Tales from the Triverse

Zealots: Part 2

Late shift
On duty: DC Yannick Clarke & DC Lola Styles

London.
1973. July.

The telephone kept ringing. No sooner has Robin hung up, another call would be put through. She barely had time to relay the information before having to tear off another page of notes. One of her particular skills had always been being able to listen to one conversation while writing about another.

"Specialist Dimensional Command, this is Robin speaking." She must have said it at least fifty times that afternoon. Every call was about the same thing, albeit from a different part of the city.

"Robin," came the immediately recognisable voice of DCS Walpole. "I won't keep you long. I'm guessing you're already swamped with calls about this?"

She sat up a little straighter, even though he obviously couldn't see her. When the boss called, you had to on top form. "Yes, sir, multiple reports about magical demonstrations, if that's what you mean."

"Damned right that's what I mean. Magic in London. Sounds ridiculous. The Commissioner is breathing down my neck about it, though, Robin. Pass that along to the team. Who's on shift?"

"Clarke and Styles have been on it since this morning," she said, glancing across the office, "and Kaminski and Chakraborty just got in for the late shift."

"Good. I'm up to my eyeballs in this horse shit this end. I'll keep the politicians off your backs, but I need this figured out pronto or we'll have a panic on the streets. Understood?"

"One hundred per cent, sir."

"Good girl. Keep me posted. DI Ford's on his way in." The line clicked.

She put the handle back on the receiver. It immediately started ringing again but she ignored it, instead standing up and clapping twice. "Alright, ladies and gentlemen, that was DCS Walpole. He's aware of the situation, he's getting some flak and needs us to figure out what's going on. DI Ford should be here shortly." She might only run the phones, keep the office working properly and make sure none of the detectives had a breakdown, but she knew how to get everyone's attention.

The door to DI Bakker's office opened. "Good," he said, "we could do with some extra hands. Collins, if you please, get on the phones with Robin. No, just for the next hour until we have a bit of breathing space. Clark, Styles, Kaminski, Chakraborty, I want all four of you on this. We need this case worked twenty-four hours until we know what's going on."

Clarke was standing with his hands on his hips, his shirt crumpled and his thinning hair looking as if he'd run his fingers through it a few times too many. "It's a hoax," he said. "Magic can't be done in Mid-Earth. Everyone knows that."

"Perhaps somebody has found a way," Bakker said, raising his eyebrows. That was quite a significant expression of emotion for him.

Kaminski raised a hand. "Could it be a portal tear?" A cigarette balanced precariously in the corner of his mouth as he spoke.

"Yeah, like the shape-shifter creep from last year," Chakraborty said. They were sat next to each other on a desk. It was cute. Robin approved. Something had healed between them during their time away, she thought. The tension between the two of them had been awful at the start of the year. Nobody told Robin anything, but she could guess what had happened.

"He had access to a single tear," Clarke said, shaking his head. "That was a one-off situation. It wouldn't help with what they're doing in multiple locations, at the same time."

"OK," Chakraborty said. "Maybe instead of trying to figure out how they're doing it, we should concentrate on who they are."

Robin loved watching the detectives at work.