Bright Spark by Gavin Smith Read Free Book Online Page A

he’d got away with, karma given a helping hand.
If he were knocked around, it just showed that justice had to get its hands
dirty from time to time.
    Anything
that didn’t fit the facts as you wanted them to appear could be lost down the
back of the office sofa. The saloon bar of the Nip & Tuck was as good a
workplace as any; reeking of ale or driving half cut were natural consequences
of a high-pressure job, and far preferable to not standing your round or being
one of the boys. Rules could be broken and bent to serve the greater good.
    Now,
every Billy Burglar had more rights than he knew what to do with. Every
conceivably relevant scrap of paper had to be catalogued, scrutinised and
disclosed if major prosecutions weren’t to founder on the rocks of the
technical defence. Interviews were recorded in a way that limited a detective’s
scope for creativity. Where once they’d made the law, cops could now be
pilloried, dismissed or jailed for the kind of transgressions that would earn
the average citizen a fine and a polite rebuke. The rules were prized above the
greater good, and a problem statistically analysed was more welcome than a
problem messily solved. 
    They’ve
ripped the arse out of this job, the old-timers would insist over whisky
chasers. Harkness, head thick with fatigue and the dregs of a hangover, could
hear the same old litany looping through his head every time he walked into
this monument to times best forgotten. He stumbled down the slope to the
basement garage, pressed his wallet to the wall sensor and ground his teeth in
time to the clanking of the roller shutter door.
    What,
he asked himself, would the old timers do with this barrel of worms? Should he
be rounding up the usual suspects, taking names and breaking balls, or retiring
to the office to ensure that every procedure and line of enquiry was followed
to the highest standards of diligence and integrity; or whatever the manual
said. The lift door was standing open and he allowed it to carry him up one
floor, forehead pressed into the cold film of grease on the control panel. 
    The
sticker on his desktop computer congratulated him on his upgrade to ‘Windows
95’. He switched it on and knew there would be ten minutes of electronic
churning beneath a flickering hourglass before he could coax any work out of
it. He draped his jacket and tie on the back of a chair and unbuttoned his
shirt. He retrieved the high-backed executive swivel chair which was now his by
right, and rolled the smaller minion’s chair into a corner. An artist’s palette
of food stains marked his seat, a cultural history in nylon, lard and ketchup,
the previous incumbent’s territorial pissing.
    The
light slanted through the blinds, kind at first, glittering on dust motes and
brilliant on screens and windows. The sun crested the horizon, clear and
truthful, the dust settling on towers of paperwork in disarray, human misery
analysed endlessly; on mugs discarded in a hurry for fungus to feast on at
leisure; on bins overflowing with fast food wrappers; on boxes that had split
and spilt a thousand pamphlets on this year’s third definitive crime prevention
initiative; on the ransacked search kit in the corner, guaranteed to contain
nothing but the wrong-sized gloves and torn evidence bags; on the whiteboard,
now grey with a thousand layers of smeared ink, with its names, call-signs,
numbers and mug-shots; on the gun-metal cabinets where a hundred types of form
and a dozen CS gas canisters were stored. 
    The
fluorescent lights stuttered into life and the cleaner walked in, industrial
vacuum cleaner in tow. She registered Harkness with a nod, eyes and mouth
down-turned.  She seemed neither surprised nor happy to find company. He was a
trespasser in her world and he found himself removing his feet from the table. 
    He
dialled a cup of syrup masquerading as coffee from the vending machine in the
night canteen. The TV had been left on and selected members of the