She took the piece of skin between the big toe and the next one and dug in her nails. Pain bolted up her body and lit her brain white, but she held on. She closed her eyes and concentrated on it, letting the heat move round her veins. The force counsellor at their six-month meeting had told Flea she needed to show someone her feet and talk about the way this problem had developed — and just remind me now? When did this skin appear? Was it about the time of the accident?

But she hadn't shown anyone. Not the counsellor, not the doctor. One day she'd need an operation, she supposed. She'd wait, though, until there was pain, or loss of movement, or something that might stop her diving.

A sound behind her, and she fumbled her socks out of her holdall and pulled them on quickly. Dundas came in holding a ciabatta wrapped in a flower-sprigged paper napkin, raising an eyebrow when he saw her sitting in her bra and rolled-down thermals, her hands wrapped protectively round her feet.

'Uh — maybe get some clothes on? The deputy SIO's coming down to tie things up. Told him where to find us.'

She pulled on a T-shirt, picked up a towel and began to rub her hair vigorously. 'Where's the SIO, then?'

'Got a meeting about Operation Atrium — not interested in us lollygagging around with a hand on the harbour front. Doesn't think the Major Crime Unit should be bothering with us. He was off twenty minutes ago.'

'I'm glad. Don't like him,' she said, thinking about the briefing earlier on. The on-call senior investigating officer had been okayish, but she'd never forgotten the look on his face when he'd first seen her at a dive briefing three years ago: just like all the other SIOs, sort of depressed because there he was, waiting for someone with a bit of authority, someone who'd answer the questions about the water, and what he got instead of reassurance was Flea — twenty-six and skinny, with lots of hair and these blue child's eyes that were so wide spaced she looked as if she wouldn't be able to open a bank account, let alone pull a dead body out of the mud under four metres of water. But they mostly did that to her, the senior ranks. At first it had been a challenge. Now it just pissed her off.



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