Turnaround

A disillusioned CSI on her last shift probes a break-in – but things aren’t quite as they seem

So, this is how it ends. Sitting outside an industrial unit at night alone, watching the rain lash down on the windscreen of her crime scene investigator’s van. Thirty years, woman and girl, and what does she have to show for it other than catching the same criminals over and over again because, you know what? Crime does pay.

Even her retirement party has been cancelled because the rest of her shift has been called out on a major incident elsewhere in the country. Maybe it’s just as well. She doesn’t feel she has much to celebrate.

A man in his thirties appears in the doorway, his collar turned up against the driving rain. His face is illuminated by the light above him. There’s something familiar about him but she’s certain this is the first time she’s been called to a break-in at this unit.

He checks his watch and scowls at her. She’s late. She’s always late. Too many crimes. Too little time. She gets out of the van and fetches her silver case from the back.

“I’m Maggie O’connell, the crime scene investigator.”

She holds her hand out, but he doesn’t take it.

“Wayne Black, CEO.” The name isn’t familiar to her. “Where have you been?

We’ve waited hours.”

“I’m sorry I had to photograph an assault. It took longer than expected.”

She doesn’t go into details. There’s no point. She’s sure Wayne Black CEO doesn’t have an empathetic bone in his body.

The man leads Maggie through a large workshop, dotted with tables containing furniture at different stages of construction, to the back – where a window has been forced open.

“Did they take anything?” she asks.

“Some petty cash from the office.”

“OK. I’ll start here and then I’ll take a look in the office.”

She opens her case and removes a brush and a small pot of black powder. Dipping her brush in the pot, she taps off the excess and begins to gently brush the window frame. She’s not hopeful she’ll find any fingerprints. She hasn’t been hopeful for a long time.

It wasn’t always like this. She became a CSI to make a difference and, in the beginning, she thought she did. She caught dozens of burglars, but catching them wasn’t enough. She wrote to them in jail, telling them it wasn’t too late to leave their life of crime behind. But it was too late because the same old faces kept appearing in front of her in court. The revolving door of justice, they called it. Once you’re in, you never leave. “Anything?” asks Wayne.

“No, just smudges. It looks like they were wearing latex gloves.”

He throws his arms up in disgust.

“That’s it? We waited all day to fix this only for you to turn up and tell us the little scumbag was wearing gloves?”

“They’ve left some shoeprints. I’ll photograph and lift those too.”

“What’s the point?”

Yes, what was the point? If the burglar had been picked up near the scene, still wearing the same footwear, she could prove they’d broken in. But they hadn’t and any thief worth their salt will have dumped their shoes by now.

“You never know.”

But Wayne is certain that he does know. “This is a complete waste of time. Even if you caught them, they’d just get a

rap on the knuckles and be out thieving the next day. Once a thief, always a thief.”

He continues to express his contempt for the criminal justice system as she takes out her camera and photographs the shoeprints before “lifting” them, using a large sheet of sticky plastic transferred to a special backing. It’s a good lift. Not that that’s any consolation.

“Can you show me where the petty cash is kept? They might have taken their gloves off to handle it?”

Wayne snorts his derision and takes her back through the workshop to the office.

“In there,” he says, nodding at a grey door. Maggie opens it, but it’s dark. She frowns at Wayne but he just shrugs. “We turned everything off. We didn’t think you were coming. The switch is on the inside.”

Her fingers search out the cold

plastic. She flicks the switch downwards. The light momentarily blinds her but there’s a loud pop which makes her jump, followed by a cheer.

As her eyes adjust to the light, she finds herself in an office with two dozen or more people she has never seen before in her life.

At first, she thinks she has stumbled into someone else’s surprise party. Then her CSI partner, Jack, steps forward holding two champagne flutes.

“You didn’t think we’d let you go without a proper send-off, did you?”

She stares at him in confusion. “I don’t understand. The burglary.”

Jack laughs.

“It’s a set-up.”

“Wouldn’t it have been easier to just go to the pub? And who are all these people?”

“We will. Just as soon as the others wrap up this big job, but this,” he waves his hand around the room, “was Gray’s idea.”

“Gray?”

The person formerly known as Wayne steps forward.

“I couldn’t risk telling you my real name,” he grins. “You’d have recognised me.”

“So, we have met before.”

“Only in court.”

She remembers now. Grayson Wright. Her first collar. She got him sent down for 12 months for a spate of burglaries.

“But what are you doing here?”

“This factory is mine. And it’s all down to you. You wrote to me when I was inside. Told me to straighten my life up otherwise you’d be seeing more of me. So I did. I set this place up and now I employ ex-cons. I’ve always wanted to thank you.

“Then I read in the newspaper that you were retiring. So I rang Jack to ask if I could show my appreciation in some way – and he suggested this.”

Gray turns to the rest of the room and holds up his glass.

“So I’d like to raise a toast to you, Maggie O’connell, CSI. Thank you for helping me see the light all those years ago.”

“To Maggie,” the room choruses. As the claps and whoops ring out, Maggie smiles for the first time in a long while.

She had made a difference after all.

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