Bottleneck (17 page)

The baby.

Fuck.

If Cullen believed in a higher power, then this would be a test. He'd changed so much in the two years he'd been a full DC, but in some ways he'd changed so little. His ego pushed him several steps ahead of where his more rational head told him he should be.

He caught himself. He was in his thirties - he needed to act like a grown-up. Forget the promotion until it was formal. Look on the bright side - almost six months as Acting DS would look good on his record, like detachments to murder cases had helped him become a detective.

There might be a trickle-down from the vacant DI position.

"Why have they not put an Acting DI in there?" said Chantal.

"I've no idea," said Sharon.

"Well, I reckon you'll get it," said Chantal.

"I doubt it," said Sharon. "It's got Bill Lamb's name written all over it."

"Crystal Methven did well out of the restructure," said Chantal.

"Of course he did," said Buxton. "He's a sneaky two eight six eight."

"A what?" said Chantal.

Buxton snorted, eyes full of amusement. "Type it on your phone. Like an old Nokia or something."

Chantal fiddled with her fingers. "Aunt?" Something twigged and she burst into laughter. "Oh, that's good."

Cullen folded his arms, making eye contact with Sharon before looking away.

"It's weird seeing Bill Lamb again," said Chantal.

"Was he there?" said Buxton.

Chantal nodded. "Yeah, stood at the back, him and Stuart Murray." She wolf-whistled. "The things I'd let Murray do to me..." She bit her lip and flicked up an eyebrow.

"And then you'd blank him, right?" said Buxton.

Chantal studied her coffee cup, pulling an uncomfortable silence around the table.

"Scott, are you okay?" said Sharon.

Cullen shrugged. "I'll be fine."

"You don't seem it," said Sharon.

"I should have expected it, really. Bill Lamb got my job."

"But it's not your job, though, is it?" said Chantal. "You were just keeping the bench warm."

"Whatever," said Cullen, "I'm just pissed off nobody had the decency to take me aside and brief me beforehand. Don't you think they owe me that?"

"At least you've got a tenure, mate," said Buxton. "Just found mine's up in two months. No chance it'll be renewed."

"You'll be fine," said Cullen.

Buxton sighed. "I doubt it."

Cullen looked over at Sharon, receiving a slight smile. "Sharon, can we-"

"DS McNeill, I need to brief you."

Cullen twisted around. Turnbull towered over them. Lamb stood just behind, rubbing at the back of his neck.

Sharon got up and mouthed "Sorry" at Cullen.

Turnbull disappeared as quickly as he came, the two DSs following him. He didn't even acknowledge Cullen.

Cullen really needed to clear all the shit out of his head.

DS Catriona Rarity was now in charge of the Strang case.

She congregated them in the small Incident Room for a handover from the team. She'd earmarked an hour of Cullen's time afterwards to get a full debrief from him before he reverted to his new demoted role.

Rarity wasn't an officer Cullen knew particularly well. She'd only joined the team in the last six months and hadn't set the world alight as Cullen saw it. Then again, nobody got burnt in the process unlike when he worked his magic. In Cullen's eyes, she was all process and procedure with very little inspiration or leadership. He suspected she was seen as a safe pair of hands.

"We need to speak to everyone Strang knew," said Rarity.

"We've done that," said Cullen.

"What about his parents?"

"Done that, too."

"What about the people he was in a band with?" said Rarity.

"Done that," said Cullen. "We've spoken to two of them, the third one is dead. Strathclyde are investigating his murder. I suppose it'll be the Glasgow South MIT now, but you know what I mean."

Rarity looked like she was finding Cullen's responses difficult. "So, we've hit a wall, is that it?"

"I'm not the DS here," said Cullen. "You tell us."

He immediately regretted it.

Rarity tipped her head up, shaking her shoulder-length hair out. She politely smiled at Chantal and Buxton. "Can I ask you both to leave us for a moment?" she said, a false smile plastered on her face.

They couldn't get out of there quickly enough.

Once they were alone, Rarity fixed her eyes on Cullen. "I thought we got on well. Do you have a problem with me?"

"I was just stating a fact," said Cullen. "I'm sorry if it seemed a bit snippy. You're in charge of this investigation. As of this morning, I'm back on the bottom rung of the ladder. You're now the one who takes vague instructions from DI Methven and then gives me actions to make a mess of. Am I right?"

Rarity hit her hand on the table. "Your attitude
stinks
."

"
My
attitude stinks?" said Cullen, eyes wide. "One minute, I'm an Acting DS and then I get demoted."

Rarity sat there for a few seconds, staring at him. "Well, I have to say I'm surprised you had the chance to be an ADS."

"I got it because I get results," said Cullen. "I'm good at what I do."

"We do have a problem, then," said Rarity.

"I'm sorry," said Cullen. "I'll probably take a while to adjust to this. I'm sorry if I'm acting like an arse, but I'm irritated and that's putting it mildly."

Rarity eyed Cullen nervously. "I can understand your frustration, Scott. Surely you'll have had the chance to air your disappointment with Alison?"

"I would if she'd spoken to me," said Cullen.

"I'm sorry?"

"The first I heard I was no longer a sergeant was in that room this morning," said Cullen.

"Oh."

"Oh, indeed," said Cullen.

"In that case, I can only offer my sympathies, Scott. That shouldn't have happened. It's clearly unacceptable. I'll discuss the matter with Alison and Colin and see what reparations we can make."

"Getting my tenure back would help," said Cullen.

"That's not going to happen in the short term," said Rarity. "Any outbursts similar to the one you just gave me are going to undermine any support you might otherwise have in this station."

"Look, I'm sorry," said Cullen. "I don't have any issues working with you. I'm just frustrated I'm not doing your job and with finding out in a conference room."

"I've had very little information from DS Methven on this case, so I'm going to need your help."

"I'm more than committed to solving the case," said Cullen. "I'll try not to let my disappointment get in the way."

"From what I can tell, the only real lead we've got is in the mortuary in Glasgow," said Rarity. "Correct?"

"That's about the size of it," said Cullen. "Do you want me to go to Glasgow again?"

"The instruction I received from Alison and Colin is that, as your role has changed, the secondment is no longer valid."

"It's hardly a secondment if it's just a day," said Cullen.

Rarity shrugged. "I'm not party to the conversations." She sat and thought for a few seconds. "Strang is from your home town. Is that right?"

"Correct," said Cullen. "He was."

"I see," said Rarity. "Can you go and investigate in Dalhousie, please?"

Cullen struggled to think how he could spend any amount of time in the place. "And do what?"

"What you apparently do best," said Rarity. "Get a result."

Cullen frowned. "Am I being pushed out of the way here?"

"Quite the opposite," said Rarity. "I think we might only have skirted the surface of the investigation in the town."

"That's probably a fair assessment," said Cullen. "I was stuck in Glasgow yesterday."

Rarity nodded. "I'm as uncomfortable as you are about the political games being played here. I can speak to Alison and Colin about the situation."

Cullen was relieved he didn't have to go back to Glasgow and Bain. "Fine."

"DC Jain and I can close off the Edinburgh side of things," said Rarity. "I want you to see what you can dig up. Spend a few hours there, maybe a couple of days."

"It's not the sort of place you can spend even an hour in," said Cullen, smiling.

"Just see what you can do," said Rarity. "It might help you adjust to the new status quo."

Cullen finally managed to find Sharon in the general office area.

"You okay?" she said.

Cullen shook his head, nervously looking around. "I need to talk."

"Finally," said Sharon. She tugged his arm and they went back to the canteen, sitting in the seclusion of bollocking corner.

"Rarity has sent me to Dalhousie," said Cullen. "Feels like a wild goose chase to me."

"How are you feeling?"

Cullen frowned. "I'm not happy. I can't believe I've been demoted but it's something I'm going to have to take on the chin, I suppose."

Sharon nodded. "Try and remember you were never actually promoted, all right? I kept on telling you that."

"Yeah, I know," said Cullen. "I wouldn't listen, would I?" He laughed. "Besides, you got promoted without ever being an ADS."

"I was just lucky," said Sharon.

"And better than me?"

"Did I say that?" said Sharon. "I was just in the right place at the right time. It's a different place now. We're taking an absolute hammering - pensions are being eroded and overtime is much harder to come by. Half of Jim's time will be spent trimming his budget whereas before it was about getting results."

Cullen nodded, seeing the truth in what she said. "I need to play a long game here."

"You do," said Sharon. "I've told you that."

"It took me so long to get out of uniform and my pay didn't change much when I became a DC. It's tough."

"I know, Scott. You need to learn to be a bit more patient, that's all."

Cullen nodded. "What did Turnbull have to say?"

"Are you changing the subject?" said Sharon.

"It's what I do."

Sharon leaned back in the chair. "It's between me and him."

Cullen frowned. "You won't tell me?"

Sharon laughed as she grabbed his hand across the table. "No, you idiot. The vacant DI position is between me and Bill Lamb."

"With you now. Sorry, I'm tired."

"Bill's got four years experience on me as a sergeant, plus he was an Acting DI about three years ago."

"When do you find out?" said Cullen.

"We've got to go through an assessment centre in the next week. Both of us. Then we'll see."

"I take it you didn't tell Jim, then?" said Cullen.

Sharon looked away. "It's nowhere near twelve weeks. Anything could happen."

"So, other than Chantal, who else knows?" said Cullen.

"My mum. That's it."

Cullen smiled. "Right, so your dad, my parents, your sister and half of Edinburgh?"

"She
can
keep a secret," said Sharon. "It has been known to happen."

"Believe it when I see it," said Cullen.

"We do need to talk about it, Scott."

"I know. I've been thinking about it a lot."

"And?"

"And I just don't know what to think."

"I can have an abortion," said Sharon.

Cullen looked away. "I can't believe we've been so careless."

"You think I've been careless, don't you?" said Sharon.

Cullen reached out across the table and grabbed her hand. "It's not your fault. If anything it's mine. When the dick is hard, the mind is soft and all that."

"If you think it's a fault, then you don't want it, am I right?"

"Look, pregnancy is an STD to me. It terrifies me. Now it's real and in my life, I just don't fucking know what to think."

Sharon glared at him. "I think you should maybe spend the night at your parents."

"If you're chucking me out," said Cullen, "then I'll go cap in hand to Tom, begging for my old room back. He's fed up with the guy who's renting it now, anyway."

Sharon grabbed Cullen's hands. "I'm
not
chucking you out, Scott." Her eyes intently focused on him. "My flat is
our
home. Both of us. And Fluffy. And this
thing
I've got in my body." She rubbed her belly. "What I mean is you should speak to your mum about it. You know how good you thought the counselling was, right? Well, maybe talking to your mum would help?"

Cullen had always been able to share problems with his mother and she was a good listener. After all the shit he'd got up to as a teenager, she was forgiving and hadn't judged him for any of it. "You're probably right. Tom and Rich aren't exactly great listeners."

"I love you, Scott. If I'm going to have kids, it's going to be with you."

"Same here," said Cullen. "I just don't know if I'm ready, that's all."

"Nobody's ever ready at this stage," said Sharon. "They've got seven and a half months to get ready."

Cullen returned to the flat to start packing. He sat on the edge of the bed and yawned.

He'd got into work for six that morning, like an absolute idiot, desperate to solve the Strang case. All those hours of unclaimed overtime he'd worked for free when they could really do with the money.

No matter how many results he managed to get, he was still nowhere near where he wanted to be. Maybe policing wasn't for him any more.

He caught himself and tried to snap out of it, struggling to remember why he'd joined the police in the first place.

When he'd worked in Financial Services, an industry drowning in cash, ambition and promotion, he quickly learnt he wasn't motivated by money. He'd given all that up to do something worthwhile with his life, rather than answering phones or managing people answering phones.

Tom was getting fat and stressed for a job he hated, chasing the money but adding nothing to society. Cullen had taken murderers off the street. That was giving something back.

The baby, if they had it, was going to eat up their time and expendable income. They couldn't bring a child up in a one bedroom flat in the city centre. They'd need to move to the suburbs or into the country and that cost money. He felt ever more pressure pile up on his shoulders.