Excerpt from I Let You Go by Clare Mackintosh, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Leaning forward to find a marker pen in his chaotic top drawer, Ray crouched down and changed the label to "Detective." The door to his office opened and he hastily stood up, replacing the lid on the pen.

"Ah, Kate, I was just . . ." He stopped, recognizing the look on her face almost before he saw the Command and Control printout in her hand. "What have you got?"

"A hit-and-run in Fishponds, guv. Five-year-old boy killed."

Ray stretched out a hand for the piece of paper and scanned it while Kate stood awkwardly in the doorway. Fresh from shift, she had only been on CID for a couple of months and was still finding her feet. She was good though: better than she knew.

"No registration number?"

"Not as far as we know. Shift have got the scene contained and the skipper's taking a statement from the child's mother as we speak. She's badly in shock, as you can imagine."

"Are you all right to stay late?" Ray asked, but Kate was nodding before he'd even finished the question. They exchanged half-smiles in mutual acknowledgement of the adrenaline rush it always felt so wrong to enjoy when something so horrific had happened.

"Right then, let's go."

They nodded a greeting to the throng of smokers clustered under cover by the back door.

"All right, Stumpy?" Ray said. "I'm taking Kate out to the Fish- ponds hit-and-run. Can you get on to Area Intelligence and see if any- thing's come in yet?"

"Will do." The older man took a final drag of his roll-up. Detective Sergeant Jake Owen had been called Stumpy for so much of his career that it was always a surprise to hear his full name read out in court. A man of few words, Stumpy had more war stories than he chose to share, and was without a shadow of a doubt Ray's best DS. The two men had been on shift together for several years, and with a strength that belied his small stature, Stumpy was a handy crewmate to have on your side.

In addition to Kate, Stumpy's team included the steady Malcolm Johnson and young Dave Hillsdon, an enthusiastic but maverick DC, whose determined efforts to secure convictions sailed a little too close to the wind for Ray's liking. Together they made a good team, and Kate was learning fast from them. She had a fiery passion that made Ray nostalgic for his days as a hungry DC, before seventeen years of bureaucracy had ground him down.

Kate drove the unmarked Corsa through mounting rush-hour traffic to Fishponds. She was an impatient driver; tutting when a red light held them back, and craning her neck to see past a holdup. She was perpetually in motion: tapping fingers on the steering wheel, screwing up her nose, shifting in her seat. As the traffic started moving again, she leaned forward as though the movement would propel them forward faster.

"Missing blues and twos?" Ray said.

Kate grinned. "Maybe a bit." There was eyeliner smudged around her eyes, but otherwise her face was clean of makeup. Dark brown curls fell messily about her face, despite the tortoiseshell clip presumably intended to hold them back.

Ray fished for his mobile to make the necessary calls, confirming that the Collision Investigation Unit was en route, the duty superintendent had been informed, and that someone had called out the Ops wagon—a lumbering vehicle stuffed to the gunnels with tenting, emergency lights, and hot drinks. Everything had been done. In all honesty, he thought, it always had been, but as duty DI the buck stopped with him. There was usually a bit of hackle-rising from shift when CID turned up and started going over old ground, but that was just the way it had to be. They'd all been through it; even Ray, who had spent as little time in uniform as possible before moving on.

He spoke to Control Room to let them know they were five minutes away, but didn't call home. Ray had taken to phoning Mags instead on the rare occasion when he was going to be on time, which seemed a much more practical approach to the long hours the job demanded of him.

Excerpted from I Let You Go by Clare Mackintosh. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.