She had phoned on the way and landed a coffee date with Yuri, one of the driving instructors. He met her in the lobby, grinning all over his little pointed face. His last name was Kuznetzov; his parents were Russian immigrants. His features greatly resembled Vladimir Putin, but because of his cheerful expression and frequent smiles people often spent days after they met him asking themselves, Who does he remind me of?
‘I’ve got half an hour till my next class,’ he said, leading her to the break room. ‘But Charlie’s out on the field with the other group. Want to see what a fancy setup we got now?’ He led her along a shining hall to a big window. Across a wide pebbled field divided into long lanes by hundreds of orange traffic cones, a school car with two passengers on the front seat was driving fast along a straightaway. While Sarah watched, the driver, who had been one second late starting the sharp turn at the end of the row, had to watch the orange cones flying as he plowed them down.
And then you so want to quit and swear, Sarah remembered. But the instructor is already yelling, ‘No, no, don’t slow down! Go right on to the cul-de-sac!’ She watched as the car drove to the other end of the field, where the wide, curved track led along the slope, till it debauched abruptly at the other end onto a flat where two side-by-side lights flashed alternately red and green. The student had half a second to decide which lane to take, and about twice that much to stop the car before he hurled them both over the speed bump.
‘Handsomer than when I did it,’ Sarah said, ‘but essentially the brake-squealer hasn’t changed at all, has it? How has your neck survived all those quick stops for so many years?’
‘Ah, well,’ Yuri chuckled, leading her back toward the coffee, ‘you remember how you all used to call me “The Mule”?’
‘I didn’t know you knew that.’
‘Oh, sure. They still call me that behind my back and I guess they must be onto something – my neck’s OK.’
‘It’s just … it’s so hard at first, it felt like we had to have somebody to blame or we couldn’t bear it. Although come to think of it, all the way through, it’s just as hard. But you get used to it.’
‘Yup. You know that place in the Bible where it says, “Many are called but few are chosen”? I bet those old monks didn’t know they were describing a police training academy, did they?’
‘That’s one of the things you don’t get used to: the ones who try so hard and still don’t make it. We’d put in those hellish long days and come back to the dorm, and somebody would be kicking the wall and swearing because he just got news he flunked a test the second time. One day it was Annie, the best friend I’d made in the course, packing her bag and trying to hide the fact that she was crying.’
‘And then about halfway, it changes, doesn’t it?’
‘You see yourself surviving where others fail, and you start to think you might be one of the “few who are chosen.” I asked my mother once, “Did I change at the academy?” because, you know, so many things felt different. And she said, “Are you kidding? Everything about you changed – even the way you drive a car.”’
‘Well, I should hope so. That’s the whole point, isn’t it?’
‘Mom says cops drive as if they own the street.’
‘Well, they do, in a way. Have to, to do the job.’
‘Mmm. You heard about what happened to Ed Lacey?’
Briefly looking as depressed as the President of Russia, Yuri said, ‘Damn shame. Everybody’s talking about it out here, of course. We’re kind of—’ He ducked his head in what she remembered was a characteristic gesture. ‘It sounds kind of stuck up to say it, I guess, but we think of the training crew as kind of the elite within what’s already a special group, you know?’
‘Well, you are. We all know that. Did you ever see any signs, while he worked with you, that Ed was overstressed, or … going to pieces in some way?’
‘Absolutely not. That’s why there’s so much talk – we just can’t believe … He was good at his job. Sure, there’s pressure, we need to show good numbers, but … Ed seemed to enjoy his work; he was proud of what good cops we turn out.’
‘Delaney said he was solid as a rock.’
‘I agree. I can’t even guess at what happened. Well, I better get ready.’ He got up. ‘Take a look at the firing range on your way out, it’s got all the bells and whistles.’
At South Stone, she walked onto the second floor to the rare sound of near-silence, the welcome peacefulness of detectives getting ready to clear their desks. It continued for five more minutes, till Ollie Greenaway walked into the work area and said, ‘Boy, have I got news for all of you.’