FIC: Don't Drink, Don't Smoke (What Do You Do) [due South/Hot Fuzz, ensemble gen]
I owe a debt of gratitude to laurashapiro and pipsqueaky for their amazing due South vid to "Goody Two Shoes", which cemented my association between Benton Fraser and that song long before I ever saw Hot Fuzz; if you're here for the Hot Fuzz and are unfamiliar with due South and its tireless Mountie hero Benton Fraser, I totally recommend watching their vid before reading the story. It's available for download here, and if you enjoy it, please let them know.
Title: Don't Drink, Don't Smoke (What Do You Do)
Fandom: due South/Hot Fuzz
Pairings: Ensemble gen, but, you know, gay like the show and the movie.
Spoilers: Through "Call of the Wild"/the film
Rating: PG-13 for language
Disclaimer: I own none of these characters; I'm just fooling around.
Summary: In which shenanigans are had, passports are stolen, hair is dyed, pints are drunk, and Ray is bitten by the swan. 12,600 words.
For reasons that don't need exploring at this juncture, Ray and I were pursuing a criminal across Gloucestershire on our annual leave from the Chicago Police Department and the Canadian Consulate in Chicago, respectively.
We had followed the man from London on two trains and then a trip on the back of a chicken truck, during which Ray complained both volubly and without ending about the smell, the feathers, and the English countryside. Transportation in Chicago, especially during rush hour, is no less fragrant than a chicken truck in England, but Ray was in no mood to not complain. We'd spotted the thief lifting American passports from tourists' purses and pants pockets in the Jazz and Blues section of the Virgin Records megastore at Piccadilly Circus, and though Ray had complained -- "I'm on vacation, Frase, find a cop in one of those silly round hats and tell him to deal with it" -- the Metropolitan London Police Force seemed to have little interest in the phenomenon.
However, Ray's sense of justice is unfailing, and as one of the passports that had been stolen was Ray's, we took the trains and the chicken truck to the outskirts of a small town called Sandford in pursuit of the suspect.
In addition, I had faced a great deal of difficulty in working with both the American and Canadian Embassies; I had not yet told Ray that we had now both been relieved of our passports without our own interference, but my visit to the Canadian High Commission had left me feeling unsettled and unsure of myself. A misunderstanding about my current life status (that is to say, whether I was living or dead) had led to the destruction of my passport, and in the briefest moments of conversation about this misunderstanding, before I rushed off to assist Ray in pursuing the suspect onto the train toward Sandford, I was made to understand that I could change this status by allowing the Canadian government to immediately detain me for transportation back to Ottawa.
I would have preferred to remain amongst the living on the records and in the annals of the Canadian government, but I would rather remain dead than abandon Ray in his time of need. I must admit that I hesitated, faced with this dilemma -- hesitated, and then thought of Ray, who had been sincerely loyal to me for many years. Perhaps this was not the best decision, but I chose to remain with Ray, essentially forfeiting my chance to leave the country without great difficulty.
I did not tell Ray that the American Embassy was disinclined to re-issue a passport to a police detective carrying a concealed weapon in England, nor did I tell him that the Canadian High Commission had, essentially, unmade me. There is no justification for my lie of omission, but I lied nonetheless -- out of concern for Ray's feelings, I told myself, and the fact that he was already furious with the situation. Telling him of the loss of my passport would only have exacerbated the situation, and I felt uncertain and unsure of myself without my Canadian identity.
The only identity I felt secure in was that of Ray's partner -- and should I have told him of the loss of my passport, he would have sent me to deal with it, and I would not have even had my remaining identity. I kept my counsel on the loss of my passport, and remained in England as Ray's partner. It seemed the best thing to do.
It seemed a coincidence that we had seen the purple-haired youth again the day after Ray's passport had been stolen and I had made my trips to the High Commission and the Embassy, but as we had seen him, shopping idly on Oxford Street, and Ray had identified him as the youth who had fled with Ray's passport, it made perfect sense to follow him.
At least, Ray would like me to note, it made perfect sense to myself. Ray, frankly, complained all the while we were chasing the purple-haired youth, but he also gave chase while he was doing so.
The suspect escaped us, however, in a field where a large and rather angry bull forced us to end our pursuit by hiding behind a large hedge.
Behind this hedge, we found two British police officers, also engaged in hiding.
"Who th'hell are you?" the larger of the two asked. He was breathing rather hard, while his companion was scarcely flushed.
"Constable Benton Fraser, Royal Canadian Mounted Police, currently of the Canadian Consulate in Chicago," I said. "My partner, currently removing thorns from his thighs -- "
"From my ass, Frase," Ray said. "I am removing thorns from my ass, because a bull just chased us through a big fucking bush."
"My companion is Detective Ray Kowalski, currently of the Chicago Police Department," I said. "He ran through the hedge as the bull pursued us."
"Captain Nicholas Angel," the thinner man said. "He's Sergeant Danny Butterman."
"Can I assume that you were pursuing the same suspect that Detective Kowalski and myself were pursuing?"
"Were ye runnin' after a swan?" Sergeant Butterman said. "Because we're after the swan again."
"No fucking swan," Ray said. "Wait, what?"
"Lost the swan again," Sergeant Butterman reported. "They should keep it on a leash, I say, but P.I. says that's cruelty to swans."
Ray, still removing thorns from his thighs, muttered something about rotten fucking English countryside. Thankfully, the officers from Sandford did not appear to hear him.
"Perhaps I could aid you in the pursuit of the swan," I suggested. "I have a great deal of experience with wildlife."
"In Chicago?" Inspector Angel said.
"Ah, no," I replied. "Although I am kept by a half-wolf named Diefenbaker, and Ray is in possession of a standard American terrapin. Rather, I have a great deal of wildlife in the wild, primarily the Northwest Territories of Canada."
"Are there ... a great many swans in that area?"
"Not really," I was forced to admit. "But an animal is generally an animal, when it comes to recapture."
Sergeant Butterman muttered, "You never met the bleedin' swan."
Ultimately, dusk was falling and we all retired from our place behind the hedge to, first, the local hotel, where Inspector Angel was very helpful in securing us a double room. (The help at the hotel struck me as rather incompetent, though I am loathe to presume how anyone should do his or her job.) Inspector Angel leaned over toward me, as Ray was stomping about our rented room, displaying his distaste for England via his abuse on the furniture, and informed me that they'd recently had a change of management at the hotel due to "an unfortunate incident".
"And trust me," he said, rather conspiratorially, when I apologized for Ray's destruction. To be honest, I wasn't even certain why we were still standing in the room, aside from Ray's ill-mannered tirade, because we had no luggage to unpack, having departed London with nothing more than our billfolds and the clothes on our back and in Ray's case, a Cubs cap. "Trust me," Angel said, and winked. "This hotel's seen a great deal worse lately."
After the room was secured and Ray had showered and put his thorn-torn pants back on, we all adjourned to the police station, a sparkling new building twice the size of what I expected to see. "What a lovely facility," I said.
"You're just saying that 'cause the 2-7 is a dump, Frase," Ray offered.
"The 27th precinct is a perfectly suitable workspace, Ray," I replied.
"Suitable if you like working in a crypt," Ray muttered. Sergeant Butterman shuddered at the word crypt, and Inspector Angel's face went oddly blank. Sandford, aside from fostering a potential ring of passport thieves, was a town that perhaps had more to it than met the eye.
"Please, sit," Inspector Angel said. "Coffee? Tea?"
"Coffee," Ray said.
"Tea, if it wouldn't be a problem," I said.
"No problem," Sergeant Butterman said. "Oi, Doris, make these blokes a cup of tea?"
"Make it yourself," a female voice shouted back. "Wait, what blokes?"
"The blokes from the States," Butterman shouted.
Before I could correct him, a uniformed police officer emerged from a doorway, wiping her hands on a tea towel. She eyed both Ray and myself with a rather predatory gaze -- an expression that Ray has often pointed out to be that many women give me, and now I am particularly conscious of not being impolite in the face of desire; Ray, however, has no such qualms and has been known to be quite rude to women who appear to be interested in me, a reaction I have never fully understood -- and offered her hand. "PC Doris Thatcher," she said. "And you are?"
"Constable Benton Fraser, Royal Canadian Mounted Police."
"Danny, you dolt," she said, swatting him across the back of the head. "He's not from the States, he's from Canada."
"The other one's from the States," Butterman said, cheerfully. "Wait, Mounted Police? Like horses?"
"I am not currently part of a mounted unit in Chicago," I said. "But some units in Canada are mounted, it's true."
"Nick had a horse once," Butterman said. "Was a good look for him, but it's much easier to get 'round Sandford on foot. Can't take the horse to the store for a Cornetto, can you?"
"Danny," Inspector Angel said. It was a tone I recognized; the sort that I use when Ray requires reining in, solemnity mixed with affection for one's partner. I smiled at Inspector Angel, who returned the expression with a knowing look. Despite the loss of Ray's passport, I was finding the diversion to Sandford pleasant; I had never before met an officer of the law whose partner and whose outlook on law enforcement seemed to so match my own.
"Sorry, Nick," Butterman said, sounding vaguely ashamed -- a quality of which Ray has, excepting the instance with Beth Botrelle, never particularly been possessed.
"Doris, coffee for Detective Kowalski, please, and tea for Constable Fraser," Angel continued.
"Sure thing, Chief," she said, turning to me. "One sugar or two, love?"
"None, thank you," I replied. "Ray?"
"Coffee," he said. "Black."
"Get the swan, Chief?" she asked, paused in the doorway.
"No luck today, Doris," Angel replied. "Lost him behind Leslie's old greenhouses, and then we ran into these officers in the field behind the spot where Peter used to have his barn and Old Ben keeps his bull, so we called it a day."
"Good day's work," she called from the kitchen.
"Tea, Doris," Angel said. "Now that we're finally settled, let me just get the whole story from you, Constable Fraser. I'm still unsure how a chicken truck plays into this."
I laid it out simply for the Inspector and his partner: pocket picked, pursued suspect, pursued suspect onto train without thought for hotel room currently reserved in London under our names and holding all our belongings. I neglected to inform the Inspector of Ray's tirade on the train once we had lost the suspect among the compartments, a tirade which had included the words leap without looking and supposed to be a vacation and didn't want the damn passport anyway, Frase; it seemed irrelevant, though I can admit, at that moment, riding the train to Sandford, Gloucestershire in pursuit of a passport thief did not seem, perhaps, to be the correct course of action. "We simply followed the passport thief's tracks," I concluded, feeling slightly awkward, "though he didn't ride a chicken truck from the station in Buford Abbey to Sandford. A young gentleman with rather shocking blue hair picked him up at the station."
"Pokey," Angel and Butterman said simultaneously, glancing at each other.
"Poke what?" Ray said. He'd been unusually silent since we arrived in Sandford and departed from the chicken truck; I hoped that he would represent his country in an appropriate fashion in this situation.
"Pokey is a local teenager," Angel said. "He belongs to a normally harmless crowd easily identifiable by their oddly colored hair, whom Sandford residents refer to, colloquially, as the Hoodies. Did your assailant in London have an odd color of hair?"
"Was he wearing a hoodie?" Sergeant Butterman said.
"Purple with red leopard spots," Ray said. "And grey." Doris set a cup of coffee in front of him, and he nearly inhaled half of it in one go, which seemed to relax him, just a bit. "It was good hair. I'd have liked hair like that when I was that little punk's age."
"Ay, that's Terrence, then" Butterman said. "Not the first time he's lifted a tourist's passport, no sir. Think he's usin' them for fake identifications, to use down at the pub."
"What was he doing in London, though," Inspector Angel said. "That's out of his normal range."
"And his normal range is ...?" I asked. I've tried hard not to meddle in others' investigations, but despite the three pints of lager Ray applied himself to at the pub the previous evening, he was still stalking about the station house in a rather foul mood -- although perhaps that could have been directly related to the ride in the chicken truck.
"Well, Sandford, mostly," Inspector Angel said thoughtfully. "Sandford entirely ... until now."
Sergeant Butterman, Inspector Angel and myself all looked out the window of the station house onto the bucolic scene of village life before us. Ray kicked a desk rather hard, and then hopped about on one foot, somewhat destroying the picture. He was not fond of England, really, and I remain uncertain as to why he suggested it for our vacation location, though he has become fond of the Guinness.
"In fact," Inspector Angel said, "I'm not sure that Terrence even knows how to take the train to London."
"Well, what'd we do?" Ray said.
"Well," Angel said. "We could go by his mum's place."
Terrence's mum, a friendly woman named Betty, shook her head sadly when Sergeant Butterman inquired if Terrence was home. "No, Danny, I haven't seen hide nor hair of him in several days. He's a handful, my Terrence is, and since he's left school and not asked me what I thought of it, I've stopped trying to have a say in what he does."
"Thank you, ma'am," Angel said. "If you see Terrence, if he happens to stop home to visit, please give us a call at the station. He's not in trouble, we'd just like to recover some property that he's ended up with, that's not his."
"That's my Terrence," she said fondly. "Would you like to come in for tea, boys?"
"No, thanks, ma'am," Angel said. "We'll have to take a rain check."
"Any day, boys," Terrence's mum said. "You know you're always welcome."
"Thanks, Betty," Butterman said. "We'll be in touch."
I understood the mechanics of the problems faced by the Sandford constabulary; in a town the size of Sandford, as with many of my postings in the isolated northern areas of Canada, everyone knows everyone else, and matters of criminal action must be treated with the most delicate discretion. Alarm one resident and you have likely alarmed them all; show kindness to a resident with a thorny legal or criminal problem, and the remainder will happily respect you and your work.
Inspector Angel and Sergeant Butterman were excellent at maintaining that balance, and as Inspector Angel's accent suggested that he was not originally from Sandford or its surrounding environs, his mastery of the social skills necessary in a small village were commendable.
"Anywhere else we can go?" Ray said, standing beside me on the front stoop of Terrence's mother's house.
Angel and Butterman exchanged glances. "Pub?" Butterman said.
"Pub," Angel said. "Please join us -- Danny and I will just pop by the station house and get cleaned up, and then we'll all have some fish and chips."
"And a beer," Ray said.
"They have an excellent local lager on the menu," Angel said. "The pub has ... changed hands, recently, and the new owners are making some fantastic changes for the better."
Ray has nearly broken me of the habit of investigating no matter where I am; I find it hard to disengage my investigative brain, but Ray said that it was better for his mental health to not worry that I would find criminals around every corner.
I cannot ignore the signals of odd behavior in Sandford, however, and I was confident that the story would come out eventually.
"Shall we meet you there?" I inquired. I am more comfortable in establishments like pubs now than I was, previously, predominantly thanks to Ray, who insists he is improving my life as he orders drinks for me. One drink isn't going to kill you, Frase, he often tells me, and so far he is correct.
"Sounds good," Butterman said. "We'll just drop you there, then, and you can find a table. Pub's the only place to go at night, here. Gets crowded."
The pub was crowded with adults, who peered at Ray and myself curiously, and with youngsters, who did not look quite old enough to be patronizing such a place, even in Britain with its drinking age of 18. I inquired of Inspector Angel on this subject when he and Sergeant Butterman arrived.
"I tried to stop it, when I first arrived in Sandford," he said genially, waving to a teenager carrying three pints away from the bar. "Letter of the law, not the spirit, and so on, but in Sandford, honestly, it's easier to just let things go if they're small, and focus on the big stuff."
"Wouldn't it promote a great deal of underage alcoholism?" I asked. Ray and Sergeant Butterman were elbow-to-elbow at the bar, deep in conversation about something as they waited for fresh drinks; they were each on their third drink of the evening, while Inspector Angel nursed a glass of cranberry juice and I joined him with my own glass of water.
"I thought," he said. "But it seems to mostly keep them off the streets and out of trouble instead, and in a town like this, you can't appreciate that enough."
"Ah," I said.
"I recognize that look," Angel said, laughing. "Hasn't Chicago been quite a shock for you?"
"Yes," I said. "Though I've been there for years by now."
"It was the same for me," Angel said. "Only in reverse -- knowing who to bring in and who to leave taking a piss on public property took months, and that was even after half the town tried to kill me."
I raised an eyebrow.
"Nefarious scheme to keep Sandford the perfect village," he said casually, as though murder attempts on an officer's life were run-of-the-mill in a small village in England. "Danny and I put a stop to it, though his father turned out to be the mastermind."
"Ah," I said.
"Tough for the whole village," he said. "But we've bucked up admirably, and I can't imagine going back to London."
Ray and Butterman returned, bearing pints and another glass of cranberry juice for Inspector Angel. They were arguing about action movies, having discovered over excellent fish and chips that they were both fans. Ray sounded, to my ears, cheerfully tipsy, and he confirmed this by reaching out and squeezing my shoulder, leaning against my back before sinking down into his chair. "You doin' okay, Frase?" he said.
"I remain concerned for your passport," I said, "but I am otherwise excellent. Inspector Angel was just giving me a brief history of the village and his work here."
"Va-ca-tion, Frase," Ray said, and clinked his glass against Sergeant Butterman's when it was raised in salute, to vacation, I presumed. "We are on vacation, missing passport or not. I'll get it back or I'll get a new one down in London. You know how those embassies and crap work, you can get it for me in record time."
"I'll do my best, Ray," I said, an odd feeling in the pit of my stomach.
"Anyways, least you can go home," Ray said cheerfully. "I might be stuck here forever and ever."
"You never know, Ray," I said, meaning, perhaps I too will remain here, but Ray didn't take it that way.
"I got faith in you, Frase, I know you know you can get me out of this," Ray said. His faith in me was warming, but it felt strange against my skin, knowing that I hadn't told him the full story of our situation. I nearly confessed all right then, sitting in the pub in Sandford, Gloucestershire.
I did not. Ray grinned at me and tipped his glass. I could not decide which felt worse: deceiving Ray in the matter of my passport, or losing that which made me my very self. My head said my passport and my identity; my heart reminded me that my identity was so linked to Ray that I had not lost anything.
I have long learned that following your head instead of your heart often leads you to an unfortunately lonely life.
"We'll continue pursuing Terrence tomorrow," Inspector Angel said. "He's not a difficult boy to find, and I'm sure he'll be very contrite when he finds out that he's lifted a passport from an officer of the law."
"Or we'll make him contrite," Butterman said, and he and Ray laughed heartily at that.
Several hours (and several pints, for Ray and Sergeant Butterman) later, having been introduced to most of the village as they came by the table to investigate our presence in the village, Ray stumbled and I strolled back to the hotel. Inspector Angel and Sergeant Butterman had ambled the other way, after issuing hearty good nights and invitations to the station house in the morning.
"Nice place," Ray said, leaning against me as I fumbled with the room key. "Nice guys. Shoulda come here to b'gin with, Frase, it's better than London."
"Next vacation, Ray," I replied, propelling him into the hotel room in front of me. He collapsed face first on the bed without removing his boots and began snoring immediately. I removed his boots and his jeans and covered him with the comforter before performing my evening ablutions and retiring to the other twin bed myself.
I fell asleep thinking that Sandford's tranquil, languid pace of life was quite up my alley, and agreeing with Ray's assertion that we should have begun here.
In the morning, Ray was still snoring soundly when I awoke, and so I simply left him a note and procured a cup of tea and a hot breakfast in the hotel dining room before making my way to the station house. It was nearly empty at this hour of the morning, save the night desk manager reading a paperback novel, and Inspector Angel at his desk, reading a file and rolling his neck leisurely. I could hear it cracking from the doorway, and I cleared my throat to alert him to my presence.
"Constable Fraser, good morning," he said. "And Detective Kowalski is ...?"
"Still sleeping," I replied.
"As is Danny, I'm sure. Cup of tea?"
"Please," I said.
"I must admit," Inspector Angel said to me, as we sat drinking our tea, "I ran both your name and your partner's name through our databases this morning, in curiosity. I had no idea that you were the Benton Fraser involved with the Muldoon capture; your work is legendary amongst the officers at the Metropolitan Headquarters in London. We all followed that case avidly as the capture occurred and the trial progressed."
"Ah, thank you," I said. I am unused to praise from fellow officers; many of my coworkers while I remained in Canada were unsettled by my career success, which was not the least reason why I was instructed to remain in Chicago after pursuing my father's killers.
"Your record is certainly ... unusual," Inspector Angel said.
"Ray is rather virulently anti-paperwork," I said. "We have solved more routine cases."
"You've been together a long time?" Angel said.
"Years," I said. "Some time in Chicago, some time in the Northwest Territories following the Muldoon incident."
"I wouldn't call it an incident! A masterpiece, perhaps, but not a simple incident."
"Ah, well," I replied.
"Is it true that you and Detective Kowalski entered Canada on the wings of a plane before leaping from the plane into unpopulated snow fields?"
"Yes," I said. "I wrote the reports on Muldoon's capture, so the facts are entirely accurate. Canadian paperwork is never something for which Ray managed to acquire a knack. Though he doesn't have a knack for American paperwork it seems, either -- the longer he serves on the force, the more recalcitrant he is over paperwork. And the more his paperwork becomes more of an abstract work of art unrelated to the case."
"I've lost the hand for it myself," Angel said. "I tried to do all the paperwork for the cases we brought in to the station here, and after six months, it appeared that simply tucking a note into a file was more appropriate to the situation than the complete paperwork."
"Changing your outlook on police work is difficult to do," I said.
Angel laughed. "You're telling me. Chicago, I still believe, must be an absolute shock."
"I've learned to adjust," I said. I have. Ray and Ray have both helped. And I find Chicago charming in its own ways, now that I know where to look for the things that I want out of life, like open spaces and excellent Chinese food.
"I miss the paperwork sometimes," he said, leaning confidentially across his desk. "It's easier on the day-to-day routine, but there's something about filling out forms in triplicate with a ballpoint pen that's comforting."
"I know exactly what you mean," I said, and when Inspector Angel smiled broadly at me, I understood, absolutely, that I had found a kindred soul. "Even the switch from the paperwork of the Canadian service to the American service was a shock to my system; more so than the culture in Chicago."
Angel smiled again, the corners of his eyes crinkling with pleasure, and stuck his hand out to shake mine. "Brother," he said.
"Indeed," I said, shaking his hand.
He finished his tea in a single gulp and said, "I've found several leads we can check out. If you'd like to join me. I suspect we won't see Danny until the latter half of the morning, if then."
"I suspect Ray is in similar shape," I said.
"Partners," Inspector Angel said, in a way that suggested he meant more than he was saying. I understood that relationship, as well. A partner you can trust beyond simply watching your back -- a luxury not often found in the law enforcement arena, and I was lucky enough to have had two, even if one was currently hungover and not of any use to the investigation of the theft of his own passport.
I simply finished my tea, stood and donned my hat, and waited for Inspector Angel to secure his own hat before departing. "Would you like a vest?" he asked me.
"Is Sandford that dangerous?"
"Well, not really," he said. "But it's been said that everyone is packing, including farmers and their mums. In case." He paused. "It's also helpful if the swan tries to bite you."
Inspector Angel's leads chased up nothing; not a single head of brightly colored unnatural hair was to be found in the village of Sandford and its environs. We spent half an hour recording traffic speeds on the road out of town, and aside from the chicken truck passing us by, not a single vehicle passed, either.
Sandford was a lovely vacation. We even got in a bit of a run, after spying the swan munching contentedly on what Inspector Angel reported to be Danny's cousin's ex-wife's new husband's garden, though we lost the swan in a pit of mud and unfortunately trampled many of Danny's cousin's ex-wife's new husband's marigolds.
Danny's cousin lived across the street, and gave Inspector Angel a friendly wave as we extracted ourselves from the marigolds. Danny's cousin's ex-wife glowered at us from the window, until Inspector Angel sketched off a jaunty salute and mimed a swan's wings, and then she smiled at us as well.
"The swan's the biggest problem we have," he said, brushing dirt from his knees. "Gets out twice a month, runs faster than everyone at the station house. Plus, it swims, and no one besides myself and Detective Wainwright enjoys wading into the ponds round here without proper swimming trunks."
"At least you don't need to read the swan its rights," I offered.
Angel laughed. "Back to the station with us, I suppose. The rest should be in by now, and perhaps someone saw one of the gang on their way in."
Upon return to the station, I found Ray sitting at Sergeant Butterman's desk, feet propped up, cigarette in his mouth, cards in hand. He was surrounded by bags from a local shop, by Sergeant Butterman, and by two mustached men in street clothes, also holding cigarettes and cards. "Frase!" Ray said. "Come meet the Andys."
"The Andes?" I said.
"DS Andy Wainwright," Inspector Angel said. "DC Andy Cartwright."
"Ah, Andys," I said. "Shopping, Ray?"
"I got to have clean boxers, Frase," he said. "Also, cigarettes here, big letters telling you not to smoke. Kind of just makes me want to smoke more."
DS Wainwright said, "That's what me'n'Andy always say. Don't tell us to do something, tell us not to do something. Call. Full house."
"Goddamn," Ray said, tossing down his cards and crushing out his cigarette. For all that Ray is finding that as he grows older, the depressing, relentless parts of police work are far less satisfying, he is never less than at home in police stations. I hadn't considered making a tour of England's station houses as a vacation subject, but perhaps we should have -- I am always interested in new techniques and the working methods of other officers, and Ray enjoys playing cards, smoking cigarettes, and making terrible jokes.
"Find the swan?" Sergeant Butterman asked.
"Yes," Inspector Angel said, perching on a desk and looking down at the round DC Cartwright had just dealt to Butterman. "But it destroyed Gerald's ex-wife's husband's garden, and Constable Fraser and I got considerably muddy."
"Find Terrence?" Butterman asked.
"No," Angel said. "Danny, you know Andy and Andy are just going to take your money."
"I'm getting better, I swear it," Butterman said. "Can't learn if I don't play."
"There's regulations about gambling in the station house," Angel said, but his voice was fond, and when the Andys smirked at him, he simply smirked back. He then said, "Everybody up. Out on the streets, looking for any of the kids wearing funny colored hair. Terrence Garson is stealing passports, and I'm done putting up with it."
"Wondered why we'd gotten a Yank in the station house," DS Wainwright said.
"Thought it was some kind of exchange program," DC Cartwright said.
"Wondered why you didn't ship Danny off, though," DS Wainwright said, dropping his chair to the ground with a thump and picking up a packet of cigarettes from a nearby desk.
"Oi," Sergeant Butterman said, chucking a handful of cards toward DS Wainwright.
"Constable Fraser, if you'd accompany Sergeant Butterman down to the pub," Inspector Angel said. "Detective Kowalski can join me in visiting shop owners, and Detectives, if you'd canvas the local woodpiles, garden sheds and back alleys, I would appreciate it immensely."
"Appreciate it as in give us raises?" DC Cartwright said.
"Appreciate it as in not write up paperwork for your ongoing poker game," Inspector Angel said. He winked, not at all surreptitiously, in my direction. "Paperwork's good for some things in Sandford," he said. "Just not the usual things."
"Sopping up tea spills," DC Cartwright offered.
"Keeping score in games of gin," PC Thatcher called from the kitchen.
"Drawing cartoons," Sergeant Butterman said.
Ray was smiling broadly, glad to meet his own kindred souls, officers who shared his distaste for paperwork even across the Atlantic Ocean. I felt even more connection with Inspector Angel at that moment, for all he was smiling fondly at his officers; no man with a desk as neat as his station house desk was is pleased to give up paperwork. But I also sensed that it was a long-running joke in this village, and I could appreciate that even more than I appreciated a well-done, thorough stack of paperwork.
"You've all well demonstrated that you can do great things with your paperwork," Inspector Angel said.
"Paper airplanes," Sergeant Butterman said.
"Point taken," Inspector Angel said. "Is everyone clear on where they should be this afternoon?"
"Yes, Chief," Butterman, Cartwright and Wainwright chorused. Ray flipped his sunglasses down over his glasses, his universal signal for, as he said, "Let's roll." I put my hat on.
Sergeant Butterman chattered animatedly as we walked the half-mile from the station house to the pub. He expressed admirable curiosity and a quick mind, though he also seemed to have gathered most of his data on law enforcement in Canada from a film about Dudley Do-Right. I made a mental note to pass on several informational pamphlets to Inspector Angel, were Ray and I ever to get back to London and our luggage.
The pub was empty, save an older officer with a K-9 companion. "PC Bob Walker," Sergeant Butterman said. "And Saxon."
"Nice to meet you," I said, tipping my hat.
PC Walker mumbled and squinted, and Sergeant Butterman assured me he was being friendly. "Said lovely to meet you, too," Sergeant Butterman translated. "Also likes your hat."
"Thank you, sir," I said to PC Walker, who mumbled another sentence and flapped a hand at us.
"Coming to work today, Bob?" Sergeant Butterman said, and got an apparently assenting mumble in return.
When questioned, the young man, Steven, behind the bar at the pub said he hadn't seen a single young man with odd colored hair in several weeks, which was odd, "because didn't Little Jim have his 20th birthday this week, Danny?"
"Aye, he did," Sergeant Butterman said, scratching his head. "They weren't in at all?"
"Seen neither hide nor hair of any of the Hoodies this week," Steven said. "Thought it had been quiet. Thought the floor'd been less sticky."
"No spilt pints will do that for you," Sergeant Butterman agreed. He frowned and tilted his head in my direction. "The Hoodies are in here every night," he said. "Or, they were. Something's going on."
"I would suspect so," I replied. "Why are they called the Hoodies?"
"They all wear jumpers with, y'know, hoods," Sergeant Butterman said, gesturing above his head with his hands. "So y'can't see who they are, 'cept they helped Nick out when the Neighborhood Watch went all crazy. After that, that's when they all dyed their hair."
I tried to make sense of multi-colored, passport-stealing teenage hooligans who had assisted an officer of the law and failed. "They're delinquents with hearts of gold?"
"Something like," Sergeant Butterman said. "And if they haven't been here, they're hidin' out."
"We should report this to Inspector Angel," I said.
"Good idea," Sergeant Butterman agreed. "You're like Nick, always thinking ahead to the next step. Bet your partner's a lucky guy."
"Ray and I have had a profitable partnership," I said.
"Yeah, he was telling me 'bout some of the things you guys have done," Butterman said. "Neat stuff, with the trip on the sled with the dogs and all."
"Everyone should have at least one great adventure," I said, and I truly believe that.
"Did you find the hand?"
"Franklin's hand? No, but sometimes the journey is worth more than the end point," I said.
"You're just like Nick," Sergeant Butterman said, and it was certainly a compliment in his voice, which pleased me.
*
On to Part 2.
Title: Don't Drink, Don't Smoke (What Do You Do)
Fandom: due South/Hot Fuzz
Pairings: Ensemble gen, but, you know, gay like the show and the movie.
Spoilers: Through "Call of the Wild"/the film
Rating: PG-13 for language
Disclaimer: I own none of these characters; I'm just fooling around.
Summary: In which shenanigans are had, passports are stolen, hair is dyed, pints are drunk, and Ray is bitten by the swan. 12,600 words.
For reasons that don't need exploring at this juncture, Ray and I were pursuing a criminal across Gloucestershire on our annual leave from the Chicago Police Department and the Canadian Consulate in Chicago, respectively.
We had followed the man from London on two trains and then a trip on the back of a chicken truck, during which Ray complained both volubly and without ending about the smell, the feathers, and the English countryside. Transportation in Chicago, especially during rush hour, is no less fragrant than a chicken truck in England, but Ray was in no mood to not complain. We'd spotted the thief lifting American passports from tourists' purses and pants pockets in the Jazz and Blues section of the Virgin Records megastore at Piccadilly Circus, and though Ray had complained -- "I'm on vacation, Frase, find a cop in one of those silly round hats and tell him to deal with it" -- the Metropolitan London Police Force seemed to have little interest in the phenomenon.
However, Ray's sense of justice is unfailing, and as one of the passports that had been stolen was Ray's, we took the trains and the chicken truck to the outskirts of a small town called Sandford in pursuit of the suspect.
In addition, I had faced a great deal of difficulty in working with both the American and Canadian Embassies; I had not yet told Ray that we had now both been relieved of our passports without our own interference, but my visit to the Canadian High Commission had left me feeling unsettled and unsure of myself. A misunderstanding about my current life status (that is to say, whether I was living or dead) had led to the destruction of my passport, and in the briefest moments of conversation about this misunderstanding, before I rushed off to assist Ray in pursuing the suspect onto the train toward Sandford, I was made to understand that I could change this status by allowing the Canadian government to immediately detain me for transportation back to Ottawa.
I would have preferred to remain amongst the living on the records and in the annals of the Canadian government, but I would rather remain dead than abandon Ray in his time of need. I must admit that I hesitated, faced with this dilemma -- hesitated, and then thought of Ray, who had been sincerely loyal to me for many years. Perhaps this was not the best decision, but I chose to remain with Ray, essentially forfeiting my chance to leave the country without great difficulty.
I did not tell Ray that the American Embassy was disinclined to re-issue a passport to a police detective carrying a concealed weapon in England, nor did I tell him that the Canadian High Commission had, essentially, unmade me. There is no justification for my lie of omission, but I lied nonetheless -- out of concern for Ray's feelings, I told myself, and the fact that he was already furious with the situation. Telling him of the loss of my passport would only have exacerbated the situation, and I felt uncertain and unsure of myself without my Canadian identity.
The only identity I felt secure in was that of Ray's partner -- and should I have told him of the loss of my passport, he would have sent me to deal with it, and I would not have even had my remaining identity. I kept my counsel on the loss of my passport, and remained in England as Ray's partner. It seemed the best thing to do.
It seemed a coincidence that we had seen the purple-haired youth again the day after Ray's passport had been stolen and I had made my trips to the High Commission and the Embassy, but as we had seen him, shopping idly on Oxford Street, and Ray had identified him as the youth who had fled with Ray's passport, it made perfect sense to follow him.
At least, Ray would like me to note, it made perfect sense to myself. Ray, frankly, complained all the while we were chasing the purple-haired youth, but he also gave chase while he was doing so.
The suspect escaped us, however, in a field where a large and rather angry bull forced us to end our pursuit by hiding behind a large hedge.
Behind this hedge, we found two British police officers, also engaged in hiding.
"Who th'hell are you?" the larger of the two asked. He was breathing rather hard, while his companion was scarcely flushed.
"Constable Benton Fraser, Royal Canadian Mounted Police, currently of the Canadian Consulate in Chicago," I said. "My partner, currently removing thorns from his thighs -- "
"From my ass, Frase," Ray said. "I am removing thorns from my ass, because a bull just chased us through a big fucking bush."
"My companion is Detective Ray Kowalski, currently of the Chicago Police Department," I said. "He ran through the hedge as the bull pursued us."
"Captain Nicholas Angel," the thinner man said. "He's Sergeant Danny Butterman."
"Can I assume that you were pursuing the same suspect that Detective Kowalski and myself were pursuing?"
"Were ye runnin' after a swan?" Sergeant Butterman said. "Because we're after the swan again."
"No fucking swan," Ray said. "Wait, what?"
"Lost the swan again," Sergeant Butterman reported. "They should keep it on a leash, I say, but P.I. says that's cruelty to swans."
Ray, still removing thorns from his thighs, muttered something about rotten fucking English countryside. Thankfully, the officers from Sandford did not appear to hear him.
"Perhaps I could aid you in the pursuit of the swan," I suggested. "I have a great deal of experience with wildlife."
"In Chicago?" Inspector Angel said.
"Ah, no," I replied. "Although I am kept by a half-wolf named Diefenbaker, and Ray is in possession of a standard American terrapin. Rather, I have a great deal of wildlife in the wild, primarily the Northwest Territories of Canada."
"Are there ... a great many swans in that area?"
"Not really," I was forced to admit. "But an animal is generally an animal, when it comes to recapture."
Sergeant Butterman muttered, "You never met the bleedin' swan."
Ultimately, dusk was falling and we all retired from our place behind the hedge to, first, the local hotel, where Inspector Angel was very helpful in securing us a double room. (The help at the hotel struck me as rather incompetent, though I am loathe to presume how anyone should do his or her job.) Inspector Angel leaned over toward me, as Ray was stomping about our rented room, displaying his distaste for England via his abuse on the furniture, and informed me that they'd recently had a change of management at the hotel due to "an unfortunate incident".
"And trust me," he said, rather conspiratorially, when I apologized for Ray's destruction. To be honest, I wasn't even certain why we were still standing in the room, aside from Ray's ill-mannered tirade, because we had no luggage to unpack, having departed London with nothing more than our billfolds and the clothes on our back and in Ray's case, a Cubs cap. "Trust me," Angel said, and winked. "This hotel's seen a great deal worse lately."
After the room was secured and Ray had showered and put his thorn-torn pants back on, we all adjourned to the police station, a sparkling new building twice the size of what I expected to see. "What a lovely facility," I said.
"You're just saying that 'cause the 2-7 is a dump, Frase," Ray offered.
"The 27th precinct is a perfectly suitable workspace, Ray," I replied.
"Suitable if you like working in a crypt," Ray muttered. Sergeant Butterman shuddered at the word crypt, and Inspector Angel's face went oddly blank. Sandford, aside from fostering a potential ring of passport thieves, was a town that perhaps had more to it than met the eye.
"Please, sit," Inspector Angel said. "Coffee? Tea?"
"Coffee," Ray said.
"Tea, if it wouldn't be a problem," I said.
"No problem," Sergeant Butterman said. "Oi, Doris, make these blokes a cup of tea?"
"Make it yourself," a female voice shouted back. "Wait, what blokes?"
"The blokes from the States," Butterman shouted.
Before I could correct him, a uniformed police officer emerged from a doorway, wiping her hands on a tea towel. She eyed both Ray and myself with a rather predatory gaze -- an expression that Ray has often pointed out to be that many women give me, and now I am particularly conscious of not being impolite in the face of desire; Ray, however, has no such qualms and has been known to be quite rude to women who appear to be interested in me, a reaction I have never fully understood -- and offered her hand. "PC Doris Thatcher," she said. "And you are?"
"Constable Benton Fraser, Royal Canadian Mounted Police."
"Danny, you dolt," she said, swatting him across the back of the head. "He's not from the States, he's from Canada."
"The other one's from the States," Butterman said, cheerfully. "Wait, Mounted Police? Like horses?"
"I am not currently part of a mounted unit in Chicago," I said. "But some units in Canada are mounted, it's true."
"Nick had a horse once," Butterman said. "Was a good look for him, but it's much easier to get 'round Sandford on foot. Can't take the horse to the store for a Cornetto, can you?"
"Danny," Inspector Angel said. It was a tone I recognized; the sort that I use when Ray requires reining in, solemnity mixed with affection for one's partner. I smiled at Inspector Angel, who returned the expression with a knowing look. Despite the loss of Ray's passport, I was finding the diversion to Sandford pleasant; I had never before met an officer of the law whose partner and whose outlook on law enforcement seemed to so match my own.
"Sorry, Nick," Butterman said, sounding vaguely ashamed -- a quality of which Ray has, excepting the instance with Beth Botrelle, never particularly been possessed.
"Doris, coffee for Detective Kowalski, please, and tea for Constable Fraser," Angel continued.
"Sure thing, Chief," she said, turning to me. "One sugar or two, love?"
"None, thank you," I replied. "Ray?"
"Coffee," he said. "Black."
"Get the swan, Chief?" she asked, paused in the doorway.
"No luck today, Doris," Angel replied. "Lost him behind Leslie's old greenhouses, and then we ran into these officers in the field behind the spot where Peter used to have his barn and Old Ben keeps his bull, so we called it a day."
"Good day's work," she called from the kitchen.
"Tea, Doris," Angel said. "Now that we're finally settled, let me just get the whole story from you, Constable Fraser. I'm still unsure how a chicken truck plays into this."
I laid it out simply for the Inspector and his partner: pocket picked, pursued suspect, pursued suspect onto train without thought for hotel room currently reserved in London under our names and holding all our belongings. I neglected to inform the Inspector of Ray's tirade on the train once we had lost the suspect among the compartments, a tirade which had included the words leap without looking and supposed to be a vacation and didn't want the damn passport anyway, Frase; it seemed irrelevant, though I can admit, at that moment, riding the train to Sandford, Gloucestershire in pursuit of a passport thief did not seem, perhaps, to be the correct course of action. "We simply followed the passport thief's tracks," I concluded, feeling slightly awkward, "though he didn't ride a chicken truck from the station in Buford Abbey to Sandford. A young gentleman with rather shocking blue hair picked him up at the station."
"Pokey," Angel and Butterman said simultaneously, glancing at each other.
"Poke what?" Ray said. He'd been unusually silent since we arrived in Sandford and departed from the chicken truck; I hoped that he would represent his country in an appropriate fashion in this situation.
"Pokey is a local teenager," Angel said. "He belongs to a normally harmless crowd easily identifiable by their oddly colored hair, whom Sandford residents refer to, colloquially, as the Hoodies. Did your assailant in London have an odd color of hair?"
"Was he wearing a hoodie?" Sergeant Butterman said.
"Purple with red leopard spots," Ray said. "And grey." Doris set a cup of coffee in front of him, and he nearly inhaled half of it in one go, which seemed to relax him, just a bit. "It was good hair. I'd have liked hair like that when I was that little punk's age."
"Ay, that's Terrence, then" Butterman said. "Not the first time he's lifted a tourist's passport, no sir. Think he's usin' them for fake identifications, to use down at the pub."
"What was he doing in London, though," Inspector Angel said. "That's out of his normal range."
"And his normal range is ...?" I asked. I've tried hard not to meddle in others' investigations, but despite the three pints of lager Ray applied himself to at the pub the previous evening, he was still stalking about the station house in a rather foul mood -- although perhaps that could have been directly related to the ride in the chicken truck.
"Well, Sandford, mostly," Inspector Angel said thoughtfully. "Sandford entirely ... until now."
Sergeant Butterman, Inspector Angel and myself all looked out the window of the station house onto the bucolic scene of village life before us. Ray kicked a desk rather hard, and then hopped about on one foot, somewhat destroying the picture. He was not fond of England, really, and I remain uncertain as to why he suggested it for our vacation location, though he has become fond of the Guinness.
"In fact," Inspector Angel said, "I'm not sure that Terrence even knows how to take the train to London."
"Well, what'd we do?" Ray said.
"Well," Angel said. "We could go by his mum's place."
Terrence's mum, a friendly woman named Betty, shook her head sadly when Sergeant Butterman inquired if Terrence was home. "No, Danny, I haven't seen hide nor hair of him in several days. He's a handful, my Terrence is, and since he's left school and not asked me what I thought of it, I've stopped trying to have a say in what he does."
"Thank you, ma'am," Angel said. "If you see Terrence, if he happens to stop home to visit, please give us a call at the station. He's not in trouble, we'd just like to recover some property that he's ended up with, that's not his."
"That's my Terrence," she said fondly. "Would you like to come in for tea, boys?"
"No, thanks, ma'am," Angel said. "We'll have to take a rain check."
"Any day, boys," Terrence's mum said. "You know you're always welcome."
"Thanks, Betty," Butterman said. "We'll be in touch."
I understood the mechanics of the problems faced by the Sandford constabulary; in a town the size of Sandford, as with many of my postings in the isolated northern areas of Canada, everyone knows everyone else, and matters of criminal action must be treated with the most delicate discretion. Alarm one resident and you have likely alarmed them all; show kindness to a resident with a thorny legal or criminal problem, and the remainder will happily respect you and your work.
Inspector Angel and Sergeant Butterman were excellent at maintaining that balance, and as Inspector Angel's accent suggested that he was not originally from Sandford or its surrounding environs, his mastery of the social skills necessary in a small village were commendable.
"Anywhere else we can go?" Ray said, standing beside me on the front stoop of Terrence's mother's house.
Angel and Butterman exchanged glances. "Pub?" Butterman said.
"Pub," Angel said. "Please join us -- Danny and I will just pop by the station house and get cleaned up, and then we'll all have some fish and chips."
"And a beer," Ray said.
"They have an excellent local lager on the menu," Angel said. "The pub has ... changed hands, recently, and the new owners are making some fantastic changes for the better."
Ray has nearly broken me of the habit of investigating no matter where I am; I find it hard to disengage my investigative brain, but Ray said that it was better for his mental health to not worry that I would find criminals around every corner.
I cannot ignore the signals of odd behavior in Sandford, however, and I was confident that the story would come out eventually.
"Shall we meet you there?" I inquired. I am more comfortable in establishments like pubs now than I was, previously, predominantly thanks to Ray, who insists he is improving my life as he orders drinks for me. One drink isn't going to kill you, Frase, he often tells me, and so far he is correct.
"Sounds good," Butterman said. "We'll just drop you there, then, and you can find a table. Pub's the only place to go at night, here. Gets crowded."
The pub was crowded with adults, who peered at Ray and myself curiously, and with youngsters, who did not look quite old enough to be patronizing such a place, even in Britain with its drinking age of 18. I inquired of Inspector Angel on this subject when he and Sergeant Butterman arrived.
"I tried to stop it, when I first arrived in Sandford," he said genially, waving to a teenager carrying three pints away from the bar. "Letter of the law, not the spirit, and so on, but in Sandford, honestly, it's easier to just let things go if they're small, and focus on the big stuff."
"Wouldn't it promote a great deal of underage alcoholism?" I asked. Ray and Sergeant Butterman were elbow-to-elbow at the bar, deep in conversation about something as they waited for fresh drinks; they were each on their third drink of the evening, while Inspector Angel nursed a glass of cranberry juice and I joined him with my own glass of water.
"I thought," he said. "But it seems to mostly keep them off the streets and out of trouble instead, and in a town like this, you can't appreciate that enough."
"Ah," I said.
"I recognize that look," Angel said, laughing. "Hasn't Chicago been quite a shock for you?"
"Yes," I said. "Though I've been there for years by now."
"It was the same for me," Angel said. "Only in reverse -- knowing who to bring in and who to leave taking a piss on public property took months, and that was even after half the town tried to kill me."
I raised an eyebrow.
"Nefarious scheme to keep Sandford the perfect village," he said casually, as though murder attempts on an officer's life were run-of-the-mill in a small village in England. "Danny and I put a stop to it, though his father turned out to be the mastermind."
"Ah," I said.
"Tough for the whole village," he said. "But we've bucked up admirably, and I can't imagine going back to London."
Ray and Butterman returned, bearing pints and another glass of cranberry juice for Inspector Angel. They were arguing about action movies, having discovered over excellent fish and chips that they were both fans. Ray sounded, to my ears, cheerfully tipsy, and he confirmed this by reaching out and squeezing my shoulder, leaning against my back before sinking down into his chair. "You doin' okay, Frase?" he said.
"I remain concerned for your passport," I said, "but I am otherwise excellent. Inspector Angel was just giving me a brief history of the village and his work here."
"Va-ca-tion, Frase," Ray said, and clinked his glass against Sergeant Butterman's when it was raised in salute, to vacation, I presumed. "We are on vacation, missing passport or not. I'll get it back or I'll get a new one down in London. You know how those embassies and crap work, you can get it for me in record time."
"I'll do my best, Ray," I said, an odd feeling in the pit of my stomach.
"Anyways, least you can go home," Ray said cheerfully. "I might be stuck here forever and ever."
"You never know, Ray," I said, meaning, perhaps I too will remain here, but Ray didn't take it that way.
"I got faith in you, Frase, I know you know you can get me out of this," Ray said. His faith in me was warming, but it felt strange against my skin, knowing that I hadn't told him the full story of our situation. I nearly confessed all right then, sitting in the pub in Sandford, Gloucestershire.
I did not. Ray grinned at me and tipped his glass. I could not decide which felt worse: deceiving Ray in the matter of my passport, or losing that which made me my very self. My head said my passport and my identity; my heart reminded me that my identity was so linked to Ray that I had not lost anything.
I have long learned that following your head instead of your heart often leads you to an unfortunately lonely life.
"We'll continue pursuing Terrence tomorrow," Inspector Angel said. "He's not a difficult boy to find, and I'm sure he'll be very contrite when he finds out that he's lifted a passport from an officer of the law."
"Or we'll make him contrite," Butterman said, and he and Ray laughed heartily at that.
Several hours (and several pints, for Ray and Sergeant Butterman) later, having been introduced to most of the village as they came by the table to investigate our presence in the village, Ray stumbled and I strolled back to the hotel. Inspector Angel and Sergeant Butterman had ambled the other way, after issuing hearty good nights and invitations to the station house in the morning.
"Nice place," Ray said, leaning against me as I fumbled with the room key. "Nice guys. Shoulda come here to b'gin with, Frase, it's better than London."
"Next vacation, Ray," I replied, propelling him into the hotel room in front of me. He collapsed face first on the bed without removing his boots and began snoring immediately. I removed his boots and his jeans and covered him with the comforter before performing my evening ablutions and retiring to the other twin bed myself.
I fell asleep thinking that Sandford's tranquil, languid pace of life was quite up my alley, and agreeing with Ray's assertion that we should have begun here.
In the morning, Ray was still snoring soundly when I awoke, and so I simply left him a note and procured a cup of tea and a hot breakfast in the hotel dining room before making my way to the station house. It was nearly empty at this hour of the morning, save the night desk manager reading a paperback novel, and Inspector Angel at his desk, reading a file and rolling his neck leisurely. I could hear it cracking from the doorway, and I cleared my throat to alert him to my presence.
"Constable Fraser, good morning," he said. "And Detective Kowalski is ...?"
"Still sleeping," I replied.
"As is Danny, I'm sure. Cup of tea?"
"Please," I said.
"I must admit," Inspector Angel said to me, as we sat drinking our tea, "I ran both your name and your partner's name through our databases this morning, in curiosity. I had no idea that you were the Benton Fraser involved with the Muldoon capture; your work is legendary amongst the officers at the Metropolitan Headquarters in London. We all followed that case avidly as the capture occurred and the trial progressed."
"Ah, thank you," I said. I am unused to praise from fellow officers; many of my coworkers while I remained in Canada were unsettled by my career success, which was not the least reason why I was instructed to remain in Chicago after pursuing my father's killers.
"Your record is certainly ... unusual," Inspector Angel said.
"Ray is rather virulently anti-paperwork," I said. "We have solved more routine cases."
"You've been together a long time?" Angel said.
"Years," I said. "Some time in Chicago, some time in the Northwest Territories following the Muldoon incident."
"I wouldn't call it an incident! A masterpiece, perhaps, but not a simple incident."
"Ah, well," I replied.
"Is it true that you and Detective Kowalski entered Canada on the wings of a plane before leaping from the plane into unpopulated snow fields?"
"Yes," I said. "I wrote the reports on Muldoon's capture, so the facts are entirely accurate. Canadian paperwork is never something for which Ray managed to acquire a knack. Though he doesn't have a knack for American paperwork it seems, either -- the longer he serves on the force, the more recalcitrant he is over paperwork. And the more his paperwork becomes more of an abstract work of art unrelated to the case."
"I've lost the hand for it myself," Angel said. "I tried to do all the paperwork for the cases we brought in to the station here, and after six months, it appeared that simply tucking a note into a file was more appropriate to the situation than the complete paperwork."
"Changing your outlook on police work is difficult to do," I said.
Angel laughed. "You're telling me. Chicago, I still believe, must be an absolute shock."
"I've learned to adjust," I said. I have. Ray and Ray have both helped. And I find Chicago charming in its own ways, now that I know where to look for the things that I want out of life, like open spaces and excellent Chinese food.
"I miss the paperwork sometimes," he said, leaning confidentially across his desk. "It's easier on the day-to-day routine, but there's something about filling out forms in triplicate with a ballpoint pen that's comforting."
"I know exactly what you mean," I said, and when Inspector Angel smiled broadly at me, I understood, absolutely, that I had found a kindred soul. "Even the switch from the paperwork of the Canadian service to the American service was a shock to my system; more so than the culture in Chicago."
Angel smiled again, the corners of his eyes crinkling with pleasure, and stuck his hand out to shake mine. "Brother," he said.
"Indeed," I said, shaking his hand.
He finished his tea in a single gulp and said, "I've found several leads we can check out. If you'd like to join me. I suspect we won't see Danny until the latter half of the morning, if then."
"I suspect Ray is in similar shape," I said.
"Partners," Inspector Angel said, in a way that suggested he meant more than he was saying. I understood that relationship, as well. A partner you can trust beyond simply watching your back -- a luxury not often found in the law enforcement arena, and I was lucky enough to have had two, even if one was currently hungover and not of any use to the investigation of the theft of his own passport.
I simply finished my tea, stood and donned my hat, and waited for Inspector Angel to secure his own hat before departing. "Would you like a vest?" he asked me.
"Is Sandford that dangerous?"
"Well, not really," he said. "But it's been said that everyone is packing, including farmers and their mums. In case." He paused. "It's also helpful if the swan tries to bite you."
Inspector Angel's leads chased up nothing; not a single head of brightly colored unnatural hair was to be found in the village of Sandford and its environs. We spent half an hour recording traffic speeds on the road out of town, and aside from the chicken truck passing us by, not a single vehicle passed, either.
Sandford was a lovely vacation. We even got in a bit of a run, after spying the swan munching contentedly on what Inspector Angel reported to be Danny's cousin's ex-wife's new husband's garden, though we lost the swan in a pit of mud and unfortunately trampled many of Danny's cousin's ex-wife's new husband's marigolds.
Danny's cousin lived across the street, and gave Inspector Angel a friendly wave as we extracted ourselves from the marigolds. Danny's cousin's ex-wife glowered at us from the window, until Inspector Angel sketched off a jaunty salute and mimed a swan's wings, and then she smiled at us as well.
"The swan's the biggest problem we have," he said, brushing dirt from his knees. "Gets out twice a month, runs faster than everyone at the station house. Plus, it swims, and no one besides myself and Detective Wainwright enjoys wading into the ponds round here without proper swimming trunks."
"At least you don't need to read the swan its rights," I offered.
Angel laughed. "Back to the station with us, I suppose. The rest should be in by now, and perhaps someone saw one of the gang on their way in."
Upon return to the station, I found Ray sitting at Sergeant Butterman's desk, feet propped up, cigarette in his mouth, cards in hand. He was surrounded by bags from a local shop, by Sergeant Butterman, and by two mustached men in street clothes, also holding cigarettes and cards. "Frase!" Ray said. "Come meet the Andys."
"The Andes?" I said.
"DS Andy Wainwright," Inspector Angel said. "DC Andy Cartwright."
"Ah, Andys," I said. "Shopping, Ray?"
"I got to have clean boxers, Frase," he said. "Also, cigarettes here, big letters telling you not to smoke. Kind of just makes me want to smoke more."
DS Wainwright said, "That's what me'n'Andy always say. Don't tell us to do something, tell us not to do something. Call. Full house."
"Goddamn," Ray said, tossing down his cards and crushing out his cigarette. For all that Ray is finding that as he grows older, the depressing, relentless parts of police work are far less satisfying, he is never less than at home in police stations. I hadn't considered making a tour of England's station houses as a vacation subject, but perhaps we should have -- I am always interested in new techniques and the working methods of other officers, and Ray enjoys playing cards, smoking cigarettes, and making terrible jokes.
"Find the swan?" Sergeant Butterman asked.
"Yes," Inspector Angel said, perching on a desk and looking down at the round DC Cartwright had just dealt to Butterman. "But it destroyed Gerald's ex-wife's husband's garden, and Constable Fraser and I got considerably muddy."
"Find Terrence?" Butterman asked.
"No," Angel said. "Danny, you know Andy and Andy are just going to take your money."
"I'm getting better, I swear it," Butterman said. "Can't learn if I don't play."
"There's regulations about gambling in the station house," Angel said, but his voice was fond, and when the Andys smirked at him, he simply smirked back. He then said, "Everybody up. Out on the streets, looking for any of the kids wearing funny colored hair. Terrence Garson is stealing passports, and I'm done putting up with it."
"Wondered why we'd gotten a Yank in the station house," DS Wainwright said.
"Thought it was some kind of exchange program," DC Cartwright said.
"Wondered why you didn't ship Danny off, though," DS Wainwright said, dropping his chair to the ground with a thump and picking up a packet of cigarettes from a nearby desk.
"Oi," Sergeant Butterman said, chucking a handful of cards toward DS Wainwright.
"Constable Fraser, if you'd accompany Sergeant Butterman down to the pub," Inspector Angel said. "Detective Kowalski can join me in visiting shop owners, and Detectives, if you'd canvas the local woodpiles, garden sheds and back alleys, I would appreciate it immensely."
"Appreciate it as in give us raises?" DC Cartwright said.
"Appreciate it as in not write up paperwork for your ongoing poker game," Inspector Angel said. He winked, not at all surreptitiously, in my direction. "Paperwork's good for some things in Sandford," he said. "Just not the usual things."
"Sopping up tea spills," DC Cartwright offered.
"Keeping score in games of gin," PC Thatcher called from the kitchen.
"Drawing cartoons," Sergeant Butterman said.
Ray was smiling broadly, glad to meet his own kindred souls, officers who shared his distaste for paperwork even across the Atlantic Ocean. I felt even more connection with Inspector Angel at that moment, for all he was smiling fondly at his officers; no man with a desk as neat as his station house desk was is pleased to give up paperwork. But I also sensed that it was a long-running joke in this village, and I could appreciate that even more than I appreciated a well-done, thorough stack of paperwork.
"You've all well demonstrated that you can do great things with your paperwork," Inspector Angel said.
"Paper airplanes," Sergeant Butterman said.
"Point taken," Inspector Angel said. "Is everyone clear on where they should be this afternoon?"
"Yes, Chief," Butterman, Cartwright and Wainwright chorused. Ray flipped his sunglasses down over his glasses, his universal signal for, as he said, "Let's roll." I put my hat on.
Sergeant Butterman chattered animatedly as we walked the half-mile from the station house to the pub. He expressed admirable curiosity and a quick mind, though he also seemed to have gathered most of his data on law enforcement in Canada from a film about Dudley Do-Right. I made a mental note to pass on several informational pamphlets to Inspector Angel, were Ray and I ever to get back to London and our luggage.
The pub was empty, save an older officer with a K-9 companion. "PC Bob Walker," Sergeant Butterman said. "And Saxon."
"Nice to meet you," I said, tipping my hat.
PC Walker mumbled and squinted, and Sergeant Butterman assured me he was being friendly. "Said lovely to meet you, too," Sergeant Butterman translated. "Also likes your hat."
"Thank you, sir," I said to PC Walker, who mumbled another sentence and flapped a hand at us.
"Coming to work today, Bob?" Sergeant Butterman said, and got an apparently assenting mumble in return.
When questioned, the young man, Steven, behind the bar at the pub said he hadn't seen a single young man with odd colored hair in several weeks, which was odd, "because didn't Little Jim have his 20th birthday this week, Danny?"
"Aye, he did," Sergeant Butterman said, scratching his head. "They weren't in at all?"
"Seen neither hide nor hair of any of the Hoodies this week," Steven said. "Thought it had been quiet. Thought the floor'd been less sticky."
"No spilt pints will do that for you," Sergeant Butterman agreed. He frowned and tilted his head in my direction. "The Hoodies are in here every night," he said. "Or, they were. Something's going on."
"I would suspect so," I replied. "Why are they called the Hoodies?"
"They all wear jumpers with, y'know, hoods," Sergeant Butterman said, gesturing above his head with his hands. "So y'can't see who they are, 'cept they helped Nick out when the Neighborhood Watch went all crazy. After that, that's when they all dyed their hair."
I tried to make sense of multi-colored, passport-stealing teenage hooligans who had assisted an officer of the law and failed. "They're delinquents with hearts of gold?"
"Something like," Sergeant Butterman said. "And if they haven't been here, they're hidin' out."
"We should report this to Inspector Angel," I said.
"Good idea," Sergeant Butterman agreed. "You're like Nick, always thinking ahead to the next step. Bet your partner's a lucky guy."
"Ray and I have had a profitable partnership," I said.
"Yeah, he was telling me 'bout some of the things you guys have done," Butterman said. "Neat stuff, with the trip on the sled with the dogs and all."
"Everyone should have at least one great adventure," I said, and I truly believe that.
"Did you find the hand?"
"Franklin's hand? No, but sometimes the journey is worth more than the end point," I said.
"You're just like Nick," Sergeant Butterman said, and it was certainly a compliment in his voice, which pleased me.
*
On to Part 2.