The Things We Pretend Are Routine

“Partnerships don’t fall apart all at once. They just start skipping beats — one missed update, one held breath, one almost-touch.”

I hadn't even seen him arrive.

One moment, Karl's desk was still empty, the next, he was escorting someone down the corridor with that purposeful stride that meant business rather than courtesy.

A woman, mid-forties maybe, though stress had a way of adding years that weren't actually there. She was wrapped tight in a puffer jacket despite the building's stifling heat—one of those oversized ones in navy blue that swallowed her frame, making her look smaller than she probably was. And worry. She wore worry like a second skin, visible in every line of her body.

Her gait was tense, like she'd been holding herself together for hours through sheer force of will and was about to crack open at any moment. The kind of tension that preceded either collapse or explosion, depending on which way the pressure released. They moved quickly down the corridor, Karl walking a step ahead—not dismissively, but with that particular body language that established hierarchy without words.

His head was tilted just enough to suggest he was listening intently but not indulging, not offering comfort he couldn't guarantee. His pen was already out, notebook open in his other hand like he hadn't even paused to sit down before launching into whatever crisis she'd brought with her, like he'd intercepted her at the front desk and started the interview before even reaching an appropriate room.

I watched from my desk, eyebrows drawn together, stomach twitching with mild irritation that I tried to suppress but couldn't quite manage. He hadn't so much as stuck his head in to say he was back, hadn't sent a text or left a note or done any of the small courtesies partners extended to each other when returning from fieldwork.

Just disappeared for hours chasing Luke Smith—or so I assumed, given his earlier declaration of intent—and then reappeared with a new witness in tow, diving straight into a different case without bothering to update me on how his morning had gone.

The irritation was petty, I knew. Unprofessional, even. We weren't joined at the hip. Karl didn't owe me a minute-by-minute account of his whereabouts. But partnership meant communication, meant keeping each other informed, meant not being blindsided by new developments you should have known about.

And lately, Karl had been doing a lot of things that felt like operating solo whilst maintaining the appearance of teamwork.

When he finally reappeared in our open-plan office—weaving between desks that had been shoved too close together in a space never designed for this many people—it was with that same air of quiet purpose he always carried after an interview. Focused, serious, mildly untouchable in the way that suggested his mind was still in that conversation, still processing and analysing every word that had been spoken.

He was flicking back through his notes as he walked, eyes scanning the page with the kind of intensity that made him oblivious to his surroundings. Pen in hand, occasionally making small marks in margins, his lips moving slightly as though rehearsing something or testing theories against the evidence of what he'd just heard.

Whatever the woman had told him, he was still turning it over in that methodical way he had, examining it from every angle, looking for the holes or inconsistencies that might reveal truth hiding beneath surface presentation.

"Who was that?" I asked, unable to keep a hint of annoyance from creeping into my voice as he drifted back into our shared workspace. I kept my tone cool—or tried to—but my eyes stayed locked on him, tracking his movements, waiting for acknowledgment that I existed and had a right to know what was happening in our investigation.

He didn't answer immediately, just hovered near his desk like he couldn't quite commit to sitting down yet. Thumbing a page back and forth in that repetitive gesture that meant he was trying to remember something specific, some detail that hadn't made it onto paper but was lodged somewhere in his memory.

I could feel my patience fray, thread by thread. Karl had a habit of going solo when something caught his attention—following threads without so much as a nod my way, disappearing into leads and hunches and instincts he didn't bother explaining until after they'd either panned out or fizzled. Most of the time, Karl was solid. Reliable. The kind of partner who had your back when it counted, who wouldn't leave you hanging in a tight spot.

But there were days, like today, when I wanted to plant a boot under his arse for forgetting we were supposed to be a team. That the detective sitting three feet away might appreciate being included in developments rather than treated like support staff who'd be briefed when he got around to it.

"Jenny Triffett," Karl said eventually, his tone completely nonchalant, as if the name explained everything and required no further elaboration.

Typical. No context. No details about why she was here or what she'd reported or how it might connect to our existing investigation. Just the kind of breadcrumb he liked to drop, watching to see if I'd follow, testing whether I could make the connections he'd already made or if I'd need everything spelled out.

It was a game we played—or that he played, anyway. I was never entirely sure I'd agreed to participate.

"Who's Jenny Triffett?" I pressed, my curiosity clawing its way past the irritation, refusing to let him get away with cryptic non-answers. I leaned forward slightly in my chair, trying to sneak a glance at his notebook, hoping to catch enough of his scrawl to piece together what was happening.

But he angled it just enough to keep the writing obscured, shifting his body so the pages faced away from me. Another classic Karl move—close enough to engage, maintaining the appearance of openness, but always holding something back. Always keeping cards close to his chest until he decided it was time to reveal them.

"The wife of Nial Triffett, of course," Karl replied, like it was common knowledge I'd somehow missed, like I should already know who Nial Triffett was and why his wife showing up at the station mattered.

I rolled my eyes—couldn't help it, the gesture escaping before I could suppress it—and gave him a firm thump on the shoulder. More playful than punishing, but firm enough to register my displeasure, hard enough that he actually swayed slightly under the impact. It was our rhythm, this dance we did. He kept things close to the vest, hoarding information like treasure, and I dragged them out piece by piece, forcing him to share what he'd learned instead of keeping it locked in that infuriatingly organised mind of his.

Frustrating, yes. Maddening at times. But strangely effective in ways I couldn't quite articulate.

That was Karl. Mysterious, cryptic, often three steps ahead of everyone else, and maddeningly right more often than probability suggested he should be.

I settled back in my chair with a sigh that carried more weight than I'd intended, brushing a loose strand of hair from my face—it had escaped the clip I'd shoved it into this morning, now hanging in my peripheral vision like a persistent distraction. I studied Karl whilst he continued scribbling something new in the margin of his notebook, lips slightly parted in concentration, completely absorbed in whatever thought had just occurred to him.

If I didn't push him, he'd keep half the case in his head and the other half in riddles until he was ready to lay it all out in some grand reveal where everything suddenly made sense but only because he'd been hoarding the pieces necessary to assemble the puzzle.

Still, I couldn't deny the results. His cryptic ways forced me to think harder, ask better questions, piece things together from fragments rather than having everything handed to me fully formed. It was infuriating, yes. But it also worked. We weren't just co-workers shuffling through cases with minimum engagement—we were sparring partners, constantly pushing each other, challenging assumptions, forcing better thinking through productive friction.

And sometimes, I needed that friction to see the case clearly. Needed someone who didn't just accept my theories but made me defend them, refine them, prove them against scrutiny.

I turned my chair slightly, facing my screen with the pretence of returning to work, but my thoughts were already spinning elsewhere. Jenny Triffett. Husband. Nial. New names threading into the tapestry we'd been weaving around Jamie and Kain and Louise and this whole increasingly complicated mess.

New threads to pull, new connections to map, new questions multiplying faster than answers could form.

I cracked my knuckles—a nervous habit I'd never managed to break despite Jane's lifelong campaign against it—and reached for my notepad, mentally preparing to unravel the next mystery one line at a time, one question forced from Karl's reluctant lips.

"We need to advise the officers to be on the lookout for Nial Triffett's work ute," Karl stated suddenly, his tone shifting into that clipped, no-nonsense cadence he used when his brain was already three steps ahead and his mouth was struggling to keep pace with his thoughts.

He looked up from his notes, eyes focused with laser intensity, pen still in hand poised above paper. The scratch of ink had barely stopped before he started speaking, like the case was unfolding too quickly to pause, like information was cascading so fast he had to relay it immediately before it slipped away.

"Why? What's up? Something else related to the investigation?" I asked, straightening in my chair, the sharpness in his tone tugging at my attention like a hook finding purchase. My earlier irritation evaporated instantly, replaced by renewed focus, by that particular alertness that came when cases started connecting in unexpected ways.

"I'm not sure yet," Karl replied, his brow furrowing as he thumbed back through his scribbles, scanning pages with growing intensity. "His wife said he went to visit a potential new client for his struggling fencing business yesterday and has now gone missing. But..."

I didn't let him finish the thought.

"Well, that definitely sounds like it could be connected," I cut in, my brain already mapping potential links, drawing threads from this new name to the growing web of our investigation. Another missing person. Another disappearance in the same narrow window. The coincidences were stacking too high to ignore. "Do we know who he went to visit?" I asked, leaning in, hungry for specifics that might explain the connection.

"No," Karl said, his expression tightening with the frustration of incomplete information. "And Jenny called the police last night. While they were there talking to her, she received a text message from Nial telling her that he would be late home and not to wait up for him."

The information landed with disappointing weight, deflating the tension that had been building. I frowned, feeling the shift in my chest—disappointment, mostly, mixed with the particular frustration that came from cases that promised significance but dissolved into mundane explanations.

"That does sound a lot more like a case of infidelity rather than a missing person, and the last time I checked being a slimy cheat wasn't actually against the law," I muttered, trying to mask the sting of potentially wasted energy with dry humour that tasted bitter even as I spoke it.

Still, part of me couldn't help but weigh it up with the cynicism born of too many cases that looked straightforward before revealing hidden depths. Infidelity was easier to deal with than homicide, certainly. Easier for everyone—on paper, at least. Hurt feelings and broken trust versus grief and trauma and families permanently shattered.

But I'd seen the fallout from affairs before. Seen what they did to people when discovered. What they turned people into when betrayal landed like detonation. Grief was messy, unpredictable, capable of driving people to extremes they'd never imagined themselves capable of. Rage was worse—cold, calculating, the kind that planned rather than exploded.

And sometimes, both emotions combined could end with a body in the boot of a Hilux, hidden under tarps and tools whilst the murderer tried to figure out what to do next.

"You're right," Karl agreed, though his gaze remained fixed on the page in front of him with the intensity of someone not entirely convinced by their own words. He wasn't dismissing the possibility of infidelity, but he also wasn't ready to close the door on other explanations. "But I still think it might be worth us having a little bit of a dig ourselves. I'm sure Glen won't mind us helping him out a little."

He dropped into his seat like a man settling in for the long haul, the chair protesting with its familiar squeak. The posture said everything—this wasn't just a side note he'd forget about in twenty minutes. This was the beginning of something, a thread he intended to follow regardless of where it led.

His small notepad hit the desk in front of him with a soft thump, pages already covered in his tight, precise scrawl that most people found completely illegible. But I'd learned the rhythm of it over months of partnership—had decoded his particular cipher through necessity and persistence, learning to read handwriting that looked like it belonged to someone living half in shorthand, half in their own private language.

I moved behind him without conscious decision, drawn by curiosity stronger than lingering irritation. Peering over his shoulder, I could make out fragments—names, times, vehicle details scattered across the page in that organised chaos that somehow made perfect sense to Karl whilst looking like madness to everyone else.

Despite my earlier grumbling about being excluded, I knew better than to dismiss a thread too soon just because it inconvenienced me or didn't fit neatly into existing theories. You didn't get second chances with missed details in this job. Evidence didn't wait politely for you to notice it—it degraded, disappeared, got contaminated or lost or deliberately destroyed whilst you were busy looking elsewhere.

And if Karl was invested enough to start digging into what might be a completely unrelated case, then I'd be a fool not to dig with him. His instincts were too good to ignore, even when I couldn't yet see what he was seeing.

"Glen's on the case?" I quipped, cocking an eyebrow in an expression Karl couldn't see but would hear in my tone. "God help that poor woman."

The jab was light, delivered with enough humour to soften it. But my concern wasn't entirely performative. Glen had a knack for complicating the uncomplicated, for turning straightforward cases into bureaucratic nightmares through some combination of laziness and spectacular incompetence. If this case turned into something real—if Nial Triffett was actually missing rather than just cheating—I didn't want Jenny Triffett's only hope riding on Glen's ability to colour inside the lines.

Which, based on past experience, was approximately nil.

Karl chuckled softly, a sound that rumbled low in his chest—genuine amusement rather than polite acknowledgment. It was a small crack in his focus, a moment of shared understanding about our colleague's limitations, quickly sealed as he started typing into the database with fingers that knew the keyboard layout by muscle memory.

The system was slow as always, grinding through queries with all the speed of continental drift. But within seconds that felt longer than they were, a match appeared on screen—Nial Triffett's vehicle registration glowing in pale blue text against the dark background.

Karl tore a sticky note from the pad with a sharp ripping sound, jotted down the rego number with quick, jagged strokes that somehow remained legible despite their speed, then handed it to me without looking up from the screen.

"Here, go put out a BOLO for Nial's ute for me," he said, his tone carrying that particular note of request-that's-actually-an-instruction he used when delegating tasks.

Simple request. Routine procedure. But potentially high stakes if this turned into something more than a domestic dispute.

I took the note, scanning the scribbled characters and double-checking them aloud against what was displayed on Karl's screen, just to make sure I'd decoded his handwriting correctly and wouldn't send patrol looking for the wrong vehicle.

"Tasmania's a small place. I can't imagine his ute staying hidden for long," I said as I crossed back to my own desk, the yellow square of paper pressed between my fingers like a ticket to the next stage of whatever this investigation was becoming.

The truth was unavoidable—it was genuinely hard to stay lost for long in Tasmania. Hobart might technically be a city, might have all the infrastructure and population density that word implied. But Tasmania as a whole? It was still fundamentally a small place where people noticed things. A new car on a quiet road. A familiar face in the wrong town at the wrong time. Strangers asking questions in communities where everyone knew everyone else's business three generations back.

The island didn't keep secrets well. Geography and population density conspired against anonymity in ways that made detective work either easier or harder depending on whether you were looking for someone or trying to hide them.

Settling at my desk, I keyed in the BOLO request, each field ticked off with the mechanical precision of habit. Vehicle description, registration, last known location, circumstances of disappearance—all the standard information that would go out to every patrol car in the state, every officer working a shift anywhere in Tasmania.

That low buzz of anticipation started to build in my chest again—subtle but insistent, familiar from countless other cases. Maybe this was nothing. Maybe Nial Triffett was exactly what he appeared to be: a struggling businessman having an affair, texting his wife lies whilst spending the night with someone else, about to come home with weak excuses and defensive anger.

Or maybe it was everything. Maybe this was the thread that, when pulled, would unravel the whole tangled mess of Jamie and Kain and Luke Smith and all the connections we hadn't yet made but could feel hovering just beyond comprehension.

"Oh, Sarah. I almost forgot," Karl called out suddenly, breaking my focus just as I was about to hit submit.

His tone had sharpened again—not with urgency exactly, but with that particular note of intent that meant his brain had just made a connection he wasn't ready to let go of, had identified another avenue that needed immediate exploration.

"Make a note to get a copy of Nial's phone records. Let's see if we can find out who he may have gone to visit."

"On it," I replied automatically, already scribbling the reminder onto my to-do list in handwriting only marginally more legible than Karl's.

Phone records were routine. Standard investigative procedure, the kind of thing you requested without thinking because it was always useful. Cold, clinical data that didn't lie—at least not easily, not unless someone knew exactly how to manipulate digital records in ways that required either sophisticated technical knowledge or access to systems most people didn't have.

But phone records were honest enough, most of the time. Calls made and received, text messages sent, cell tower pings that created a map of someone's movements more detailed than most people realised. If there was a name tied to Nial Triffett's disappearance, if there was a person he'd been communicating with in those final hours before he vanished, it would be there in those records. Waiting for us to find it, to piece together the story it told.

And we would find it. That was what we did—assembled narratives from fragments of data, reconstructed timelines from digital breadcrumbs, found truth hiding in the spaces between what people said and what their phones recorded.

As Karl turned back to his computer, still muttering something under his breath about cross-referencing databases, I saw an opening—one of those rare gaps between tasks where conversation might stretch just enough to allow something a little more... human. A moment where we could be people rather than just detectives processing cases.

I'd found myself looking forward to those moments more than I cared to admit lately. Looking forward to the small interactions that reminded me Karl was more than just my partner, more than just the brilliant but frustrating man I worked alongside.

"Hey Karl," I said, breaking the quiet hum of keys clicking and screens glowing with their steady electronic presence. I moved over with calculated casualness and perched myself on the edge of his desk, the wood cool beneath my thighs even through my trousers, the clutter of post-its and loose papers brushing against my palm.

I liked being close to him, had discovered over months. There was something quietly grounding about Karl's presence—calm, steady, a weight in the room that didn't demand attention but somehow anchored it nonetheless. Like he occupied space differently than other people, created a field of gravity you could orient yourself by.

It reminded me, oddly, of my grandmother's old cat in her final years. That ancient tabby who'd lived to twenty-three, who'd spent her last seasons moving slowly through Jane's house with the dignity of extreme age. Never dramatic, never demanding, just there. Always pressing her head against your leg with that soft insistence that was less demand than invitation, seeking contact in that particular way cats had of suggesting affection whilst maintaining plausible deniability.

This was a little like that. Subtle contact, not spoken aloud. Familiar in ways that bypassed language entirely.

I shifted just slightly, positioning myself at an angle where, if Karl were to swivel his chair just a little to face me properly, our knees would brush. Barely a touch. A whisper of closeness that could be dismissed as accidental if necessary but felt intentional to anyone paying attention.

"Found something already?" Karl asked, glancing up, his attention caught by my proximity. But his posture remained unchanged, chair still angled toward his screen rather than toward me. Not yet turning, not quite engaging fully.

"Yes," I said, though the word caught slightly in my throat—a hesitation I hadn't meant to show, a reveal of uncertainty I'd have preferred to keep hidden.

"That was quick," Karl commented, raising an eyebrow with an expression that suggested mild impression mixed with curiosity about what could have been discovered so rapidly.

"Oh, no. It's not about the Triffetts," I clarified quickly, feeling a twinge of guilt settle low in my stomach. "It's about Jamie and Kain. I meant to tell you earlier," I added, quieter now—not quite apologising, but acknowledging the oversight, confessing rather than simply reporting.

The guilt was warranted. I should have led with this, should have updated him the moment he'd returned rather than getting distracted by irritation about communication and then by the new case he'd brought in. This was the kind of information that mattered, that affected our primary investigation, that Karl deserved to know immediately.

"Shit, Sarah," Karl said, and the edge in his voice was sharper than I'd expected—frustration cutting through with enough force to make me flinch internally.

The swivel of his chair came with violence—sudden, forceful, the wheels protesting with a sharp squeak. Too fast, too aggressive. I jolted back instinctively, muscle memory recognising danger even when conscious thought knew Karl would never actually hurt me. Shifted my weight just in time to avoid what would have been a collision rather than a gentle brush.

Had I been a second slower in my retreat, it wouldn't have been the soft touch of knees meeting that I'd been angling for—it would've been more like my grandmother's cat when she misjudged a pounce and dug in claws for balance, leaving scratches that burned for days.

I swallowed my instinctive flinch, forcing my body to relax, brushing off the flare of adrenaline that had spiked through my system. His frustration wasn't unwarranted, wasn't directed at me personally so much as at the situation, at information withheld when it shouldn't have been.

"Ellen's spoken with both the Launceston and Hobart airports. There's no record of either Jamie or Kain having boarded a plane in the last two weeks," I said, pulling my tone back into a professional register, steadying both myself and the moment with facts delivered calmly.

"Which means they must still be in the State," Karl said immediately, the shift in his demeanour instantaneous. The irritation dissipated like smoke, replaced by something sharper—focus, anticipation, the particular intensity he brought to moments when pieces started fitting together.

He leaned forward, already moving past the interpersonal misstep, eyes narrowing with thought as he processed implications. "At least that keeps our searching area fairly narrow."

But just as quickly, a new frown tugged at the corner of his mouth—not anger this time but concern, the expression of someone identifying a gap in information that needed filling. I could see the next question forming before he even opened his mouth, could track his thought process through the visible shifts in his expression.

"What about the Spirit of Tasmania? Have you checked with them yet?"

I drew in a breath, preparing to lay out everything Ellen had gathered, all the dead ends and slim possibilities that remained.

"Yes. We've heard from the Spirit too. They have no records of Jamie or Kain having boarded in the last two weeks. But Duncan is bringing down a copy of their boarding security footage. They could have used aliases. And there is always the slim chance that they snuck on board," I explained, listing off the options as plainly as I could, even though some of them felt like clutching at shadows, grasping for possibilities that existed more in theory than probability.

"Very slim chance," Karl agreed, nodding slowly, his tone tempered with the realism we both shared—that preference for evidence over speculation, for likely scenarios over desperate hopes. "But very good work, Sarah. That's gonna keep you busy for a while."

The praise landed with unexpected weight. Karl wasn't generous with compliments, didn't hand them out casually just to maintain morale. When he acknowledged good work, he meant it.

I gave a small nod in response, forcing a smile that I knew didn't quite reach my eyes, didn't carry the enthusiasm his words seemed to call for. His comment was kind enough. Encouraging, even. Professional recognition for work well done.

But the thought of it—the actual reality of what that "good work" entailed—was hardly what I'd call thrilling.

Sitting in that windowless viewing room for hours, maybe days. Eyes fixed on grainy CCTV footage that made everyone look vaguely criminal, pixelated faces blurred beyond easy recognition. Hour after hour of watching crowds board ferries, scanning each face, each posture, each piece of luggage, looking for two men who might or might not be there, who might have altered their appearance, who might be hiding in plain sight amongst hundreds of other passengers.

The tedium of it stretched out before me like a prison sentence. The mind-numbing rhythm of scan, pause, rewind. Watch, evaluate, dismiss. Over and over until my eyes burned and my back ached and I started seeing faces in my sleep.

Still, it was necessary. Essential, even. One frame—that was all it took. One blurred image captured in the background of someone else's boarding. One face turned at just the right angle. One piece of luggage matching a description. One second's movement too subtle to spot without the kind of relentless attention that came from watching the same footage repeatedly until patterns emerged from chaos.

I steeled myself for it—the hours, the repetition, the slow erosion of enthusiasm into mechanical process. Prepared mentally for the particular kind of exhaustion that came from visual monitoring, from maintaining focus on screens when your brain wanted desperately to drift anywhere else.

Because that one second might change everything. Might be the difference between finding Jamie and Kain or losing them entirely. Might crack the case wide open or confirm they'd never been on that ferry at all, eliminating one more possibility in a search that grew more desperate with each passing day.

And if there was even the slimmest chance that hours of CCTV review would yield that crucial frame, that decisive image, then it was worth every minute of tedium.

Even if I'd rather be doing literally anything else.