says, hastily logging in to the CCTV on her laptop. Lisa moves so she can watch over her shoulder.

“Don’t you normally send a uniformed officer for this sort of thing? Thought the grunt work would be a bit beneath you, Detective Sergeant.”

“Actually, I wanted to talk to you,” Lisa says. “I was harsh this morning. I wanted to apologise.”

The detective looks at her hopefully, and seems genuinely apologetic. For the first time, Carla sees something human behind the tough exterior. She almost feels bad for the earlier assumptions she made about her.

“Apology accepted,” Carla replies. They smile at each other for a second, and the eye contact is so intense that Carla has to look away. She’s grateful when Sarah breaks the silence.

“There’s no CCTV from last night,” she says. “There’s no footage from any time after yesterday morning.”

“What do you mean?” Lisa asks, leaning in to look. Sarah shrugs, turning the laptop towards Lisa.

“It looks like it was turned off,” Sarah points out as Lisa goes back through the footage.

“That’s convenient, the one CCTV camera in the area just happened to be switched off at the time of the attack,” Lisa says, levelling Carla with a look of suspicion.

“Hold on a second, you’re not suggesting that we’ve turned it off?” Carla demands, feeling her irritation rising with every word out of the detective’s mouth.
“Or deleted the footage,” Lisa shrugs.

“You can’t come in here and throw allegations around like that,” Carla protests.

Lisa doesn’t respond, instead pulling a USB drive out of her pocket and plugging it into the laptop. She retrieves the footage - or lack of footage - in silence while Sarah and Carla exchange worried glances.

“Thank you for your time,” she says finally, pocketing the USB drive. “I’ll be in touch.”

With that, she walks out. After a few seconds, Carla follows, not content to let the detective walk away with suspicions that her staff have been involved in covering up a crime.