In the Absence of Iles by Bill James Page B

liabilities, these officers were unlikely to volunteer for Out-loc, anyway, and only volunteers did undercover.
    Esther tried to see from the corner of her eye how Mr Martlew took Channing’s bleak evidence. She felt it would be an intrusion to turn and openly watch him, a kind of cruelty. He seemed to be still crouched forward in that settled position, still measuring every word. Although she’d managed to find in Dean someone with no partnership ties or responsibilities, it would be impossible to go further, of course – to look for a detective with no ties at all: no living parents who might be hurt by any disaster, no brothers or sisters. Perhaps her fussiness had been a token only, a slight and silly gesture to show she did genuinely worry about the risks to one of her people.
    She’d read somewhere that panels selecting astronauts for space missions actually
favoured
candidates in established, steady relationships because this might indicate balanced, durable personalities. Well, Out-loc, too, needed balanced, durable men and women because their period under vast stress might be long, so Esther saw there could have been a case for actually
preferring
officers in long-term relationships. And although her own marriage would never be regarded as a thing of balance and steadiness, she’d admit some like that might exist. Just the same, she had decided that for the Cormax Turton Guild project, she wanted a total singleton. Dean Martlew had claimed to be that. They did additional research on him and this seemed to be true: no regular woman in the background.
    It struck Esther later, including sometimes now, as she followed the trial off-and-on, that maybe she had let this celibacy requirement get too absolute, too inflexible. Might one of the other shortlisted people have done the Guild assignment better, despite a solid, ongoing relationship? Might he/she still be alive and undefaced? That’s what ‘better’ meant to Esther now: unmurdered, unmutilated.
    There’d been a woman detective constable, Amy Dill, on the list whom Esther had thought from her records the most promising, although due then to be married fairly soon. Channing considered her brilliant, also – in fact, made her his preferred candidate, with Martlew next, but not a real challenge. Esther had even driven over to the outlying nick at East Stead where Dill worked to take a look without her knowledge and without commitment. In fact, at the end of that trip there
had
been commitment – negative commitment. Dill was too lovely. If Out-located she’d be stalked by every straight, fit man in the Cormax Turton Guild. It would not be fair to her, not right by her, even if she volunteered.
    ‘How eventually was the body of Dean Martlew definitively identified?’ Longmuir asked.
    ‘Bank cards in his jacket pocket, dental records, an appendectomy scar and finally, when most doubts had been removed, we informed the family. His father, Mr James Martlew, and another of his sons came to view the body and confirmed it was Dean Martlew.’
    Esther thought she heard Mr Martlew mutter something, but something unintelligible, perhaps just Dean’s name. He still made no movement in his seat. She wished she could go to him after the hearing today and say: ‘Mr Martlew, I’m all the time conscious of your distress, of the family’s distress, but will you believe Dean
wanted
to do it, virtually insisted? He hated the idea that we might settle on someone else. We couldn’t. He was outstanding, far and away the most suitable.’ That would have been defensive, though. Selfish? It might help console Esther, suggesting there’d been no option, but would it make things any easier to bear for Mr Martlew and the family? They might argue Dean was a youngster, a kid, and that Esther had let him follow the foolhardy impulses of a youngster, a kid, excited by the prospect of cloak and dagger work; had cashed in on them. Most probably no conversation would take place