Water's Edge

Chapter XXIII

Margaret

I may have given up drinking whilst here, but I could never put down the cigs. Umberwood turned her nose up at it, which surprised me, seeing as she'd just ordered a G&T in the middle of the afternoon. I had a tea, in another borrowed mug.

"Nothing on the bodies?"

"Not a scrap. But... drowning." That was true. "Would have expected something on Hector though."

"Because he was so fresh?"

"Yeah... but anything can happen in the water." She thanked Lucy Carmichael for the G&T.

"Bit early?" I half-smiled, asking sincerely but in a tone that suggested I didn't really mind. In truth, I didn't mind. I wanted something like it myself. Lucy passed me the tea she'd made; a spoon could have stood up in it.

"I didn't expect things to turn out like this." She said.

Time to change tone, let things tick over, "You live around here then?" I found it odd she'd choose a pub in Thorngumbald so far away from the station.

"Yeah. St. Andrews Lane..." She shook her head, "It's weird, everything is brand new. The lane's named after the church that sank."

To think, in a lifetime the entire eastern coast of England had changed so dramatically. No one had been prepared for the rise in sea levels, not even the climate activists; it was as if some great sea god had boiled up out of the waves to take back what it deemed rightfully its. Strange rains, heavy summers, impossible tides. The Humber was but the tip of the iceberg, so to speak, of how much had changed along the coastline, as if the whole nation had been tipped to the right, sinking like The Titanic.

"And why are you out here?" Margaret finally asked, "Just the case or...?"

I felt I couldn't entirely lie to her, nor tell the truth, "The case, yeah. But... it's the first case in a while."

"It must be tough."

"What must be?" The tea warmed every inch of me.

"Being a Runner." I hated that term, "No one likes you on any side."

"Or they all do, too much."

"Mythologise it a bit, ey?"

"Yeah." I knew one person for sure despised me for what I had become: Dad. I pushed that thought away.

"Why did you do it? Why did you decide quit, without really quitting?"

I tried to find the words and Margaret let me. There were so many facets, "I didn't want to become a bad apple."

"You know how the saying goes."

"One bad apple spoils the bunch."

"No." She faced me squarely, "One bad apple spoils the barrel. And if the barrel is fucked, Detective, doesn't matter what you put it in. They go bad."

This I knew well. This is why I left. This no one would understand, "They made out there was no such thing as a good cop. ACAB, all of that."

"Yeah. I kinda believe it."

"So do I. But I didn't want to be a bad copper, I wanted to be a good detective. That make sense?"

"Mostly. I don't think there's a good way off the thin blue line."

"I think people try their best."

"Sometimes it isn't enough."

"Exactly."

She told me I looked awful after that. I felt it. Bidding adieu I stood on the road watching people mill around in a light drizzle. I chucked my fag in the gutter and thought about what we had said. I had seen so many bad coppers, but they weren't the problem. The problem was a bad gaff, a bad sergeant. Once upon a time it had meant something to be a policeman, and then a load of youngsters, growing up on The Professionals and Minder thought being a copper was rolling over car bonnets, and bending the law 'til it snapped if it meant protecting your fellow officer and ending crime on the streets. People thought it meant leather jackets, cool guns, drug deals gone bad—and then all those people went up the ranks, and rather than moral men running the show, children dieting on American Cop Dramas did. They thought it was all fun and games. They ruined the whole machine, clogged up every gear with their theatre. And the theatre made them cruel, corrupt. No matter who came in at the bottom, they had to work in a system that protected themselves more than the public. When they passed #SpyCops, that was it for me. Every vein, every sinew, of the force had gone sour. I took my leather jacket – the irony stinging at my cheeks – and was the first to announce I'd be working freelance for the law. The real law, the kindness of men. Not what the law of England had become. I wanted to work with those who really gave a damn, not those who believed more in the idea of a copper than what we were meant to stand for. The whole damned country had lost its way. God I was tired, so fucking tired.

I hopped back in the Zodiac, and although it was barely lunch time, I slept right through until the next morning broke, over a country I barely recognised.