Kim pushed aside the feeling of unease as she approached the doors to the station. She hadn’t set foot in the place for over a month. At first, she had railed against sick leave, insisting that she could function close to normal, but Woody’s risk assessment said otherwise.

Jack offered her a nod and a half smile as she passed the front desk.

‘Welcome back, Marm,’ he offered.

She nodded in return but said nothing.

She walked the familiar corridors busy at evening shift changeover, the air crackling with both cheer and misery.

Normally she took the stairs two at a time up to her boss’s office on the third floor without a moment’s thought. Today she took the lift. She passed two other executive offices before knocking on Woody’s door.

Again, the unease returned. An activity she’d performed many times over the last few years without a moment’s thought or hesitation no longer held the same familiarity.

His low steady voice told her to enter just as she shifted weight onto her right leg.

She pushed the door open and suddenly realised that this man was a constant in her life.

Never did she doubt that he would be sitting behind his desk, his smooth brown skin and shaved head accentuating the smart white shirt. The wedding band still on his finger despite the loss of his wife three years earlier.

He removed his glasses and placed them in front of a framed photograph of his granddaughter, Lissy.

‘So, you’re back, Stone?’

Exactly the words she would have expected but a difference in tone. There was an edge, an element of tolerance. Forced through gritted teeth as though the moment had arrived too soon.

‘Fighting fit, sir,’ she said, taking a step forward.

He regarded her coolly. As well he should. There was an issue between them that hadn’t yet been addressed.

She took a breath. ‘Sir, there’s something I’ve been meaning—’

‘Counselling, Stone,’ he said, cutting her off. Clearly his urgency was focussed on a different priority to hers.

‘Not necessary,’ she retorted, automatically.

‘In whose opinion?’ he asked.

‘Mine, sir. I’m fit to return to work.’

‘As I wouldn’t accept your judgement on your own physical fitness, why would I accept your assessment of your psychological readiness?’

‘Because I know my mind better than anyone,’ she said, simply.

‘Stone, I enjoy a good steak but it doesn’t make me a butcher. An appointment has been made with a force psychologist for—’

‘No,’ she said, simply.

His face hardened. ‘This is not negotiable.’

She took her warrant card from her pocket and placed it on his desk.

‘You’re right, sir, it’s not.’

Never would she allow the force psychologists near her again. Ten years earlier, during her time as a constable, she’d been involved in a child abuse case where a young boy had been found dead on the day she’d accompanied Child Services to remove him from the home.

A routine visit to the force psychologist after the investigation had turned into much more when he had tried to link her feelings of anger to the death of her twin brother when she was six years old. That he’d gleaned the information from her personnel file had been bad enough but his insistence that she had relived her own brother dying of starvation as they had lay chained to the radiator together had boiled the blood that ran through her veins. Yes, she relived Mikey’s death and her inability to save him regularly but only in her dreams.

Despite her protestations that she was angry because the difference between the child’s life and his death was owing to the paltry two hours it had taken to get the authorisation letter signed, the force psychologist had filed a report stating she was ‘not addressing key issues that may be problematic in the future’.

Luckily her sergeant had been overworked and understaffed and had filed the report under ‘unlikely to be my problem by then’. But had he taken it more seriously she would probably have been out of a job.

Woody tipped his head and waited for her explanation.

‘I’m not going to open up to anyone and you know that. I’m not going to explore anything and, trust me, sir, you don’t really want me to.’

His expression told her he was not backing down. ‘It is a requirement of the—’

‘Sir,’ Kim interrupted. ‘The basics are that you need to be sure I’m able to do my job.’

‘There is significantly more to it than that,’ he argued. ‘One of your team members lost his—’

‘I don’t need reminding of that,’ she snapped before she could stop herself. She amended her tone before continuing. ‘But ultimately, that’s your main concern, isn’t it? Can I function?’

He nodded.

‘In which case, there will be a report on your desk by the end of the week from a qualified psychologist with an answer to your question, but in the meantime you know me well enough to allow me back to work.’

‘With Bryant?’

She just about managed to stop her eyes rolling upwards. Her boss sure liked keeping her attached to her steady, pragmatic partner. She wasn’t sure how Bryant would feel about that. She hadn’t seen him in weeks.

‘Of course,’ she answered, hoping she was speaking for Bryant as well as herself.

He thought for a moment before nodding and pushing her warrant card back towards her.

‘And dramatics don’t suit you, Stone.’

She took her identification back and said nothing. It was no drama. She would have walked.

She took a deep breath.

‘Sir, I’m sorry,’ she said forcing the words out of her mouth. They did not leave her lips often.

‘Leave it, Stone,’ he said, through a tightening jaw.

‘No, sir, I won’t,’ she said, stubbornly. ‘My apology may be six weeks overdue but I shouldn’t have doubted you during the Heathcrest investigation. I should have known that your first and only priority was for those children. It’s not a mistake I’ll make again.’

During their last major investigation she had urged him to announce the death of a child as murder to protect other families at the Heathcrest facility, but he had been forced by higher powers to keep that word firmly out of the press conference. She had questioned his integrity while being unaware of an arrangement he’d made with Frost, the reporter for the Dudley Star, that Frost would raise the question of murder during the press conference which had produced the exact response that Kim had wanted but without him having to defy a direct instruction. She felt bad in part that she hadn’t realised herself what he’d been up to and just as bad that it had taken Tracy bloody Frost to point it out to her. And it had all served to remind her of the reasons she aspired to no higher position in the police force. Woody could keep the office politics.

His mouth twitched. ‘Feel better after that, Stone?’

‘Actually, sir, yes, I do,’ she said honestly.

The air between them had been tense since the press conference, despite the loss of Dawson, but she was hopeful that in their working relationship they could get back to the mutual respect and trust they’d always had.

‘It’s been pleasantly quiet here without you, Stone,’ he said, as the expression in his eyes warmed up a degree or two.

‘Don’t doubt it, sir,’ she said, nodding. ‘But I’m back now, so where the hell is my team?’