Silent Night - By Tom Barber Page 0,12

while to warm up.

‘Believe or not, he’s actually good police,’ Josh continued. ‘He’s just deficient in his personality.’

Archer shrugged. ‘One less Christmas card I have to write this year.’ Reaching forward, he cranked the heating up a notch.

‘So Katic left this morning?’ Josh asked.

‘Yeah. She’s gone.’

‘You say goodbye?’

Archer nodded. ‘I was over there when you rang.’

Josh glanced at him. ‘How’d it go?’

‘It was fine.’

‘That’s it? It was fine?’

Archer shrugged again. ‘She and I met on one of the most dangerous nights of our lives. Then I left. Once I came back and with all that adrenaline gone, we both realised we'd moved on.’

‘She’s a Fed, right?’

‘Yeah. She’s taking up an Agent-in-Charge position at their field office in Chicago. Her family are there too. Her kid's starting school there in the New Year.’

Josh nodded, sensing Archer didn't want to talk any more about it and a silence fell in the car.

Archer looked out of the window and watched the thick pillars of the Bridge pass by, the icy-cold East River running fast below. Moving to New York from the UK wasn’t a decision he’d taken lightly. He’d been more than happy in his prestigious position on the First Team of the ARU. They were one of the leading counter-terrorist task forces in London after all, and he’d worked alongside some of the best men and women out there. His great friend Chalky. Porter, Fox and Deakins, top guys who were more family than work colleagues. Nikki, a tech analyst who was both a close friend and an old flame. And Cobb, the best boss a man could ask for.

But a big factor in coming here had been FBI Supervisory Special Agent Mina Katic. Ever since they’d met last summer she'd been constantly in his thoughts. He'd arrived in New York seven months ago and initially everything seemed to be fine, but then Archer had realised it just wasn’t working. Something was missing. Aside from just feeling 'off', they both worked insanely unpredictable hours. They’d been separated by an ocean before, but now they were in the same city they still barely saw each other. Like embers on a dying fire, their romance had slowly dimmed and faded.

Soon enough, the spark was gone.

Her job offer in Chicago had been a blessing in disguise. He’d sensed for a while she’d had enough of New York and wanted to move back to where she’d grown up with her daughter, Jess, who would be starting high school in the next couple of years. When she'd first mentioned that she was thinking of leaving, Archer hadn’t felt any desire to ask her to stay.

That was when he knew it was over.

The period leading up to her departure, much like their goodbye this morning, had been very civil with no acrimony or hostility. Neither felt any anger towards the other. But for whatever reason, be it personal or professional, what they had obviously wasn’t destined to be a long-term thing. It almost seemed to Archer that a man in this career had to pick between his work and his personal life. You couldn’t have both. But then he glanced at Josh and realised that wasn’t true. You couldn’t find a happier married man or a more doting father. Josh was getting it right. Archer wanted to find out what his secret was.

The horn of a passing car blared, bringing Archer back to the situation at hand. They’d just moved off the Bridge and were now in Manhattan. Josh drove down 59headed west, past 1, 2 and 3Avenues. Then Park, Madison and 5. Central Park rolled into view on their right. Everywhere he looked there were red and gold Christmas decorations, shoppers wrapped up in thick coats, many of them laden with bags as they made their way to a coffee shop or back to their hotels. A group of carol singers had taken up a position on the sidewalk by the south-east entrance of Central Park and he caught a glimpse of an ice-skating rink through a gap in the trees as they drove down the street. New York did Christmas damn well. There were throngs of people everywhere, all enjoying a festive weekend. All of them blissfully unaware that a man had died a horrific toxic death across the Park last night.

‘You got plans Christmas Day?’ Josh asked.

‘Haven’t thought about it.’

‘What about your sister? She’s in DC, right?’

‘She’s having a hot one. Going off with the family to the Caribbean.’

‘Never understood that. It wouldn’t feel right