The softening up continued as they sped down Piccadilly. Lily nodded and smiled and maintained a polite silence. Her own judgement of the station and its officers had been coloured by a closer experience and from the inside. She had admitted to no one that, on more than one occasion in her year on patrol, she’d held back from calling her colleague to arrest a suspect, out of pity and concern for the latter’s safety in what Sandilands seemed to want to present as a jolly gentlemen’s club. The young, the elderly, the feeble, the first time offenders, Lily reckoned had no place in that brutal environment. No one had caught her pulling her punches and releasing suspects with no more than a flea in their ear and now, she realized with a surge of elation, it was too late for her lapses to be discovered. She was resigning after all. At the end of the day.
‘Prattle on, Sandilands. Who do you think you’re kidding?’ Lily said, but she said it to herself.
Their car dropped them on Piccadilly and Lily set off to the station a few steps ahead of Joe, who paused to give instructions to his driver. She was greeted by the constable on duty at the door. PC Hewitt recognized her and hailed her from a distance with the joviality of a man looking forward to relieving his boredom with an exchange of police banter. Lily was known at the station for giving as good as she got and bearing no grudges. She didn’t look down on the men the way some of those toffee-nosed women did. She could take a joke.
‘Wotcher, Lil! On yer tod today, then? No scrapings from the park to offer us? Just as well. We’re a bit busy — it’s standing room only in there. Bedlam!’
‘Hello, Harry. No, I’m not alone.’ She waved a hand to indicate the presence of Sandilands, who was striding up the side road after her. ‘Not Halliday — he’s gone north. Instead, I bring you the commander. Or he brings me. Not quite sure. But we seem to be together.’
‘Gawd! That’s all we needed!’ PC Hewitt gritted out of the corner of his mouth. ‘What’s Young Lochinvar doing riding up again? Can’t they give him a desk to sit at? And what the ’ell’s ’e want with you?’ Hewitt gave her a look both salacious and speculative.
‘Oh, the usual,’ Lily said lightly. ‘I’m here to provide a little female insight.’
‘Lucky devil! I wonder what you can show him that we can’t?’
Smiling affably, Lily squared up to him. ‘Watch it. How’d you like to greet the boss hopping on one leg? These boots aren’t good for much but they’re damned good kneecappers.’
Hewitt grinned and, playing the game, jumped back, clutching his crotch. The girl had form. There was a sergeant in C division who had the limp to prove it, and gossip had it that the target zone had been some degrees north of kneecaps. He went into a smart salute as Sandilands approached and with a wink for Lily made a play of opening the heavy door with the panache of a hotel commissionaire.