Monday Morning

“Jinx!”

Detective Sergeant Serina Jackson looked up from her desk with an irritated expression on her face. She had been in the middle of transcribing some of her old case notes into her personal notebook, and the interruption had served to derail her train of thought.

She looked across the office, towards the source of her irritation. Detective Inspector Frank Wilson was standing in the doorway of his own private office, beckoning to her. He clearly wanted her to join him in his office immediately. “Oh... what does he want now?” she muttered to herself.

Sighing with irritation, she locked her workstation and stood up, before placing her notebook carefully on top of her keyboard. She glared at Frank as he stood there, dressed uncomfortably in the crumpled grey suit that he had bought the other week from the discount store in the centre of town. She was surprised that he would wear such shabby clothes. Surely a Detective Inspector would be able to afford a better suit than that?

Serina brushed the creases out of her white blouse and her dark blue, knee-length skirt, before straightening the golden chain that hung around her neck. She glared at Frank again, and sighed. Sometimes, she wondered if it had been worth the hassle of training to become a detective. She was thirty-four years old, with dark brown skin, brown eyes, and long black hair that was gathered in a loose ponytail which dropped roughly halfway down her back. With a degree in business management, she could have walked into virtually any office and instantly been given a middle management role. But no, ever since she had seen those old films and television programmes, they only thing she had wanted to do was become a detective. It had all looked so glamorous and exciting. But the reality was rather more mundane and dull.

She had joined the Wildbridge Serious Crime Investigation team a little over ten years ago, initially at the rank of Detective Constable. Fresh out of the Academy when she arrived, she had been promoted to her current rank nearly six years ago, a rise that would doubtless be viewed as unusually rapid in some parts of the country. But here in Wildbridge, it was about the norm. Or at least it had been the norm, she mused to herself. There had been a significant turnover of staff throughout the early part of her career, but things had quietened down somewhat in recent years.

Indeed, the only departure during last eighteen months or so had been that of her most recent partner, Detective Constable Michele Young. Serina glanced at the desk opposite her own. It was vacant, devoid of the piles of paperwork and other detritus that indicated an occupied, virtually inhabited, desk. Michele had left only a few days ago, to take on a new role in the Counter Terrorism Unit in Pulwich, on the south coast. Serina was still waiting to be assigned a new partner.

She looked down at her own desk, and sighed. She really ought to set some time aside to tidy up. Although, she noted as she looked around the office, her desk was far from being the untidiest. Most of the desks that were scattered almost haphazardly around the moderately-sized main office were home to an interesting combination of lo-tech and hi-tech. Hand-written and typed sheets of paper jostled for space among the advanced computer workstations, digital desk phones, small personal mobile phones of different makes and sizes, and a variety of larger multi-function devices and tablets.

As Serina made her way between these desks laden with clutter, she noticed for the first time that there was somebody else in Frank's office. She frowned. She hadn't seen or heard any visitors arrive. There again, she had been somewhat engrossed in her work. It was unusual, though, for a visitor to arrive in the office without at least one of her fellow officers passing comment.

In any case, there he was. A youngish, clean-shaven and smartly-dressed man. She thought that he looked reasonably attractive. He was sitting on one of the two chairs that had been positioned in front of Frank's desk, a deliberate act that made her somewhat apprehensive. Clearly, the other chair was intended for her, and Frank had something important to tell her. What did he want with her today? Who was this other man? She sighed. She would find out soon enough.

Frank nodded curtly at her as she approached. Then he turned, retreating into his office and letting the door swing shut behind him. She stopped at the closed door, and sighed with exasperation. “Sexist pig!” she muttered, to nobody in particular.

Suddenly worried that some of her colleagues may have heard her quiet outburst, she glanced around the office. Immediately, her eyes alighted on the figure of Detective Constable Colin Brownlee, who was sitting at the desk nearest to Frank's office. He looked up at her, and shrugged his shoulders as if to say What can you do?

She smiled to herself. She was quite fond of Colin. He was about ten years younger than her, with smooth, blemish-free pale skin and tightly-cropped blond hair. He was always so smartly dressed, his shirt and trousers ironed and pressed to perfection. He seemed to take good care in his appearance, too. Unlike some other members of the department, she thought to herself. Although on this occasion, she wasn't entirely sure that his blue patterned tie really went that well with his dark grey trousers.

She sighed as she glanced around at her other colleagues. Much to her relief, none of them appeared to be paying her any attention. Certainly, none gave the impression that they had heard her utterance. She sighed again, and focused her gaze back on the door to Frank's office.

“Don't just stand there, girl!”

She turned to see who was shouting at her now. It was Detective Sergeant Ray Walker. A gruff Northerner in his fifties, with a ruddy complexion and thinning brown hair, he was sat at his desk next to the office printer, eyeing her suspiciously. His dark blue suit had clearly seen better days. Including those days when it fitted him, she thought to herself.

She scowled at Ray for a moment, before gently pushing the door open and entering Frank's office.