Page 75 of The Trap by Catherine
Angela nodded.
“Caroline fucking O’Callaghan,” Denise said. “Who’d have thought?”
“Well... Roland Kearns did.”
“What?”
“When we were at his apartment,” Angela said, “he said she was unhinged. Obsessed with him. He thought it was because she thought he was guilty, but maybe it wasn’t. Clearly it wasn’t.”
“So we live in a world where my suspect knew more about this case than me?” Denise shook her head. “How reassuring.”
“Maybe it just takes one to know one. A sociopath, I mean.”
“Maybe.”
“What about Lucy O’Sullivan?” Angela asked. “Did you find her?”
Denise shook her head. “She left the studio, she didn’t go home and she isn’t at her place of business. Chris is still out driving around, but if she wants to be alone... I have the lads in Dundrum keeping an eye on the house. They’ll call me if they see her.” She settled back into her seat, stretching her legs a little, leaning her head against the headrest. “So, tell me. What happened with the PCT?”
Tonight, Angela had disobeyed her superior’s instructions. She had attempted to arrest a civilian even though she had no authority to do such a thing and didn’t even know what people whohadauthority were supposed to say whentheydid it. She had breached Caroline’s civil rights by not only attempting to detain her, but failing to leave her private property after she’d asked, twice. And because of all this, Angela had single-handedly destroyed any chance of securing a conviction in what was becoming a murder inquiry.
What happened with the PCT?wasn’t the next question she was expecting.
“I blame the video,” Angela said.
There was an official video, available online, that had been produced by the Gardaí themselves, which claimed to outline what was involved in the Physical Competency Test.A bleep test; push-ups and pull-ups; an obstacle course, which had been set up indoors in a space that reminded Angela of primary-school PE; and, finally, the push-and-pull test.
And on the video, it looked fine.
Entirelydoable.
Angela had seen much worse on problematic reality TV.
“And,” she said, “working where I work.”
How bad could it be if the point of it was to ensure that applicants possessedthe operational fitness required to undertake the actual job(as the guy on the video said)? The uniformed men and women she saw every day seemed to come in all shapes, sizes, and athletic capabilities. There were a few bloated gym-bros in there, sure, biceps straining under the T-shirts they evidently couldn’t find in their size, but they tended to be in the ERU or other specialized response units. Most Gardaí didn’t even carrytheir own hands, for God’s sake. Every one of them walked around with their thumbs hooked into the sides of their stab vest.
“And,” Angela said, “I didn’t do enough preparation. I didn’t do any at all, actually.”
On the day of the test, she had known immediately that she was in trouble. Perfectly fit and healthy twenty-somethings were fainting, throwing up, crying or, in one poor guy’s case, getting so puce in the face that the medical officer had forbidden him from continuing. She’d done her best, and she’d got through the course, but her times just hadn’t been good enough.
“Look,” Denise said. “Don’t beat yourself up about it. The PCT isn’t fair. And I mean literally. They say they set different passing thresholds based on age and gender, but did you know that across all ages, a disproportionate percentage of women fail the test?”
Angela shook her head. “No.”
“We have to work harder than the lads to pass it,” Denise said. “Which in a way is fitting, considering it’s supposed to prep you for being on the job, and that’s what you’ll have to do the entire time you’re here: work much, much harder than they ever do, just to be treated as something approaching their equal. If you’re lucky.”
A lump was forming in the back of Angela’s throat because, after tonight, the PCT was a moot point.
She wasn’t going to get anywhere near the guards now, unless one of them was arresting her. She probably wouldn’t even be allowed to keep her job in the MPU. She had fucked up so majorly, there could be no coming back from this.
“You’ll pass it the second time,” Denise said.
Angela looked at her, confused.
“I’m going to take your statement now, OK?” Denise took out her notebook. “We’re going to go through exactly what happened here tonight, when you realized that Caroline O’Callaghan wasn’t telling the truth about her witness statement and you remained in the house under the pretense of the very real reason I had sent you there in the first place until I had a chance to arrive, evaluate the evidence for myself and perform a legal and just arrest.” She looked at Angela. “Are you ready to do that?”
Angela opened her mouth, but no words came out.
