Crunch Time by Nick Oldham

opened the door and, placing a finger to his lips, stood aside to allow Andrea to enter, which she did with a very serious expression on her face.
    â€˜I thought you were coming home tonight,’ Kate said. ‘It’s gone eight thirty.’ Her voice was full of resignation.
    â€˜I know, love …’ He followed Andrea into the apartment. She went to the wall-sized plate glass window looking down on to the basin of the Manchester Ship Canal and the museum beyond. ‘Look, something came up. I need to deal with it. You know how it is.’
    A very annoyed silence greeted his words.
    â€˜I’m sorry, love … I will be back, but it’ll be later … early hours?’ he added hopefully.
    The line went dead when Kate cut him off.
    Andrea Makin turned to him. ‘Something came up? In your dreams, Henry.’
    â€˜What are you doing here?’
    â€˜I was worried about you.’
    â€˜Well, you’ve got to go because I’m off to see Ingram again.’
    â€˜Shouldn’t you have reported in? I am your controller, you know.’
    â€˜Andrea, let me do my job.’
    â€˜Can you actually do it when you’re being harassed by a needy ex-wife?’
    â€˜None of your business.’
    â€˜Yes it is. I can’t have officers operating under cover who are having pain on the home front … it tends to skew the perspective, makes them vulnerable.’
    â€˜Everything’s fine.’
    She breathed down her nose, flared her nostrils. ‘OK,’ she relented, ‘but I want a quick update.’
    â€˜OK. He is very careful, as you’ll have picked up from this afternoon’s meeting. He even downloaded the info from my SIM card. It’s a damned good job I went in there sparse. If I’d been wired, he would’ve found It. If the car had been kitted out, he would have sussed that too. And I think he would’ve sussed a tail. So, he’s very wary, but interested. I could see it in his eyes and I think I can build a rapport, but I don’t need hassle.’
    â€˜Just basic health and safety.’
    â€˜Fair enough … did you manage to get anything from the roof of the biscuit factory?’
    â€˜Yeah, but nothing of value.’
    â€˜For the time being I won’t be going in wired or anything, but I will try to keep in touch, promise. Now I need to shoot, got some DVDs I need to watch with my new pal. It’s a man thing. He’s having a look at the merchandise.’
    â€˜A pervert thing, you mean.’
    â€˜And don’t come here again. He knows this address now and I wouldn’t be surprised if he gets someone to keep an eye on it occasionally – at least until I get thrown out of here.’
    The children had gone to bed and settled quickly as always. Good kids, polite, brainy and good-looking like their mother, occasionally showing the reckless streak of their father.
    Donaldson pulled a suitcase down from the loft and carried it quietly into the bedroom. He began filling it with his clothes, then took it downstairs and placed it in the hallway by the front door.
    Next he went to the kitchen where he grabbed a bottle of Jack Daniel’s, threw some ice cubes into a glass and slumped back into an armchair in the lounge before almost filling the glass with the bourbon.
    He gazed around the room, feeling empty yet full of pain, constantly replaying Karen’s words over and over in his brain.
    She had been right, of course. No one had forced him to go head-to-head with a terrorist. It had been his choice alone, his desire, obsession – call it what you will – and he had nearly died because of it and nearly left his family fatherless.
    â€˜Reckless, idiotic fool,’ he said, and took a big mouthful of the whisky. And now Karen couldn’t take any more. She had been by his side throughout the dark, touch-and-go days, stayed with him throughout his recovery, done her duty and now he