11 Cahill

As Serina made her way from Frank's office towards her own desk, Cahill walked over to the recycling bin that sat next to the drinks vending machine. He dropped the three empty coffee cups into the bin, before placing the tray on the floor next to the vending machine.

Serina sat down in her chair. Her mobile phone sat on her desk, flashing at her. She picked it up and looked at it. One new text. She smiled. It was from Karla. "Got the contract. Will book table @ EP tomorrow night. Celebration time."

Cahill arrived, having finished with the recycling. He collected the vacant chair from the desk opposite, and dragged it around to Serina's desk. He sat down next to her, looking at her expectantly.

Serina placed her mobile phone back on her desk, and looked at him. "I'm Serina Jackson, by the way." she smiled. "Although as you might have gathered, everybody calls me Jinx."

He nodded. "Marcus Cahill. Everybody just calls me Cahill."

She looked surprised. "You don't like the name Marcus?"

He shook his head. "No."

"I do. It's a nice name." she told him.

"It is my father's name." he replied, his voice tinged with sadness.

She nodded. It seemed like her powers of intuition were finally kicking in. She had got the distinct impression that he didn't get on with his father, even before he had spoken. She did not reply immediately. Instead, she waited to see if he was going to elaborate any further.

He didn't. He just stared at her blankly for a moment, before frowning slightly. "Why do people call you Jinx?" he asked.

"My middle name is Giacinta." she told him.

He looked slightly puzzled. "You do not look..." he began. He paused, searching for the correct word. "Foreign." he concluded.

She shook her head. "No, I was born here in Wildbridge." she told him. "My mother just liked the name."

"It is a nice name." he told her. He frowned slightly. "My middle name is Cyrus. I do not like that either."

A look of amusement crossed her face. "Cahill it is, then." she replied.

He nodded. "Fine by me."

Serina looked around the office. She wasn't that good at small talk. "So where are you from?" she asked him, eventually.

"Westmere." he replied. "It's a small town to the north, on the coast."

"Yes, I know." she nodded, before suddenly starting to giggle. "Don't they make..." she began.

She paused, and looked around the office. None of her fellow officers seemed to be paying her any attention. "... sex toys there?" she finished her question, her voice lowered to a whisper.

He nodded. "Yes. There is a big factory. Many people work there."

A faint smile seemed to cross his lips as he spoke. "I did not want to work there." he concluded.

"So you became a police officer." she nodded. "Good choice."

Colin suddenly appeared by the side of the desk, clipboard in hand. "Yes, it's that time again." he announced, thrusting the clipboard towards Serina. It held a form listing the names of all the SCI officers. There was a space next to each name, and several officers had already signed in the space next to their own name.

Serina smiled at Colin and looked around for her pen. It was lying on her desk, next to her notebook. She picked it up, then took the clipboard from Colin.

"Right. Where do I sign?" she asked, scanning the form for her own name.

Colin pointed to where Serina's name was printed on the form.

"Ah! There it is!" she exclaimed, signing in the space next to where her name was printed. She then passed the clipboard to Cahill, who looked at it suspiciously.

"What is this for?" he asked.

"To let the security people know you want access to the building." she told him. "We're supposed to inform them when somebody leaves or arrives, but sometimes people forget."

She gestured towards the clipboard. "So they send one of these around every few months, just to check."

"Oh, like a kind of census?" he ventured.

She nodded. "Yeah, something like that."

He nodded and retrieved his pen from his pocket. His eyes scanned down the form, searching out his own name.

Colin pointed to the hand-written entry at the bottom. "Sorry." he said apologetically. "I didn't know you would be joining us until this morning."

Cahill nodded again. He signed his name at the bottom of the form, then handed the clipboard back to Colin.

"Thanks, guys." Colin smiled. He then departed, heading over towards Ray, intent on getting his signature on the form. Serina watched him thoughtfully for a moment, before suddenly looking at Cahill.

"That reminds me." she noted. "Did they sort out your reserved parking space? I presume they've given you Michele's space. The one next to mine."

"I don't drive." he replied.

Serina looked surprised. "Oh! How come?" she asked.

Cahill shrugged his shoulders. "I just never got around to learning." he replied.

"What do you do then, get the tram?" she asked, frowning.

He nodded. "It only takes thirty minutes." he told her.

Serina nodded, and placed her pen back on her desk. As she opened her mouth to speak, Colin suddenly moved across her eyeline, distracting her. She watched as he headed back to his desk and stood there, looking around the office. She presumed he was looking for anybody who hadn't already signed the form. After a few moments, he placed the clipboard on his desk and sat down.

Serina glanced back at Cahill. He was looking intently at the items scattered messily across her desk. There was a loose stack of paper on the near side of the desk, next to the digital desk phone. A second, smaller pile sat untidily in a plastic tray on the far side of the desk. Directly in front of her chair, her notebook was resting on her keyboard. Her pen and her mobile phone lay on the desk between the keyboard and the mouse. Behind her keyboard, her laptop sat in a docking station, its lid closed. Behind that was the workstation screen. It had gone into sleep mode, and was displaying a slide-show of photographs.

He pointed at the screen. "Who is that?" he asked.

Serina looked at the screen. It was displaying a photograph of her with another woman. Slightly taller, with lighter brown skin, green eyes, and long, curly dark brown hair. They were standing on a balcony somewhere sunny. They had their arms around each other, and they were gently kissing. She smiled nervously. She had been anticipating this conversation. She found herself wondering how he would react, and realised that she was still having difficulty reading him. "My girlfriend, Karla." she replied.

"Oh. I see." he nodded. He continued watching the slide-show, which was cycling through a series of pictures showing Serina with Karla in a variety of exotic locations.

She stared at him for a moment. Nothing. No reaction at all. Just a basic acceptance of the facts. What was wrong with him?

After a few moments, he noticed her stare. "What?" he asked.

"I was expecting you to say something." she replied cautiously. "You know, make some comment or other. On the fact that I'm living with another woman."

He looked puzzled. "Why?"

"Because everybody says something." she replied with a sigh. "Usually."

"Why?" he asked again, frowning faintly.

A look of confusion appeared on her face, and she opened her mouth to speak. Unable to decide what to say, she closed her mouth again, and stared at the slide-show for a few moments. There was her with Karla on the beach, in the hotel, outside the theatre. Then the photograph of them on the balcony reappeared. She hit her keyboard in frustration, and the photograph vanished, replaced by the login screen. Cahill looked at her, a hint of surprise on his face.

She looked at him apologetically. "Sorry. I'm just not used to people not reacting when they hear about Karla." she said.

He nodded, apparently understanding. "Because you are gay."

She shook her head. "Bisexual, actually." she smiled. "It's the same thing to some people, though." she added with a sigh. She glanced over towards Ray, who was busy filing some paperwork.

Cahill followed her gaze. "Sergeant Walker?" he asked.

"He's old school. Doesn't like me. Doesn't like Colin. Doesn't like Sebastian." she nodded. "Not sure he likes anybody, really." she added with a sigh.

He looked at her, a look of slight puzzlement on his face. She frowned. "Maybe Frank, but that's about it." she concluded.

She looked at Cahill, noticing the puzzled look on his face. She shook her head. Best not to ask why. Not yet, at least. "Come on. Let's get started." she told him, as she began tapping at her keyboard, entering the password that unlocked her workstation.

"You familiar with the SCR database?" she asked.

"The Serious Crimes Register. Yes." he nodded. He paused, thoughtfully, before adding "I think my logon will have been disabled."

She smiled. He was probably right. They tended to disable people's logins fairly quickly. She could remember – it wasn't that long ago, actually – when, if you didn't login to the SCR on a Friday, your login would have been disabled by the following Monday. "Well, if you ask Chris, I'm sure he will get you set up again." she told him.

Serina spent the rest of the morning taking Cahill through the intricacies of her job. He listened intently, nodded when it seemed appropriate, and took copious notes. During a coffee break, she took him around the office and introduced him to the other detectives.

After chatting for a short while with both Colin and Ray, Serina took Cahill over to speak to Chris Bradshaw, the station's Technical Support Officer. A youngish man, probably in his late twenties, Chris had spotty pale skin that has not seen much sunlight, with shoulder-length brown hair and a matching goatee beard and thin moustache. Unlike most of the other men in the office, who wore smart suits, Chris was dressed in an open-necked pale green shirt beneath a dark brown jumper and corded brown trousers. A pair of square, thick-rimmed spectacles were perched on his nose, completing the image of a traditional geek.

Once Serina had confirmed with Chris that he would re-enable Cahill's login to the SCR database, she took Cahill across to the other side of the office, and introduced him to Detective Sergeant Sebastian Smith and Detective Constable Natasha Rogers.

Sebastian, a heavily-tanned man in his late thirties, with short, tousled blond hair and a neatly-trimmed moustache, was the head of the station's Sexual Crimes Division. In his pale brown suit, lemon yellow shirt, and plain brown tie, he rather stood out from all the other male detectives, who tended to prefer dark colours.

Natasha was the Victim Support Officer. She was somewhat younger than Sebastian, perhaps no older than Cahill, with tanned white skin and short, spiky brown hair. Her outfit was not dissimilar to Serina's, although her black skirt was considerably shorter and the chain around her neck a lot chunkier.

Once Cahill had been properly introduced to Sebastian and Natasha, along with everybody else in the office, Serina led him out of the office, through the central part of the station, to the canteen, where they sat down and ate their lunch. Sebastian and Natasha joined them, along with a number of their other colleagues.