Page 36 of Better the Devil

‘Sorry, yes. It was just… a figure of speech, really, but thanks for pulling me up.’

The sergeant gripped the podium as he looked around the audience, making sure nobody else had anything to add.

When he was confident that they didn’t, he continued.

‘As I’m sure you can see, the community centre staff have been hard at work putting together a wee celebratory tea for us. I hear the egg mayo sandwiches have to be tasted to be believed. And, oh, I have something to read out.’

He shuffled around some paperwork on the lectern until he found a note scrawled on a bit of scrap paper.

‘It says, if you’re vegan, you’ll have to have cucumber,’ Fleck said. He returned the note to the pile. ‘It doesn’t say if that’s cucumber sandwiches or just cucumber on its own, but I’m sure they’ll take care of you, either way.’

There was no laughter that time. Hamza didn’t imagine this audience took much truck with things like veganism. A slice ofcucumber would be good enough for the hippie-dippy bastards. Too good, if anything.

‘So, before we wrap up, all that remains is for us to present the Watchperson of the Year award, celebrating the individual that we, as an organisation, feel has contributed something a bit extra over the past twelve months. Gone a bit above and beyond.’

He held up an envelope. In an ideal world, it would have been gold, but it was just a cheap, plain white one. Someone had drawn a couple of stars on the front in marker pen, but it had been a largely futile exercise, presentation-wise, like sticking a bow on a turd.

A murmur of anticipation went around the audience. Half of them sat up straighter. Hamza could practically hear their rehearsed speeches being played out one last time in their heads.

Rather them than him, he thought. He didn’t relish the idea of standing up and talking in front of a crowd like this at all.

‘So, here to present the award, and to say a few words…’

Sergeant Fleck turned. Hamza’s stomach dropped. Beside him, Ben Forde spluttered in surprise into his tea.

Oh, no.

Oh, shite.

‘Detective Inspector Hamza Khaled of Police Scotland Major Investigations Team North!’

This was more like it.

The suction cup arrow to the testicles—or testicle, if you wanted to get technical about it—had not been a great way to start. There had been a certain loss of dignity on the space hopper, and no matter how many times Tyler had asked, the weeboy had point-blank refused to hand over command of the radio-controlled car.

But this? This he could do.

This was his element.

‘You like LEGO, then?’ he asked, rummaging through the pile of bricks the boy had tipped out like an avalanche onto the polished wooden floor.

Little Jack, who knelt across the pile from where Tyler sat cross-legged, nodded enthusiastically.

‘Do you?’

‘I love it,’ Tyler told him, which seemed to make the boy’s day.

‘You want to build a castle?’

‘Aye!’ Tyler said.

Little Jack’s face became deathly serious. ‘You can’t. Sorry. I’m building one of them, an’, an’ two people can’t build castles, it’s not allowed.’

‘Isn’t it? Ah. Well, rules are rules, I suppose,’ Tyler said. He fished around in the pile and plucked out a few yellow pieces. ‘How big’s your castle going to be?’

‘As big as the world,’ the boy replied, with a wide-eyed sincerity that suggested he wasn’t messing around here. ‘As big as the whole world.’

‘As big as that? Wow.’ Tyler picked another piece from the pile. ‘We might need more LEGO.’