Those Who Feel Nothing Read Online Free Page A

assistance in the couple of years since she’d taken over from him. However, she would be happy to work with him again.
    â€˜I have a few ideas,’ he said.
    â€˜I’ll be glad to hear them,’ she said. ‘As long as they’re not operationally based, which is outside your remit – as you will know.’
    Watts smiled pleasantly. ‘I’m aware of that, Chief Constable.’
    â€˜I have a lot of technology types knocking on my door offering us the latest policing kit,’ Hewitt said. ‘Maybe that’s an area you could be of real use – identifying the next generation of policing aids.’
    â€˜Happy to,’ he said. He’d always quite liked the boy’s toys aspect of police work. ‘But what are your main operational issues at the moment?’
    â€˜The usual. Drugs, of course. You know there’s talk of opening a “shooting gallery” down here for our drug addicts to shoot up legally in controlled conditions?’
    â€˜Makes sense.’
    She shot him a sharp look. ‘Does it? All of Britain’s drug addicts heading our way for a year-round holiday?’
    Watts thought it wise to move on. ‘What else?’
    â€˜Teen gangs; dangerous dogs.’ She grimaced – or tried to. ‘Oh, and copper cable theft is still a pain in the bum. There was travel chaos for commuters last week because some clever dick nicked fifty metres of signalling cabling around Littlehampton. Trains cancelled and delayed and diverted. I’m sending out regular night patrols to try to catch them.’
    â€˜The railways have got their own police,’ Watts said.
    â€˜I know that,’ Hewitt said sharply. She looked down and moderated her tone. ‘The rail chiefs are demanding a crackdown on copper thieves both to prevent them and to catch them. As are the commuting public. It’s not our primary responsibility but we need to be seen to be responding, obviously. But then that means taking police from somewhere else.’
    She sighed.
    â€˜Peacehaven has turned out to be the seagull shooting capital of the south coast. I don’t know if it’s to do with what happened here a few months ago, when all the fish fell from the sky, but they are attacking humans and then people shoot them and then the birds attack some more because they’re defending their chicks. BB guns are the weapons of choice. We’ve had sixty cases reported.’
    Watts laughed. ‘And that’s a police matter?’ he said.
    â€˜Of course,’ Hewitt said, almost indignant. ‘People found guilty of shooting a bird can get a six-month prison sentence and a twenty-thousand-pound fine. And you think with a Green MP for the town we can afford to ignore that?’
    Watts put his hands up in a placatory gesture. ‘You’re right, of course.’
    â€˜Experts say the birds have become “abnormally aggressive” in Peacehaven. It’s like that film
The Birds
down there. People and pets have been attacked. One woman told the
Argus
she wears a hard hat when she hangs out her washing.’
    Hewitt joined in with Watts’ laughter this time. Then she raised her hand.
    â€˜But, in consequence, there are more crimes against gulls in Peacehaven than the rest of the towns along the south coast put together.’
    â€˜Jesus,’ Watts said, still grinning.
    â€˜I know, but we do have to deal with it.’
    â€˜Noted,’ he said, composing himself.
    Hewitt also put on a serious expression. ‘Bob, we’re still going down the path you set us on. Not reactive policing but problem solving and partnerships with our different communities to forestall criminality. However, times have changed. You were able to switch the money from people into technology so we could work smarter. But these days the government is squeezing us so hard we have no money to invest in more technology. So we shed even more people without