Irene Carter and Edward Dawson, not exactly the double act I'd hoped to have when I became a reporter but a beneficial one all the same, we worked cases, well she worked cases and I scribbled in my notebooks and took photos. She solved almost everything; sometimes helping Scotland Yard, sometimes letting them figure it out for themselves. My wages had gone up with my new wealth of information as had my access to locations, being on site properly was a strange feeling, even if we only communicated by glances most of the time in person. Of course I wasn't always there, with my new found wage came another luxury, days off. To be more specific, it now allowed me to go out to clubs in the evening and stagger home at 4 in the morning bumping into my doorframe more times than I cared to count and passing out into my bed.
Brisk mornings, bad headaches, and burned toast, adding that to my constant slight smell of nicotine and I could almost understand why Carter wanted nought to do with me in public. I ran a cloth over my face and rubbed my eyes looking in the glass to see I had smeared more dust on my face with my fingers, or the cloth, when was the last time I'd washed that thing? It was too early, my head was banging from the night before and I was definitely not going to bother finding out where she was off to today, I flicked open a paper seeing my name on the second page, not bad for a recent amateur, I had a small stack now of my most popular articles. I also had something few reporters had, I had the publics trust, they believed what I printed and bar a few slight exaggerations and the so far eliminations of Carter in my work they had a right to. No story is more interesting than the truth because the truth, although it may seem boring at first, is always far deeper and more complex than any lie a mortal man could construct.
Midway through scanning my article, circling the places I could have phrased better, wincing at my own writing in points, a sharp knock echoed through the apartment. I looked at the door really hoping it would go away, they could leave the post outside, or the milk, or my landlord could give me 5 more minutes- the knock came again. I cursed under my breath, well not so under it actually, and went to the door. Carter stood there, regular disguise on, hand raised to knock again.
"May I come in?"
"I suppose?" I opened the door standing back to let her in, suddenly conscious of the state of the tiny room and the smell. "Uh- let me open a window- no that'll make it worse" I shrugged a little trying to laugh it off. "I uh, burned my breakfast."
"Breakfast? At 11?" the note of judgement was clear.
"I slept in, had a late night."
"Obviously."
"How did you even find me, who gave you my address?" I was caught up on the situation but still confused.
"I'm, I'm a detective…" there was an expression I hadn't seen on her face in the month of working with her.
"Was that a smile?" I said it out loud, crap.
The smile lines immediately dropped from her face and went back to her regular neutral to disapproving frown she had for me.
"I've got a case." For the life of me I couldn't see how that had anything to do with her coming to my apartment.
"Alright? Like normal? I don't see what you're getting at." Were all detectives this cryptic or was it a woman thing? Maybe it was both, I hadn't had much success talking to either.
"No Dawson, it's my case." This caught my attention, she almost seemed elated. Certainly the most obvious display of a positive emotion I'd seen from her. "Scotland Yard said no one else wanted it and asked if I wanted it."
"Oh great what is it, window broken? Bread been burned? Oh maybe one of the constables lost his shoes." My tone dripped sarcasm and I was barely listening, if not a single detective in the Yard wanted this case it must be the most boring thing in several decades.
"It's a murder," her eyes were wide, she was excited and keener than I'd ever seen her, and it was almost infectious. Plus, a murder, now this was interesting and odd. I couldn't help feeling the Yard was playing her, why would no one want a murder, unless of course they thought it was unsolvable. Even then though, they would have someone else down there, this seemed awful strange even for their backwards brains.
"A murder huh?" I tried to share her enthusiasm out right, it was nice to talk like this, less of the bargaining more almost as a team. I mentally beat myself over the head at that thought, we weren't a team, I still had those photos, she was working for me in that sense. Still, I felt the odd need to check how worthwhile this investment was going to be of our time.
"I'm going back to the Yard to get the files, I thought you might want to come, to report it all." I was even more surprised now but pleased to see she was finally getting me inside the Yard, all this was working well for my career and that's what mattered.
"I'll get my coat."
We headed up the bank of the Thames towards the gates my feeling of unease was settling in my stomach, we walked in silence still as usual but now side my side as opposed to me several paces behind. The wind was kicking up grime into my glasses and it was getting irritating, I kept my camera carefully capped tenderly wrapped in a pocket of my jacket to protect it and picked up my pace. Why were her legs so long? The Yard was almost deserted, most of the coppers out on patrol or simply not choosing to be in the court yard in this weather. Carter knocked sharply on the door and tilted the brim of her cap over her face.
"Try and keep your mouth shut and your hands to yourself Dawson." I opened my mouth to protest but the door was already opening, she didn't get to tell me what to do, or how to do my job. The lowered voices of my companion and the officer at the door drifted back to me and knocked me to attention as we were invited in. Carter wasn't visibly nervous but I could almost feel it coming off her like radio waves, staticky. More anticipation then anything else, she was finally being given an offer and an official job no matter how off book, and yet it still seemed odd to me. While my brain was processing I felt a hand tug on my arm and Carter towed me inside
It was an uncomfortable situation for me, I didn't usually feel out of place – even in the places I wasn't meant to be – but for some reason now it was like I was a kid in trouble all over again. I was half expecting them to slap a pair of cuffs on me at any second for evidence theft. Don't get me wrong, Irene has this air about her where she always seems to be in the right, you'd think that would be comforting but it's not, that's supposed to be my thing. She was talking to people and I was in general ignoring everyone around me, Irene was talking to an officer about something, it was all washing over me. After all this wasn't an investment I had to be concerned about it was her issue not mine. That being said the slight anxious feeling of this being a set up lingered at the back of my mind. I squashed it. If she was embarrassed, I didn't have to be there, there was no record of me being involved at all. Her exposed took away my blackmail leverage but then again, her exposed meant I wouldn't be able to use those photos anyway. She turned back towards me from several paces in front and held up a file that was honestly no bigger than one sheet of paper. The sheet probably said fuck you, it didn't improve my mood.
"Anything useful in there?"
"I haven't checked" her mood was the vice of mine, she seemed thrilled, which was out of character.
"Maybe check before we leave?" I wasn't going to be woken up, deprived of my mornings lie in, and trek all the way across town for absolutely nothing; even if that was her idea of a good time.
She frowned at me but didn't argue with clearly proved how pleased she was with herself. I watched offhandedly as she flicked through the single sheet and some photographs, at least we had some evidence.
"Can we see the body?" her question caught me off guard.
"Can we WHAT?" Absolutely not. Not before breakfast; preferably not at all.
The officer was clearly taken aback too but he seemed to consider it.
"If that'll help you then go ahead."
"It will."
Where she'd got that idea from I have no idea, where she'd got the idea I wanted to see a corpse from I didn't know either. At least I could hover in the library maybe smoke a-
"Coming Dawson?" Her voice cut through my thoughts.
"Uh-" my reluctance clearly said it all because I saw that half smile again.
"You've got the camera. Unless you want to give it to me?"
I saw the play and internally cursed. "No, no, I'm coming, can't wait."
She was off in her own world as she walked down the corridor in front of me. She didn't belong here, and yet she did: long coat, shoes that clipped when she walked, an energy of almost hyper focus emanating off her. I trailed behind her in the sort of uncomfortable fashion that replicated how children walk behind their teachers on the way to the principles office – except my teacher was supposedly working for me – and my principle was dead? In very few situations that I arrive in do I pause and wonder how I got there, but I will admit while I followed her silently to the morgue I did take a moment to question my career path choices.
"Do you want a drink?"
The voice knocked into my subconscious uninvited.
"What?
"A drink, you look white as a sheet," I flicked up to see the officer accompanying us glancing at me. I was about to snap back with some poorly garnered defence until I realised how good a drink at this precise second would be.
"Uh- a whiskey would be good – if it's going." He nodded and turned away into a small side office and I heard the chinking of glass on glass while I dallied in the hall listening to the sound of Carter's feet get further away. The glass found its way into my very grateful hand and I gripped down on it hard enough to feel the cold flood through my fingers. My hand was sweating, it was embarrassing, I took a gulp. It wasn't that I couldn't handle death, death wasn't uncommon in anybody's life its just to purposefully go and poke at a dead body… I'd pushed a dead bird off my windowsill once, it was sort of squishy, and the feathers were far deeper than I'd initially thought. It squelched a bit when it hit the pavement but there was never any blood, for some reason it had disturbed me more than if it had splattered red everywhere. There's something about bodies when they've been dead for a while, they don't look like they were ever alive, you can't imagine them standing there having a conversation or lighting a cigarette, they look almost like wax. I'm afraid one day I'll look like that, blank and staring, like I never smiled or had a good laugh, another dummy.
I finished the glass, handed it back to the officer, and continued on my way down the hall and stairs to the morgue. They always keep these places freezing – I guess that makes sense – it is just a massive fridge. I grimaced and pulled my jacket around me making my way over to Carter who was standing staring down at the table with her eyes a little wider than I thought they were able to go.
"Dawson, get your camera."
"What?" I said that way too much around her – "I've got it right here," I pulled it out its case and wiped the lens. She didn't make a move to answer so I walked over to her nipping the dab of apprehension I felt in my throat in the bud – things don't look so bad on the other side of a camera.
They did look so bad. The guys jaw was contorted, his mouth open and his upper lip swollen like it had been punched. There was bruising all over his collarbones and neck and the veins in his neck were swollen like blue wires coursing under his skin standing out from his jaw and running right up to his mouth and down to the centre of his chest. I looked at Carter, she wasn't looking at me, I looked back at the corpse in an almost morose wonder and then snapped some photos. Apart from the obvious the rest of him looked unharmed, almost pristine in fact.
"Dawson," her voice cut me out of my musing.
"What"- was that really all I knew how to say?
"Have you ever seen anything like this before?"
"No," I mean who could have, I didn't even know where to go about starting to consider who could of done this or even how.
"Neither have I." I knew without looking at her that she was delighted.