Water's Edge

Chapter XXXI

Elle

We didn't talk for the whole journey. She parked around the back and it was apparent she was trying to get me in and out without Elle Thompson spotting me. Why was Yazmin on my side?

Taking the grey-beige halls, DCI Womack guided me towards the interview rooms. My curiosity got the better of me, "Why are you helping me?"

She paused and didn't look at me, "We need all the help we can get."

I could tell from the blown bulbs and dirt on the carpet that underfunding had tackled this constituency along with all the others. All the money in the world for a dam, none for the coppers who protect it. And what do they protect it from? Hippies. And from the sounds of it the money isn't even going into the dam. England had gone sour, like leaving milk out, the tinfoil cap pecked away.

DCI Womack typed in the first few numbers on the keypad, before having to stop.

"Mr. Fields." Elle Thompson stood at the end of the corridor and beckoned me with one finger, "We should talk." I could sense Womack's disappointment in herself from here. I patted her on the shoulder – bad move – and left her to whatever anxieties the young DCI had.

I followed her to her office. I had been down these corridors many times in my own stations. Recommendations. Medals. Secret operations. When I followed women like the Chief Constable here to their sanctums, I often wondered why I had given it all away.

A wooden desk, the nicest chair. A window showed the car park where the PDRVs were piling up, the environmentalists hurried and scuffled into their cells. She stood behind her desk, white and blue and black as clean and bright as to be expected of someone of her station. She tapped a framed piece on the wall and I walked over to it as she watched the hippies get dragged inside.

"You know, I was there when we first arrested them." She meant Extinction Rebellion, now terrorist cell, "They preach free love, but the moment you offer them anything, they throw bricks at you." She looked to me finally, catching my snarl.

The framed piece was the Guardian article. When I had quit the force, with a few hundred others across the country, in solidarity against #SpyCops and other forms of corruption, we had been picked up as a fun folktale of the future. The Bow Street Runners. This article was the one that had specifically mentioned me, specifically used my picture without my consent; I was a detective of the law. Bow Street Runner implied vigilantism, a law of one's own. But from that article onwards, I became the unofficial herald of this new movement. And I hated it. And so did Elle Thompson.

"I keep it there to remind me."

"Of what?" I could not stop looking nor stop snarling.

"Of what I stand for, and what you don't. That you are not for the law as that damned piece states. You are as much my enemy as those damned hippies."

I faced her finally, reaching into my pocket. She let me smoke but I knew she hated this small act of independence, "I hate that term." I said, again, emphatically. I did. I was a P.I. Not a Bow Street Runner.

"It doesn't matter what you think." She stepped closer, and used her height to intimidate me, "Private Investigators like you may be protected by law, but they are not protected by me. I follow the law to the letter, Mr. Fields. You will have what rights you are allowed, but nothing more. The bare minimum." She tilted down, all professionalism vanquished, "I'd appreciate it though, if you just fucked off."

Eventually, reluctantly, we discussed what I could and couldn't do. I forgot it all. Left her office with unkindness in my steps. I finished my cigarette in the hall and although I longed to stamp it out on the ruined carpet, I found a proper ashtray. Respect is expensive.