Kim opened the door to the squad room and turned on the light. She faltered and took a step back as her gaze fell immediately on to Dawson’s empty desk. For some reason, she expected to see his belongings still sitting there. She’d expected to see his photograph of Charlotte. The paperweight under which he’d filed anything he classed as not urgent. The solar-powered nodding alien Stacey had bought him after he’d admitted he detested the things. He had hated it but kept it anyway.

Someone had found the strength to remove his stuff and it was now nothing more than a desk. An empty desk. Just a workspace. As though he’d never been there.

She pulled herself away and headed for the glass bowl in the corner. The eight feet square space which housed only a desk, chair, and filing cabinet seemed to have shrunk in her absence.

She threw her leather jacket over the back of her chair as Bryant arrived. The first of her team to return. And now fifty per cent of her team. He stole a glance at the empty desk before smiling in her direction and offering his hand.

‘Evening, Marm, my name is…’

She shook her head indicating that it wasn’t funny or appropriate.

‘How’s the leg?’ he asked, taking his seat.

‘Not bad,’ she answered, on safer ground. ‘But you’ll be happy to know I can’t drive.’

‘I already know that, guv. Oh sorry, you meant you’re not allowed to drive. My mistake.’

Kim couldn’t help but smile as they quickly settled back into their bantering relationship. She supposed that’s what happened with friends. Even ones you hadn’t seen in over a month.

And that had been her choice not his.

She was sure her withdrawal would come up at some stage but not right now and for that she was grateful.

‘So where’s?…’

‘Hey, boss,’ Stacey said, with forced brightness as she barrelled into the office. She removed the satchel that crossed her body before throwing herself into her seat.

Kim noticed that she hadn’t glanced at the desk opposite.

‘So, you two had a good holiday?’ she asked, perching on the spare desk.

It occurred to her this was the first time they’d all been in the office together since Dawson’s death. There was a sense of imbalance resting around her. There were many times it had just been the three of them but it reminded her of when she’d been on sick leave. When Barney was just in another room she never gave it a thought and just carried on with her business as though he was right behind her. But two weeks ago her dog’s groomer had collected him and taken him for his bi-monthly detangling and the sense of emptiness in the house had been overwhelming. She had been able to focus on nothing and had just paced and checked her watch until the doorbell signalled his return.

It wasn’t that Dawson wasn’t sitting there right now that caused the imbalance in her mind. It was that he wasn’t sitting anywhere.

‘Well, I’ve been to Costa del Brierley Hill,’ Bryant answered. ‘Desk duties mainly. They like their bloody paperwork trails,’ he said, shaking his head.

‘Cote D’Sedgley for me, boss,’ Stacey said. ‘Mainly CCTV stuff.’

Kim had known her small team had been reassigned to new teams in her absence. And neither placement seemed to have known what to do with the additional resource and so had put them on ‘mug’s work’ as she liked to put it.

‘Anything of interest?’ she asked, aware that all their desks were relatively empty as the cases would have been distributed around neighbouring teams.

They both shook their heads but Stacey’s response was just a nanosecond too slow.

‘And what about?…’ Bryant asked, nodding towards the empty desk.

‘Woody’s on it,’ she said, holding up her hands. He’d told her no more than that.

She glanced up at the clock. It was almost seven but she’d wanted to just touch base with them both before starting work the next day.

‘Well, thanks for…’

Her words trailed away as her mobile began to ring.

She answered, listened and then ended the call.

She turned to what was left of her team.

‘Well, I hope you both had a good holiday because now we’re back at work.’