A Copper's Instinct: Chapter 4
Title: A Copper's Instinct
Fandom: Hot Fuzz
Characters/Pairings: Nicholas/Danny, Nicholas/OC, Doris, Bob, Andes, Saxon, Turners, OC
Rating: PG-15
Chapter 3
The next day dawned fresh and still, perfect jogging weather. Kinnell, who had been more than happy to take up his superior officer's offer, waited for Angel in the deserted Market Square. The sun hadn't yet climbed enough to touch the face of the Castle, and lights still sparkled in the trees dotted around the Square, sprinkled across the jagged blue-black spiderwebs of the branches.
Kinnell planted his foot up on the low wall of the fountain, lacing one of his trainers a little tighter. This done, he paused, curiously, and stooped to read the bronze plaque set into the stone.
"That was about the first thing I took a look at, too."
Angel pulled up behind him, breath misting in the cold air.
"I don't go in for smothering up things. I thought it'd work better as a reminder than a tribute to what my predecessor used to do. Besides, they couldn't unbolt it from the fountain."
“Still... you'd think someone'd... vandalise it, or steal it, or something.” Kinnell looked up, grinned in greeting. “That a problem at all? Souvenir-hunters?”
"With me nearby? I think I scare the shit out of people."
Nicholas was dressed in sensible long jogging clothes, accounting for the cold weather and sweat, and didn't look like he'd had the best sort of sleep. He was trying to put his best foot forward, though, despite the puffy blue-ish eyes.
"It's strange, though. I don't think people are like that, here. It's mostly outsiders, like yesterday, who perpetrate crimes. Sandfordians are still too.. aware of what the price was if you put a foot out of place, and any other sorts of rules that the NWA thought up on the spot."
Kinnell fell in alongside him. He had a good, easy pace, although he looked a little chilly in sweatpants and a t-shirt. “Sounds like we should enjoy it while we can, then. Sooner or later they're probably going to realise we don't have quite that much of a final agenda in mind, right?”
Nicholas eyed him sidelong, pulling in air through his nose, out through his mouth. "You've got a final agenda?"
“Yeah. Catch, arrest, charge, paperwork, court, jail. Little bit less punchy than a quick rake to the head round the back of the village hall, but it works for me.” Kinnell squinted as they turned into the early-morning sun. “I'm following you, by the way. Got no idea where we're going.”
"Well, we've got an hour, if we're not figuring in for a shower before we get in uniform. How long do you want to go for?"
Kinnell laughed, keeping pace. “Wouldn't mind a shower after, actually. The plumbing at the hotel's a little sort of... eccentric. You turn on the hot tap, someone in the next room screams. Say forty minutes...?”
'You want a shower at my place?'
Nicholas didn't say these words, because he was quite sure it would crack his voice.
"Oh."
Desperate for something else to say, he started trying to cram words in faster.
"Irememberthat. Nearlyburntmyfingersoff. Wellifwe'veonlygottwentyminutesout," breath, "twentyminutesin," breath, "bettertosavethefieldrunforlater, ey?"
“Alright,” agreed Kinnell, amused, as they turned the corner. “Probably best. I broke an ankle once, running on grass.” He huffed, catching his breath, grinning. “'Fraid I can't say whose, though. Hasn't come to court yet.”
Nicholas pulled a face as they left High Street and pulled onto the roundabout Cox's Way. Danny had once explained -in the sort of way that implied that he was regurgitating the only field trip Sandford Primary could afford, year after year, and that Danny had stopped listening by third year- how the street was one of the oldest in the town, following along the original unbanked stream until it came to the shallowest point along a sandbank. Apparently the most exciting thing to happen since the invention of bridges was that every now and then some idiot would try to throw themselves off and find themselves up to their knees in mud, although Danny swore up and down that he'd once seen an otter along the route before the swan had come along and kicked the shit out of it.
"Couldn't be worse than the fiasco over a four-foot-ten octogenarian's broken nose. You'd think they were forgetting the part where she had a shotgun. Let's go the church-canal route, it only takes fifteen minutes, tops."
*
Meanwhile...
Nicholas hadn't been the only person to pass an uneasy night. Danny, who'd just about managed to navigate home from the Crown before midnight, had spent a lonely couple of hours poking through his DVD collection and watching extras- some of them for the third or fourth time- before taking himself off to bed. He'd slept restlessly and woken up with a splitting headache.
The day before, around the second-pint-marker, it had seemed like an excellent idea to make up for the lost frisbee session by driving around to Nicholas's and surprise him by being there when he emerged for his morning run, up early for a change and ready to join him. Upon waking, however, with what felt like a small walrus thrashing around poking its tusks into vital parts of his brain, Danny realised he was going to have to get a serious move on to even stand a chance of getting to Spencer Hill before Nicholas left.
He did his best. Shave, world's fastest shower, hunt for trainers, ram uniform in kit bag, grab an apple from the bowl Nicholas had left as something of a hint last time he'd been round, keys, drive. Getting up so fast left him with a stomach ache and a series of yawping, involuntary yawns that persisted as he drove through the barely-awake village. No-one else about, apart from a boy he dimly recognised from Gabriel's gang, slogging along up the hill pulling a bright yellow paper truck on a strap.
Then he rounded the long wall at the corner of the High Street, and drove across the turning that led down to St. Vincents, a deep, gently-sloping hill bounded by buildings and shops. Glancing through the side window at just the right moment, he was rewarded with a nice, clear view down the hill, all the way to the climbing tower of the church.
He nearly drove into the horse trough.
It was simply the sheer startled inattention it caused, the- no other word for it- shock- of recognising Nicholas's oblivious, retreating back at almost the exact same moment as realising Nicholas wasn't alone. He braked and pulled up, his sleepy, shellshocked brain recognising that, never mind what else, he was in no state to be in control of a car. In that second, he'd seen the second figure, short, dark-haired, keeping pace easily with Nicholas's difficult high-energy version of a jog.
Kinnell.
*
Nicholas was trying valiantly not to think about Kinnell using his shower, a small tiled affair more than comfortable enough for two people, with an extremely useful ceramic seat. The man's hair was still wet, for Christ's sake.
So was his.
"Hullo, Evan. Anything interesting happen on your shift?"
Behind the screen, Evan looked up from his book, as perky as anyone with barely ten minutes left on the clock and a restful day's sleep ahead of them had a perfect right to be. There was no sign of his brother yet, although this didn't rule out the possibility of an Owen lurking somewhere in the back room or the stationery cupboard. Owen was good at lurking. “Oh, hello, sir. No, nothin' much. Delivery of paper an' things couple of hours ago. They got AM mixed up with PM, apparently.”
He shrugged, then pushed the timesheet folder under the screen for the two of them to sign. “No-one in yet. Oh, 'part from Sergeant Butterman.”
Nicholas blinked.
"Well... that's a marked improvement."
He scrawled his name and the time down -five minutes to nine, which wasn't good but wasn't particularly terrible- handed the pen back to Kinnell and thumped him hesitantly on the shoulder, and made for the lockers.
Nicholas found the locker room already occupied. Already in uniform, with the slight but unmistakeable signs of a hangover still lingering around him, clear as daylight in the puffiness under his eyes and the slightly haphazard part to his hair, Danny was cleaning out his locker. This was a task long-overdue- so much that it was something of a running joke- and he looked like he'd been going for some time, scooping out layers of scrap paper, chewed biros, and old flattened-out Hog Lump wrappers in a fluttering rain into a wastepaper basket on the floor.
Nicholas gave an awkward smile at the back of his head, and set to work stripping off his shirt and getting his crisp laundered uniform out of his own locker, brushing off the pips on the shoulders.
"Good to see you in early. Any of that lot rescued from the rubble?"
“Don't think so,” said Danny, into his locker, his voice hollow and muffled. “Just a load of old junk.” He flicked an elderly Coke can into the bin, then emerged, perked up a bit, half-grinned at Nicholas. “'Ey, though, I found a bit of shrapnel from the-”
“Thanks for the use of your shower, by the way, sir,” said Kinnell, honestly, sticking his head around the door. “Much appreciated.” Having brought his own plainclothes with him, his preparation for the day ahead consisted of simply tying his tie, and his fingers were still fiddling with his collar as withdrew in the direction of the Andes' office.
His boss flushed under the gaze of Danny, waiting until Kinnell was well around the corner before dropping his jogging sweats and starting the trial of getting uniform trousers on while emotionally distressed.
He didn't say anything.
Danny caught his lower lip in his front teeth and swept the last of the compacted, nearly-composted layer of paper out of the bottom of his locker. The solid stack of it hit the bottom of the bin with a heavy clump.
“He's a good runner, en't he?”
"Er. Yes. He's... er, decent."
“Yeah. I saw 'im go yesterday.” Danny closed his locker door ever-so-carefully, trying to make the exact opposite of a bang, and picked up the bin.
Nicholas felt lost. Somewhere, something had gone wrong, and he couldn't even begin to trace where it'd begun, because it'd loop around on itself as neatly as a Mobius strip. He shook his head, trying to clear it.
"S-sorry, what about the shrapnel?"
“Huh?” Danny looked up, and for a moment he seemed as bewildered as Nicholas felt, his faint, shifting frown an open testament to that same sort of confusion, like standing by helplessly watching the rope whizz over the cliff edge when you are just starting to realise, somewhere in the paranoid back of your mind, that you may have neglected to tie it to anything.
He shifted the weight of the bin onto his hip, then shrugged. “Oh. Nah, I found a bit, that's all. Not a big deal. How's it goin' with them jewellery thieves?”
"Ahh... I won't actually know until the Andes get in," said Nicholas, visibly relieved that the topic had gotten onto something else, anything else. "I, well, I forgot to ask them about it yesterday before the day shift was up. It ought to be pretty straightforward, though, routine witness statements and all. Though I think the difficult part will be picking all the diamonds out of the gravel in Pembry Lane before the interested locals do." And then, suddenly, almost blurting it out, "Hey. Would you want to do a real movie night t'night?"
Danny, feeling the bin starting to slip, struggled to pin it more securely to his side as he edged towards the door, not wanting to drop it all over the place but unwilling to expend the moment's effort it would have taken to put it down and get a proper grip on the bloody thing. He managed a smile. “'Course, if y'want. Anythin' you wanna see?”
Nicholas grinned back, and it was just that, two painful grimaces facing each other because they weren't sure what'd happen if they stopped.
"Well, I- I mean- What haven't I seen yet?"
“Be easier t'list the ones you have seen,” Danny pointed out. “How 'bout-”
Before he could get any further, Doris slammed into the room. Danny was almost barged straight out of the doorway- a lighter man would have been- by her violent entrance. As it was, he almost dropped the bin and had to juggle frantically with its slippery metal sides.
Doris wasn't in uniform yet, largely pink with a touch of denim instead of Serious Panda, but she was quite furious enough to make up for it.
“Right, that's bloody it. Chief, you tell that gormless gawp Tony Fisher to keep 'is paws off my PC.” She swung round on the corridor, where Tony was standing, mouth slightly open, a CD case clutched in front of him like a shield. “Just cause 'e can't keep 'is own equipment up an' running for more'n half a minute at a time, don't mean 'e can go fiddlin' around with my motherboard.”
She snatched the case out of his hands.
“You got that, Antonius?”
Tony's mouth snapped shut, and he started to go puce. It was clear that, as far as he was concerned, some line, some Extreme Srs Business Line, had just been crossed.
"PC Thatcher," said Angel, and just like that, the face he kept just for Danny was shed, and he was Nicholas Angel, extreme city copper. "You cannot insult your superiors. Even if they have dragged the Tech Squad in half-a-dozen times. Not only does it look bad for this department, it irritates me. Is that understood?"
"And Tony," the gaze swivelled onto Sandford's finest gremlin, "you know you're to leave other people's machines alone. That's a strict order. How many viruses has it been?"
“I didn't do nothing,” whined Tony, sounding uncannily like Owen Turner. “Didn't touch the thing.”
Doris folded her arms. The way her nose wrinkled up on one side, sceptical and disgusted all at once, was reply enough.
Angel framed a goal with his arms, pushing against an invisible barrier. "No. No, I am not going to do this. Frank was the patriarch, I am not going to draw a line in tape through this department and play at being your dad and keep all the toys separated and be the one who has to slice the cake up evenly. Get into uniform, the both of you, and play nice."
Doris almost pouted, but she knew when not to push her superior officer. Rolling her eyes, she grabbed an armful of clothes from her locker and flounced out, forcing Tony to sway back to avoid having his feet trampled on by her short- but no less painful- heels. Failing to meet Nicholas's eyes, Tony retreated to his corner locker, mumbling vague, bitter-sounding theories, most of which concerned the time of the month.
In the sudden ruckus, it was doubtful that either of them would have been able to pinpoint when exactly Danny had slipped out, but slipped out he had, taking his bin with him.
"Tony," warned Angel, in a voice that was barely any more audible than before, but had somehow become a lot more dangerous. "You're older than I am. You're a married man. Act like it."
*
"-acting like a complete tit, where does 'e get off, the obtuse fucker?" Doris didn't really bring in the long-range vocabulary unless she was well and truely pissed, and not the kind that involved breathalisers, although she was well on her way to change this fact. And it wasn't even quite noon yet. "The idiot wouldn't know'n Excel document from a hole in 'is arse, and everyone just sits back an' goes, 'Oh, that's just Tony. E's a good sort of bloke, a bit Lurch-ish, but give'im some time, he's 'special needs'.' If Tony Fisher gets to be Sergeant for eight. Years. I oughter been made 'nspector by my third tea-time five years ago. We joined up t'gether, remember? But nuuoooo, it's always 'Make us a cuppa, love', 'Mind washing me plate, y'olslag?' An' if I get a bit stroppy 'bout it now'n'then- wouldn't you?- everyone waves a bleedin' tampon at me."
She sighed into her pint, not quite noticing the traditional Crown pasty that was gaining more forkholes by the minute, murder weapon stuck tines down.
"I been talkin' to the new Andy, an' he asks me how long I been on, and I just.... I started thinkin' how long I been here, an' how long I been stuck in neutral with Cap'n Sideburn gettin' seniority alla time when anyone with half a brain'd see Bob's been on longer than two police stations, an' all. En't your boyfriend got halfa brain b'tween his ears, then?"
Danny, who had been watching the ongoing mauling of the poor innocent pastie with some anxiousness, sighed. “'S'got nothin' t'do with brains, has it? I mean, any more Sergeants an' we'll have more superior officers'n constables.” He thought for a bit, staring moodily into his apple juice. Just because it was the same colour as beer it didn't mean that it was having the same restorative effect on his feelings. “Anyway, I din't think you ever even wanted t'be a Sergeant. Last time I fort you said the hat'd make you look like a stripper.”
She smiled at that, eyes glittering. "Yeh. Well, mebbe that's a benefit, now I give it a thort."
Danny half-grinned into his glass. “What d'you think of 'im, anyway?”
"Who? The new one? Got a nice arse on 'im, but I could prolly drink him under the table 'fore I could get a shag in."
“D'think s'you s'trested in,” muttered Danny. It was either a total failure of comprehensible enunciation or an uncanny Bob Walker impersonation.
Doris had had practise, though. "What, not even bladdered? S'not like I wanna take 'im home to Mum or nothing."
“They went runnin' this mornin'.” said Danny, a bit more understandable but no less sort of plonky and hollow-sounding. He felt that bare facts were safe. As long as he didn't hazard an opinion on the matter, he could see what Doris thought about it, and not have to worry that her views were skewed by what he'd told her.
She put her pint down, eyes narrowing into a frown as it registered that Danny was well and truly upset. "Who?"
“Nicholas an' the new bloke.” Of course, he hadn't counted on his body language, or even just his tone of voice, both quite enough to give her all the detail she needed.
"Shhite." At this, the look in her eyes flamed into full-blown murderousness. "What, you think it was," she mimed something a bit rude, "or-?" she mimed something quite a lot ruder. It seemed to involve a lot of tongue.
Danny's face was a squinch-nosed mask of horror. “Doris,” he whined. “Fuck's sake. They jus' went runnin'. Thas' not a- a metaphor. There wasn't any...” Clumsily, he aped the less... explicit of the two little pantomimes. "Just runnin'. Far as I know.”
He drank some apple juice, then mumbled into the glass “An'heusedhis shower.”
"Fuck," murmured Doris, and slammed the last of her pint. "I'm going to kill my own boss."
“No!” Danny nearly knocked over his glass in panic. “Fucking... no, Doris, you're not! 'F he catches on I told you anything-” He flailed. “He'd fuckin' kill me, an'... an' then find some way t'bring me back to life like Frankenstein an' kill me all over again! Well, I mean, he wouldn't, but he'd be...”
He shuddered. “Really fuckin' disappointed. I jus' wanted to know it wasn't jus' me bein'- bein' jealous. I gotta... I dunno, I can't do anythin' about it without lookin' like a whiny bitch.”
"Lookin' like a doormat, is what," said Doris, reproachfully. "Christ, he's got you stitched, doesn't he? Can't be public about it at all? Even with friends? I know what that's like, hoo, an' it en't fun. He could just dangle you like that 'ndef'nitly, while he's got all the power an' you gotta do what he says. Danny, that en't healthy."
“It's not like that,” Danny muttered. “Not about power. He could lose his job.” And worse.
Doris shrugged. "I thought tops were the ones who wore the trousers."
Danny blinked at her. He'd certainly never exactly thought about it in those terms before, although it wasn't to say she didn't have a point, or at least would have had a point, if things had been going okay. “It en't that simple. It comes t'shit like this, it's nothin' t'do with tops or bottoms or trousers, s'jus'...”
He sighed, rubbed the back of his neck. “Jus' two people in a total bloody mess.”
Chapter 5
Fandom: Hot Fuzz
Characters/Pairings: Nicholas/Danny, Nicholas/OC, Doris, Bob, Andes, Saxon, Turners, OC
Rating: PG-15
Chapter 3
The next day dawned fresh and still, perfect jogging weather. Kinnell, who had been more than happy to take up his superior officer's offer, waited for Angel in the deserted Market Square. The sun hadn't yet climbed enough to touch the face of the Castle, and lights still sparkled in the trees dotted around the Square, sprinkled across the jagged blue-black spiderwebs of the branches.
Kinnell planted his foot up on the low wall of the fountain, lacing one of his trainers a little tighter. This done, he paused, curiously, and stooped to read the bronze plaque set into the stone.
"That was about the first thing I took a look at, too."
Angel pulled up behind him, breath misting in the cold air.
"I don't go in for smothering up things. I thought it'd work better as a reminder than a tribute to what my predecessor used to do. Besides, they couldn't unbolt it from the fountain."
“Still... you'd think someone'd... vandalise it, or steal it, or something.” Kinnell looked up, grinned in greeting. “That a problem at all? Souvenir-hunters?”
"With me nearby? I think I scare the shit out of people."
Nicholas was dressed in sensible long jogging clothes, accounting for the cold weather and sweat, and didn't look like he'd had the best sort of sleep. He was trying to put his best foot forward, though, despite the puffy blue-ish eyes.
"It's strange, though. I don't think people are like that, here. It's mostly outsiders, like yesterday, who perpetrate crimes. Sandfordians are still too.. aware of what the price was if you put a foot out of place, and any other sorts of rules that the NWA thought up on the spot."
Kinnell fell in alongside him. He had a good, easy pace, although he looked a little chilly in sweatpants and a t-shirt. “Sounds like we should enjoy it while we can, then. Sooner or later they're probably going to realise we don't have quite that much of a final agenda in mind, right?”
Nicholas eyed him sidelong, pulling in air through his nose, out through his mouth. "You've got a final agenda?"
“Yeah. Catch, arrest, charge, paperwork, court, jail. Little bit less punchy than a quick rake to the head round the back of the village hall, but it works for me.” Kinnell squinted as they turned into the early-morning sun. “I'm following you, by the way. Got no idea where we're going.”
"Well, we've got an hour, if we're not figuring in for a shower before we get in uniform. How long do you want to go for?"
Kinnell laughed, keeping pace. “Wouldn't mind a shower after, actually. The plumbing at the hotel's a little sort of... eccentric. You turn on the hot tap, someone in the next room screams. Say forty minutes...?”
'You want a shower at my place?'
Nicholas didn't say these words, because he was quite sure it would crack his voice.
"Oh."
Desperate for something else to say, he started trying to cram words in faster.
"Irememberthat. Nearlyburntmyfingersoff. Wellifwe'veonlygottwentyminutesout," breath, "twentyminutesin," breath, "bettertosavethefieldrunforlater, ey?"
“Alright,” agreed Kinnell, amused, as they turned the corner. “Probably best. I broke an ankle once, running on grass.” He huffed, catching his breath, grinning. “'Fraid I can't say whose, though. Hasn't come to court yet.”
Nicholas pulled a face as they left High Street and pulled onto the roundabout Cox's Way. Danny had once explained -in the sort of way that implied that he was regurgitating the only field trip Sandford Primary could afford, year after year, and that Danny had stopped listening by third year- how the street was one of the oldest in the town, following along the original unbanked stream until it came to the shallowest point along a sandbank. Apparently the most exciting thing to happen since the invention of bridges was that every now and then some idiot would try to throw themselves off and find themselves up to their knees in mud, although Danny swore up and down that he'd once seen an otter along the route before the swan had come along and kicked the shit out of it.
"Couldn't be worse than the fiasco over a four-foot-ten octogenarian's broken nose. You'd think they were forgetting the part where she had a shotgun. Let's go the church-canal route, it only takes fifteen minutes, tops."
*
Meanwhile...
Nicholas hadn't been the only person to pass an uneasy night. Danny, who'd just about managed to navigate home from the Crown before midnight, had spent a lonely couple of hours poking through his DVD collection and watching extras- some of them for the third or fourth time- before taking himself off to bed. He'd slept restlessly and woken up with a splitting headache.
The day before, around the second-pint-marker, it had seemed like an excellent idea to make up for the lost frisbee session by driving around to Nicholas's and surprise him by being there when he emerged for his morning run, up early for a change and ready to join him. Upon waking, however, with what felt like a small walrus thrashing around poking its tusks into vital parts of his brain, Danny realised he was going to have to get a serious move on to even stand a chance of getting to Spencer Hill before Nicholas left.
He did his best. Shave, world's fastest shower, hunt for trainers, ram uniform in kit bag, grab an apple from the bowl Nicholas had left as something of a hint last time he'd been round, keys, drive. Getting up so fast left him with a stomach ache and a series of yawping, involuntary yawns that persisted as he drove through the barely-awake village. No-one else about, apart from a boy he dimly recognised from Gabriel's gang, slogging along up the hill pulling a bright yellow paper truck on a strap.
Then he rounded the long wall at the corner of the High Street, and drove across the turning that led down to St. Vincents, a deep, gently-sloping hill bounded by buildings and shops. Glancing through the side window at just the right moment, he was rewarded with a nice, clear view down the hill, all the way to the climbing tower of the church.
He nearly drove into the horse trough.
It was simply the sheer startled inattention it caused, the- no other word for it- shock- of recognising Nicholas's oblivious, retreating back at almost the exact same moment as realising Nicholas wasn't alone. He braked and pulled up, his sleepy, shellshocked brain recognising that, never mind what else, he was in no state to be in control of a car. In that second, he'd seen the second figure, short, dark-haired, keeping pace easily with Nicholas's difficult high-energy version of a jog.
Kinnell.
*
Nicholas was trying valiantly not to think about Kinnell using his shower, a small tiled affair more than comfortable enough for two people, with an extremely useful ceramic seat. The man's hair was still wet, for Christ's sake.
So was his.
"Hullo, Evan. Anything interesting happen on your shift?"
Behind the screen, Evan looked up from his book, as perky as anyone with barely ten minutes left on the clock and a restful day's sleep ahead of them had a perfect right to be. There was no sign of his brother yet, although this didn't rule out the possibility of an Owen lurking somewhere in the back room or the stationery cupboard. Owen was good at lurking. “Oh, hello, sir. No, nothin' much. Delivery of paper an' things couple of hours ago. They got AM mixed up with PM, apparently.”
He shrugged, then pushed the timesheet folder under the screen for the two of them to sign. “No-one in yet. Oh, 'part from Sergeant Butterman.”
Nicholas blinked.
"Well... that's a marked improvement."
He scrawled his name and the time down -five minutes to nine, which wasn't good but wasn't particularly terrible- handed the pen back to Kinnell and thumped him hesitantly on the shoulder, and made for the lockers.
Nicholas found the locker room already occupied. Already in uniform, with the slight but unmistakeable signs of a hangover still lingering around him, clear as daylight in the puffiness under his eyes and the slightly haphazard part to his hair, Danny was cleaning out his locker. This was a task long-overdue- so much that it was something of a running joke- and he looked like he'd been going for some time, scooping out layers of scrap paper, chewed biros, and old flattened-out Hog Lump wrappers in a fluttering rain into a wastepaper basket on the floor.
Nicholas gave an awkward smile at the back of his head, and set to work stripping off his shirt and getting his crisp laundered uniform out of his own locker, brushing off the pips on the shoulders.
"Good to see you in early. Any of that lot rescued from the rubble?"
“Don't think so,” said Danny, into his locker, his voice hollow and muffled. “Just a load of old junk.” He flicked an elderly Coke can into the bin, then emerged, perked up a bit, half-grinned at Nicholas. “'Ey, though, I found a bit of shrapnel from the-”
“Thanks for the use of your shower, by the way, sir,” said Kinnell, honestly, sticking his head around the door. “Much appreciated.” Having brought his own plainclothes with him, his preparation for the day ahead consisted of simply tying his tie, and his fingers were still fiddling with his collar as withdrew in the direction of the Andes' office.
His boss flushed under the gaze of Danny, waiting until Kinnell was well around the corner before dropping his jogging sweats and starting the trial of getting uniform trousers on while emotionally distressed.
He didn't say anything.
Danny caught his lower lip in his front teeth and swept the last of the compacted, nearly-composted layer of paper out of the bottom of his locker. The solid stack of it hit the bottom of the bin with a heavy clump.
“He's a good runner, en't he?”
"Er. Yes. He's... er, decent."
“Yeah. I saw 'im go yesterday.” Danny closed his locker door ever-so-carefully, trying to make the exact opposite of a bang, and picked up the bin.
Nicholas felt lost. Somewhere, something had gone wrong, and he couldn't even begin to trace where it'd begun, because it'd loop around on itself as neatly as a Mobius strip. He shook his head, trying to clear it.
"S-sorry, what about the shrapnel?"
“Huh?” Danny looked up, and for a moment he seemed as bewildered as Nicholas felt, his faint, shifting frown an open testament to that same sort of confusion, like standing by helplessly watching the rope whizz over the cliff edge when you are just starting to realise, somewhere in the paranoid back of your mind, that you may have neglected to tie it to anything.
He shifted the weight of the bin onto his hip, then shrugged. “Oh. Nah, I found a bit, that's all. Not a big deal. How's it goin' with them jewellery thieves?”
"Ahh... I won't actually know until the Andes get in," said Nicholas, visibly relieved that the topic had gotten onto something else, anything else. "I, well, I forgot to ask them about it yesterday before the day shift was up. It ought to be pretty straightforward, though, routine witness statements and all. Though I think the difficult part will be picking all the diamonds out of the gravel in Pembry Lane before the interested locals do." And then, suddenly, almost blurting it out, "Hey. Would you want to do a real movie night t'night?"
Danny, feeling the bin starting to slip, struggled to pin it more securely to his side as he edged towards the door, not wanting to drop it all over the place but unwilling to expend the moment's effort it would have taken to put it down and get a proper grip on the bloody thing. He managed a smile. “'Course, if y'want. Anythin' you wanna see?”
Nicholas grinned back, and it was just that, two painful grimaces facing each other because they weren't sure what'd happen if they stopped.
"Well, I- I mean- What haven't I seen yet?"
“Be easier t'list the ones you have seen,” Danny pointed out. “How 'bout-”
Before he could get any further, Doris slammed into the room. Danny was almost barged straight out of the doorway- a lighter man would have been- by her violent entrance. As it was, he almost dropped the bin and had to juggle frantically with its slippery metal sides.
Doris wasn't in uniform yet, largely pink with a touch of denim instead of Serious Panda, but she was quite furious enough to make up for it.
“Right, that's bloody it. Chief, you tell that gormless gawp Tony Fisher to keep 'is paws off my PC.” She swung round on the corridor, where Tony was standing, mouth slightly open, a CD case clutched in front of him like a shield. “Just cause 'e can't keep 'is own equipment up an' running for more'n half a minute at a time, don't mean 'e can go fiddlin' around with my motherboard.”
She snatched the case out of his hands.
“You got that, Antonius?”
Tony's mouth snapped shut, and he started to go puce. It was clear that, as far as he was concerned, some line, some Extreme Srs Business Line, had just been crossed.
"PC Thatcher," said Angel, and just like that, the face he kept just for Danny was shed, and he was Nicholas Angel, extreme city copper. "You cannot insult your superiors. Even if they have dragged the Tech Squad in half-a-dozen times. Not only does it look bad for this department, it irritates me. Is that understood?"
"And Tony," the gaze swivelled onto Sandford's finest gremlin, "you know you're to leave other people's machines alone. That's a strict order. How many viruses has it been?"
“I didn't do nothing,” whined Tony, sounding uncannily like Owen Turner. “Didn't touch the thing.”
Doris folded her arms. The way her nose wrinkled up on one side, sceptical and disgusted all at once, was reply enough.
Angel framed a goal with his arms, pushing against an invisible barrier. "No. No, I am not going to do this. Frank was the patriarch, I am not going to draw a line in tape through this department and play at being your dad and keep all the toys separated and be the one who has to slice the cake up evenly. Get into uniform, the both of you, and play nice."
Doris almost pouted, but she knew when not to push her superior officer. Rolling her eyes, she grabbed an armful of clothes from her locker and flounced out, forcing Tony to sway back to avoid having his feet trampled on by her short- but no less painful- heels. Failing to meet Nicholas's eyes, Tony retreated to his corner locker, mumbling vague, bitter-sounding theories, most of which concerned the time of the month.
In the sudden ruckus, it was doubtful that either of them would have been able to pinpoint when exactly Danny had slipped out, but slipped out he had, taking his bin with him.
"Tony," warned Angel, in a voice that was barely any more audible than before, but had somehow become a lot more dangerous. "You're older than I am. You're a married man. Act like it."
*
"-acting like a complete tit, where does 'e get off, the obtuse fucker?" Doris didn't really bring in the long-range vocabulary unless she was well and truely pissed, and not the kind that involved breathalisers, although she was well on her way to change this fact. And it wasn't even quite noon yet. "The idiot wouldn't know'n Excel document from a hole in 'is arse, and everyone just sits back an' goes, 'Oh, that's just Tony. E's a good sort of bloke, a bit Lurch-ish, but give'im some time, he's 'special needs'.' If Tony Fisher gets to be Sergeant for eight. Years. I oughter been made 'nspector by my third tea-time five years ago. We joined up t'gether, remember? But nuuoooo, it's always 'Make us a cuppa, love', 'Mind washing me plate, y'olslag?' An' if I get a bit stroppy 'bout it now'n'then- wouldn't you?- everyone waves a bleedin' tampon at me."
She sighed into her pint, not quite noticing the traditional Crown pasty that was gaining more forkholes by the minute, murder weapon stuck tines down.
"I been talkin' to the new Andy, an' he asks me how long I been on, and I just.... I started thinkin' how long I been here, an' how long I been stuck in neutral with Cap'n Sideburn gettin' seniority alla time when anyone with half a brain'd see Bob's been on longer than two police stations, an' all. En't your boyfriend got halfa brain b'tween his ears, then?"
Danny, who had been watching the ongoing mauling of the poor innocent pastie with some anxiousness, sighed. “'S'got nothin' t'do with brains, has it? I mean, any more Sergeants an' we'll have more superior officers'n constables.” He thought for a bit, staring moodily into his apple juice. Just because it was the same colour as beer it didn't mean that it was having the same restorative effect on his feelings. “Anyway, I din't think you ever even wanted t'be a Sergeant. Last time I fort you said the hat'd make you look like a stripper.”
She smiled at that, eyes glittering. "Yeh. Well, mebbe that's a benefit, now I give it a thort."
Danny half-grinned into his glass. “What d'you think of 'im, anyway?”
"Who? The new one? Got a nice arse on 'im, but I could prolly drink him under the table 'fore I could get a shag in."
“D'think s'you s'trested in,” muttered Danny. It was either a total failure of comprehensible enunciation or an uncanny Bob Walker impersonation.
Doris had had practise, though. "What, not even bladdered? S'not like I wanna take 'im home to Mum or nothing."
“They went runnin' this mornin'.” said Danny, a bit more understandable but no less sort of plonky and hollow-sounding. He felt that bare facts were safe. As long as he didn't hazard an opinion on the matter, he could see what Doris thought about it, and not have to worry that her views were skewed by what he'd told her.
She put her pint down, eyes narrowing into a frown as it registered that Danny was well and truly upset. "Who?"
“Nicholas an' the new bloke.” Of course, he hadn't counted on his body language, or even just his tone of voice, both quite enough to give her all the detail she needed.
"Shhite." At this, the look in her eyes flamed into full-blown murderousness. "What, you think it was," she mimed something a bit rude, "or-?" she mimed something quite a lot ruder. It seemed to involve a lot of tongue.
Danny's face was a squinch-nosed mask of horror. “Doris,” he whined. “Fuck's sake. They jus' went runnin'. Thas' not a- a metaphor. There wasn't any...” Clumsily, he aped the less... explicit of the two little pantomimes. "Just runnin'. Far as I know.”
He drank some apple juice, then mumbled into the glass “An'heusedhis shower.”
"Fuck," murmured Doris, and slammed the last of her pint. "I'm going to kill my own boss."
“No!” Danny nearly knocked over his glass in panic. “Fucking... no, Doris, you're not! 'F he catches on I told you anything-” He flailed. “He'd fuckin' kill me, an'... an' then find some way t'bring me back to life like Frankenstein an' kill me all over again! Well, I mean, he wouldn't, but he'd be...”
He shuddered. “Really fuckin' disappointed. I jus' wanted to know it wasn't jus' me bein'- bein' jealous. I gotta... I dunno, I can't do anythin' about it without lookin' like a whiny bitch.”
"Lookin' like a doormat, is what," said Doris, reproachfully. "Christ, he's got you stitched, doesn't he? Can't be public about it at all? Even with friends? I know what that's like, hoo, an' it en't fun. He could just dangle you like that 'ndef'nitly, while he's got all the power an' you gotta do what he says. Danny, that en't healthy."
“It's not like that,” Danny muttered. “Not about power. He could lose his job.” And worse.
Doris shrugged. "I thought tops were the ones who wore the trousers."
Danny blinked at her. He'd certainly never exactly thought about it in those terms before, although it wasn't to say she didn't have a point, or at least would have had a point, if things had been going okay. “It en't that simple. It comes t'shit like this, it's nothin' t'do with tops or bottoms or trousers, s'jus'...”
He sighed, rubbed the back of his neck. “Jus' two people in a total bloody mess.”
Chapter 5