Eutopia (First version)

Chapter 23

When Paul Rose got to the office later that next morning it was to find that, annoyingly, Joffa had beaten him to it. The brown haired infuriating likable constable was already ensconced at Rose’s desk perusing a hand-written note as he munched on something that looked suspiciously like a bacon and egg McMuffin.

‘Mornin’, Sarge,’ the younger man grinned without looking up.

‘Bit early for junk food isn’t it?’ Rose asked gruffly.

‘It’s almost eleven, what’s your excuse?’

Sergeant Rose twitched his moustache and grunted into the lukewarm tea Joffa handed him in a Styrofoam cup bearing a picture of the golden arches that he’d so thoughtfully picked up.

‘Hadda take cat to vets.’

‘Sorry, Sarge, didn’t catch that?’ Joffa grinned, one hand cupping his ear as though straining to hear.

‘I said none of your goddamn business,’ Rose said, a little louder before jerking his wobbly chin, greyed with bristle, at the post-it note Joffa had been reading. ‘What’s that?’

‘DI Mason wants to see us as soon as,’ Joffa said, licking a drip of brown sauce from his fingers and passing the note to Rose.

‘Right,’ Rose straightened the plain navy polyester tie he’d dug out of the pile of washed clothes he hadn’t gotten around to put away the week before. As a result of being crushed by the mountain of his un-ironed shirts in the laundry basket the tie bore subtle evidence in the form of little creases. He took another gulp of the lukewarm tea before putting the cup down on the table and motioned Joffa to follow him with a twitch of his fingers over one hulking shoulder.

DI Mason’s office was, as ever, neat and tidy. The large desk that took up most of the room in the few square feet allocated to him was devoid of any personal photographs or trinkets. Most of the rickety desks in the main office occupied by the CID officers were littered with various items, from the gallery of family portraits that charted the growth of DS Griffiths’ two year old son into the gawky fifteen-year old with greasy hair and bad skin that he was now, the ten little glass owls that DC Marden’s wife bought him, one each year to commemorate their wedding anniversary and their infamous honeymoon to the Owl Sanctuary in Suffolk, to the desk-sized Kylie Minogue calendar kept by DC Rose himself. It always struck him, the starkness of James Mason’s office. But the spread of paperwork and towering piles of beige files was enough to draw the untrained eye away from the lack of personalisation.

‘Mornin’, Guv,’ Rose said as he knocked on the partially open door and walked in without waiting for an answer.

‘Good morning, Sergeant Rose, Constable Jefferies. Have a seat,’ he motioned to the two hard-backed plastic chairs opposite him at the desk, which Rose might have tripped over with them being so close to the door but he was too used to the Mets layout and lack of space to be so clumsy. Joffa, on the other hand, had a little bit of trouble in easing his long legs into the small room with good grace. Once the young Constable was safely sat and out of the danger of falling flat on his face, Mason slipped a particular folder out from amongst the pile of identical colourless ones and handed it to Rose.