Jimmy Hulme

Jimmy Hulme is a Detective Constable on Jo Stuart’s investigative team, where humour is more than a personal mannerism: it helps sustain colleagues through work that can be dangerous and distressing as well as dull. The narrative initially presents him as the squad’s joker, then repeatedly places him inside practical investigative work, allowing Jo to recognize that his comic persona coexists with the knowledge and judgement of a developing detective.

Identity and place in the team

Hulme is introduced among the familiar faces in Jo’s newly assembled investigative setting: he is the joker of the group, working alongside senior intelligence analyst Duggie Wallace and senior crime scene investigator Jack Benson. His reputation is immediately legible to Jo, but it does not define the whole of his contribution. The team’s mixture of roles makes his place clear: he is a junior detective among specialists and colleagues, expected to ask questions, listen to information and participate in the investigation.

That participation begins in an ordinary, useful way. When the team is discussing what to look for, Hulme asks Jo directly, “What will we be looking for, Boss?” The question marks him as an engaged member of the briefing rather than a spectator. Another early joke concerns a computer at New Scotland Yard, which he says has a “sick sense of humour.” His wit can lighten procedural work, but it also establishes the irreverent voice that Jo later has to manage when she brings him into sensitive situations.

Humour, knowledge and professional growth

Jo’s understanding of Hulme develops beyond the nickname. She reflects that every team needs someone like him because detective work is often “downright boring,” even though it can also be exciting, challenging, dangerous and distressing. A well-worn joke or a bit of banter can keep spirits up during that less dramatic routine. In her view, the squad tolerates Hulme’s humour for precisely this service to morale; she also sees that, beneath the joker, he is a polymath and is becoming a very good detective.

The book supports that assessment with instances of useful knowledge and practical observation. When castor oil is under discussion, Hulme recalls that the plant is also called Palma Christi because of the shape of its leaves. He contributes a specific piece of botanical knowledge to a case in which identifying the toxin matters. The moment is characteristic: his apparent digressiveness can conceal information relevant to the investigation, and his breadth of knowledge complicates any easy division between comic relief and serious police work.

He also participates in the investigation’s procedural discipline. When Jo consults a laminated digest of the Murder Investigation Manual, she recognizes it as a compact guide to the elements of investigative strategy and the demands of a review. The surrounding work stresses that missing a key element could have serious consequences. Hulme is part of a team operating within such checklists and review procedures, not merely a source of jokes in the background.

Working with Jo Stuart

Hulme’s relationship with Jo is professional, shaped by her authority as his superior and by her awareness of his tendency toward irony. Jo declares that everyone on Operation Alecto should have equal access to information, because any member of the team might see the missing piece; there are to be no prima donnas, including herself. That collective approach gives Hulme a place in the investigative process while preserving Jo’s responsibility for its direction.

The limits of his humour become especially clear when Jo brings him to take notes during an interview with an ex-soldier who is now an assistant manager of a food store. Beforehand, she warns Hulme not to speak except through her: the last thing she needs is his particular brand of irony. The caution does not amount to a rejection of him; it shows that Jo distinguishes between contexts in which his banter supports the team and those in which it could interfere with an interview. He attends as a note-taker, and the scene makes his professional role concrete even as his reputation remains present.

Their exchanges retain a familiar, collegial tone. On another occasion, Hulme asks Jo what she thinks as they climb into an Audi. He is also with her during field activity, including a point at which she joins him by a water dispenser. These brief moments place him in the everyday rhythm of the investigation: travelling, waiting, checking details and conferring with the officer in charge, rather than appearing only at major discoveries.

Investigative work and judgement

Hulme’s contributions extend across the inquiry’s different stages. He asks about “elite surveillance” as an operation gets under way, showing an interest in the methods being used. Elsewhere, when extortion is raised, he is present for the distinction that it is not enough to suspect it; it must be proved. The exchange places his work within the evidential discipline of policing, where a plausible interpretation still requires substantiation.

He is also associated with the gathering and assessment of leads. The investigators have lists of people who might hold grudges against either victim, but no name appears on both lists. At the same time, they are working through partial boot prints, a piece of fabric from the Manchester crime scene and hours of recordings from fixed-speed and ANPR cameras. This broader account of the team’s evidence-gathering gives context to Hulme’s place among officers who must turn scattered material into an investigation rather than leap from suspicion to conclusion.

A more individual contribution comes from an enquiry about rented units. Hulme reports that the person renting number 7 believes the man using the adjacent unit also has a bicycle and a motorbike. He brings the information back to the team as a lead, a small but concrete addition to the picture they are assembling. His excitement at a later point is similarly visible when he and Carly Whittle lean over the desk of a detective constable drafted in to strengthen the squad; Hulme waves the others over. The detail presents him as alert to the promise of new information and eager to share it.

Surveillance and the comic persona

A surveillance assignment brings the tension between Hulme’s humour and his competence into particularly sharp focus. While waiting in a pool car, he searches the glove compartment and finds a half-empty bag of Fisherman’s Friends. He puts one in his mouth and waits for the menthol and liquorice, reflecting that in his own car he could connect his phone and listen to a trivia quiz. The tedious, solitary wait is exactly the kind of police work for which Jo says a morale-keeper is useful; the lozenge and imagined quiz make the long stretches of inactivity tangible without turning them into action scenes.

When required to report formally, however, Hulme sets the banter aside and gives a careful account. He has established that the target is delivering a homily at the 10.15 a.m. family service at the Kingdom of Heaven Church of the Mustard Seed in Hulme. On arrival, the designated surveillance officer confirms the target has entered the church. Hulme checks this for himself, then returns to his car to wait. He judges it unwise and unnecessary to remove the target from the service in the middle of the oration, and concludes by asking whether his decision was appropriate. His account shows observation, verification, patience and awareness of the situation’s demands. The contrast with his earlier impatience at having little to do is not a contradiction so much as a measure of professional control: he can resent the boredom and still perform the task carefully.

Change and narrative role

Hulme’s development is presented through Jo’s changing evaluation and through the work he does, rather than through a single dramatic turning point. He begins with a clear comic identity, but the narrative accumulates evidence that he is knowledgeable, observant and increasingly capable. His botanical recollection, note-taking, contribution of a lead and measured surveillance decision each add substance to Jo’s judgement that he is becoming a good detective.

His function in the story is therefore double. He supplies banter that acknowledges the repetitive, wearing side of investigation, while the cases repeatedly require the attention and evidence-mindedness that make the work more than banter. Jo’s initial warning that he should speak only through her during an interview does not erase the value she sees in him; instead, it defines the boundaries within which his particular temperament can serve the team. By the later investigative scenes, his excitement at a possible lead and his disciplined surveillance report confirm that the joker is also a working detective, one whose contribution includes both keeping colleagues’ spirits up and doing the patient work on which an inquiry depends.