Colm was not comfortable with this arrangement.

There were many reasons for that. One, this was his first case with Homicide. It had ended up in his lap precisely because he was a rookie- no veteran detective wanted anything to do with this one. An unreliable child witness, a never-before-seen MO, political pressure from up top. The veterans weren't wrong to assume this one wasn't solvable. So they dump it on the new guy with excuses about "fresh eyes" and "youthful energy" and wait for the press and the bigwigs to lose interest so they could quietly pretend none of this ever happened. Colm might be new, but he was far from naive. He had seen this kind of thing plenty of times as a uniform, no reason to think things would change as a detective.

Two, the kid. Of course, the kid. The only eyewitness just had to be some six-year-old. He wasn't really good at dealing with kids in the first place. He didn't have any children himself, but he had enough nieces and nephews to know that his default response to talking to kids was a lot of stammering and awkward shuffling. He just didn't know how to speak to them.

Still, someone needed to do something. People were dying. Including the poor kid's parents. Sure, Colm didn't really like kids but come on, no one deserved that.

He poured himself a cup of coffee, the dropped a few chocolate chip cookies on a plate. Maybe a snack would put the child at ease. When the Social Services people brought Quincey in, he smiled, pointed at the cookies. "You must be Quincey. Have some cookies."

Colm spoke calmly and clearly, trying to sound nice and comforting. The last thing he needed to deal with was his witness turning into a crying mess. "My name is Detective Davies, but you can call me Colm. I'm a policeman, and I'm going to catch the bad man who did this to your parents. You've been a really brave boy, Quincey, but I need you to be a brave boy just a little longer and tell me exactly what happened." He got out his notebook expectantly, ready to take some notes.