Page 58 of Little Children
‘We’re going to find him, Mrs Reid,’ Dickinson said, touching her arm lightly before stepping out of the room.
Penn followed the detective out of the house, wondering if that was the kind of promise he should be making. But what else was one to say in this situation?
As he got in the car, Penn observed that there seemed to be a marked difference between the treatment of the Stevens family and the Reids. To his knowledge, there was no nightly visit to offer an update to the Stevens family, nor even regular phone calls. He had to wonder where that directive had come from.
Nothing in that house had troubled the hackles on the back of his neck. The parents’ appearance was in stark contrast to that of Bobby and Shirley Stevens’s behaviour, but so was the treatment being afforded them.
He’d pass on his observations to his boss in the morning, but in the meantime he had a second task to attend to.
Once Dickinson pulled away from the house, Penn took out his phone and began to scroll. ‘Damn,’ he cursed under his breath.
‘Everything okay?’
Penn sighed and put his phone away. ‘Yeah, just missed a deadline on a job opportunity.’
‘You not happy where you are?’ Dickinson asked, taking the bait.
He shrugged. ‘They’re not bad, but I’m not emotionally attached if that’s what you mean. No room for upward movement, and it’s getting a bit stale.’ He was trying hard not to overplay his hand and let Dickinson do some of the heavy lifting.
‘You want DI?’ Dickinson asked.
‘Of course. Don’t you?’
Now it was Dickinson’s turn to shrug. ‘I’m thirty-two. I’ve got plenty of time.’
‘Nah, I can’t be thinking like that,’ Penn said. ‘I want DI by thirty-five and DCI by forty. Never gonna happen if I spend too much time in one place.’
‘You seem pretty tight with Wood though,’ Dickinson said.
Penn laughed. ‘I’m tight with anyone who suits my purpose, and I try to keep on the good side of my boss. A recommendation from my DI would go a long way, so I’ve gotta keep her sweet.’
Penn could see from the pinched expression on the other man’s face that this was going nowhere. Dickinson wasn’t identifying with the character he was playing.
‘It’s not for everyone,’ Penn continued. ‘Some folks don’t want the added paperwork or headaches. I kinda wish I’d found a team where I wanted to stay long term.’
‘Sometimes acceptance amongst the majority of your colleagues means more than a few extra quid in your pocket.’
‘Oh yeah, couldn’t agree more,’ Penn said, reading between the lines. He suspected Dickinson was gay, and his team knew it. His first impression of the man had played into the stereotype, which had made him careful not to attach any label to the guy. Taking good care of your hair and skin didn’t automatically mean the man was gay, but it seemed that, on this occasion, his gaydar had been tuned in well.
Secretly, he totally understood the comfort and security of finding such a team, but he couldn’t admit that in the role he was playing. ‘Good for you. Moss doesn’t seem much like the accepting kind though.’
‘Roy doesn’t know everything about everybody,’ Dickinson said tightly, telling Penn that he knew exactly how Moss would react to the news and that he’d never have a minute’s peace going forward.
‘Yeah, we’ve all got our old-school coppers, but they’re all gonna die off eventually,’ he offered as Dickinson pulled into the Blackpool station car park.
‘Not totally convinced we should have to wait for bigotry and racism to retire,’ Dickinson replied with an edge to his voice.
‘Yep, there should be a better way. But while they’re clean and doing a decent job…’
‘And what if they’re not?’ Dickinson asked, pulling alongside Penn’s car.
‘Then I suppose we’ve all gotta do what we gotta do,’ Penn said, opening the car door.
He stepped out and pushed the door shut, waving as Dickinson pulled away, but the detective seemed focussed only on driving.
Penn opened the door to his own car and couldn’t help wondering one thing after that conversation. He’d discovered that, on the face of it, Dickinson was a loyal team member who didn’t have the stomach for bad policing.
But was there any chance at all that he’d just found their snitch?
