James Locker- The Duality of Fate

by Martin Lundqvist

  - Adam and Thomas, on the other hand, saw Barry Itch as whiny fucker who was too whipped by his wife Wanda Itch also known as the Witch. They both felt that Barry Itch was making their lives difficult and his focus on promoting “values” instead of results had cost them both well-deserved promotions and pay raises. They were both stuck on their entry-level salary even though they had six and four years of work experience in their field. They hated his guts.

  Adam Smith swallowed his frustration over his mistake and also the anger he felt inside while thinking about Barry Itch and sighed

  Adam Smith:

  - Well, I guess I better go to his office and apologise before the fucker has had time to sharpen his knives. See you later.

  Adam Smith left the room, and Thomas Anderson who had a long-time crush on Samantha Robinson felt compelled to say something.

  Thomas Anderson

  - Hey, Samantha, just so that you know I don't share Adams values and I don't like the way he speaks about women in general

  Samantha Robinson

  - Why is that? You are after all his best friend, and you hang out with him all the time, you can't honestly think, that I believe you; when you claim that you don't share values.

  Thomas Anderson:

  - Well yes but there is more to me than that, please have dinner with me sometimes so I can show you my better sides.

  Samantha Robinson:

  - Well sadly Thomas this is the saddest attempt ever for two reasons:

  If you are doing this because you are afraid of me reporting you to HR, you are wasting your time and money. I have no intention whatsoever to report you in for any of that antidiscrimination bullshit. I have a full understanding that you are discussing your “conquests” with your friends, I do that as well, although in a classier setting than the CSMI HQ over the intercom.

  If you are doing it because you have a crush on me, you should not hit on me by pretending to be someone else. I like MEN and WOMEN, but I don't want an insecure boy who is afraid to be who he is and are lying to get into my pants. I am sick of women at the moment so if you can prove to be a MAN to me; you may take me out to dinner and maybe get lucky. Oh and I kind of like Adam so don't pretend to be different from him, if you are making a move in the future. Unlike Adam, you are also good looking.

  Thomas Anderson was left speechless by Samantha Robinson's speech. She studied him for a while and then shook her head and left the room. After a while, Thomas Anderson found his words.

  Thomas Anderson:

  - Oh my god, she is so hot, I think I am in love.

  Michael Fuller

  - Well Mate, don’t sweat yourself. Playtime is over, time to get back to work!

  1.4 Michael Fuller gets busted

  MICHAEL FULLER WAS working on the report for the Montecristo case. The whole concept of report writing bored him a lot. The police report before a murder trial could easily span over a total of 1500 pages, and in a lot of the cases, the report writing for the court took more time and resources than actually apprehending the perpetrator. Luckily for Michael Fuller, Barry Itch had implemented a procedure where ghostwriter wrote most of the police reports, which gave more time for Michael Fuller to do what he enjoyed doing and was good at, namely solving murder cases and apprehending criminals. Having said this, it still took a lot of effort to make a report since he had to review the works of the ghost-writers and come with necessary input to make the police report consistent with the actual case. Anyway Michael Fuller was happy that Barry Itch had implemented the system with ghost-writers as it at least gave him some more freedom.

  While reviewing the report, Michael Fuller started daydreaming about his coming holiday. In a few weeks, he would be on a plane to The British Isles where he would attend the “Castles and Whiskeys” tour. The tour consisted of three weeks in Great Britain and Ireland, and during this time Michael would stay at 14 different castles and enjoy the local's specialties when it came to whiskey. It would be truly remarkable to see some of the places where they made his favourite brands, and he could not wait to taste them in their natural environments. The only thing that made him sad was the fact that he had to go on this tour alone. All of his friends were either busy with their families or in the cases where their children had reached adulthood; they usually had a wife who did not approve of them spending all of their annual leave going to Great Britain for a whiskey tour.

  When thinking about this, he felt sad that he was not close to his 21-year-old daughter Rebecca from a failed marriage. He had asked her if she wanted to join him at his expense, but she had responded that whiskeys and castles were not her things. The problem with this, of course, was not that she did not like whiskey, but rather the distance between them. She had accused him of being distant to her and focusing too much on his work during her childhood, an accusation he could agree on, but what to do about it now? "Oh well, she is graduating from police academy next year, so maybe she will understand by then," he thought to himself. He was interrupted in his daydreaming by a phone call from Barry Itch telling him to come by his office immediately “Oh well, no point in beating around the bush” he thought and headed over.

  Michael Fuller entered Barry Itch's impeccably clean and orderly office, which to Michael Fuller signalled that apart from being tedious and annoying Barry Itch also had a slight hint of OCD in his personality.

  Barry Itch

  - Welcome Michael, please have a seat

  Michael Fuller

  - Thank you, Barry. Is this about the intercom incident earlier today? Because I agree with you that Adams' behaviour earlier today was inappropriate.

  Barry Itch

  - Great to have your support on this Michael, although I find surprising that you agree with me and still as his superior did not interrupt him. Nevertheless, this incident will only affect Adam's career prospects, and it seems likely that he will not receive any pay rise this year either.

  - I surely hope he will enjoy unpaid participation in five days long Workplace Equality seminars held by my wife Wanda Itch on Saturdays.

  Barry Itch smiled grimly while Michael Fuller sat in silence.

  Barry Itch continued talking:

  - No the reason I called you over is the Lopez case, I hope you recall it?

  Michael Fuller

  - Yes, of course, it was only six weeks ago, and it got pretty massive media coverage. How would I forget, I am not THAT old! From an investigation point of view, it's dead though with the killer being dead and all. I am sure you remember that we handed it over to the Organized Crime department since the high command was of the opinion that there was nothing more we could do from our end.

  Barry Itch:

  - Yes, that case was a real disgrace for the entire police department with two airport police officers sent to the Intensive Care Unit with severe injuries and the hired gunman Angelo Ramirez shot at the airport. Sad for the city's reputation

  Michael Fuller:

  - I seriously don't follow you. We got a picture of the killer face from a hidden CCTV camera that Mauricio Lopez had that showed us the whole chain of events. Of course, we matched the description with our database of suspected hitmen. Anything else would be negligence of duty. Furthermore, once we identified him, we found out that he just had passed the passport checkpoint at the airport and we had to have the airport police arrest him as we could not get there in time ourselves, all done by the book.

  Barry Itch:

  - You are missing the serious point of this. The CCTV feed shows a suitcase on a desk at the time of the murder. We can see that Angelo Ramirez was not taking the bag while leaving. A bit after the killing, the CCTV feed ends, and in your report, there is no suitcase mentioned.

  Michael Fuller

  - Because there was none! I don’t know what happened in between the killing and the time we got there. And I have not put it to any thought as the case was handed over to the Organized Crime department.

  Barry Itch

  - Well here
is the problem. The Organized Crime department has been following up on this, and they got an anonymous tip about you being in possession of illegal drugs that you stole from the crime scene.

  Michael Fuller

  - That’s preposterous, why would I steal the drugs?

  Barry Itch

  - Because of the street value of at least $100,000. Look; we can do this in two ways. Either I contact the internal investigations, with you detained in a holding cell, meanwhile your entire life is turned upside down. Or you can just stay in my office, while two men from a private security company I am cooperating with to search your house. You see I don't want the reputation of this department sullied down by your supposedly criminal activities. If you do agree to have your home searched by the company Sydney True Blue Security Inc., please sign this indemnification form, and all their findings will be between you and me.

  Michael Fuller:

  - Well, I don't want my life turned upside down by internal investigation guys, Please let me sign the contract and here are my house keys.

  Barry Itch

  - Great. Just sit tight, and we'll search your house in no time.

  At 8 PM after three hours of tensioned waiting in Barry Itch’s office, two men in suits came in.

  Greg Bloom:

  - Sir, we found this bag containing 3.5 kilos of cocaine in Michael's basement. It's full of Michael's fingerprints and also some DNA which we believe is his. Furthermore, we have taken pictures of where we found it. How do we proceed?

  Barry Itch:

  - That's a great question. Michael, how do we proceed?

  Michael Fuller got pale from fear and shock

  - You set me up, that is not my cocaine I have never seen it before!

  Barry Itch:

  - Well, that's your version of course. But facts remain the bag disappeared from YOUR crime scene, It was found in YOUR house, and it's full of YOUR fingerprints. But rest assured, I have no interest in ruining the reputation of this department, and it's most famous co-worker, so here is the deal. I overlook this event, and in return, you sign your immediate resignation stating health reasons. That way you can live a retiree's life while the reputation of this department stands firm. Do you agree?

  Michael Fuller realised that he somehow had been set up. But by whom, why would Barry Itch set him up? He quickly decided that he did not want to take his chances with a long-term prison term at stake to keep his job.

  Michael Fuller:

  - I accept and sign my resignation immediately, how do we proceed?

  Barry Itch:

  - Well, you hand over your gun and police ID. Furthermore, you go to my toilet, open the bag and flush down the cocaine; I want nothing to do with it!

  Michael Fuller did as instructed.

  Barry Itch shook his hand and said:

  - Sorry things ended this way; you were the best we have ever had. Not turning you in, was the least I could do for you. I hope you find something positive to do with your life.

  Michael Fuller said nothing and left the station.

  1.5 James Locker has a twisted dream.

  JAMES LOCKER WOKE UP in the middle of the night. The nightstand clock showed 3.00 am. How long had he been asleep? From what he remembered he came home around 6 pm and crashed instantaneously. It felt like he had been asleep for an eternity and that the sleep had been deep and dreamed free until the last five minutes before he woke up. He had dreamt about her for the first time in over a month. Emily Luong had looked so different in this dream compared to what she did, in the dreams he had before he went to Asia. In those old dreams, she always looked beautiful like a paradise long gone, in this dream; however, the essential features were the same, but the magic was gone, and the loving smile had twisted into an empty shell. Was that somehow fear he had seen in her blank gaze or was it something else, was it the gaze of a person that was dead inside or even physically dead? He had to get the picture out of his head somehow.

  He sat up on the bed. Even though it was an August night and his room was pretty cold he was sweating enormously. His hands were shaking pretty roughly, and his vision was blurred. He had seen these symptoms in a lot of people the symptoms of alcohol withdrawal. "Well I guess that's what a month of heavy drinking do to you," he thought. He did not intend to end up as an alcoholic though so he would just have to live with the physical symptoms until they disappeared.

  He thought about what his friends had said about getting rid of the memory of a loved one by hooking up with random women. In this case, it seemed this process had not removed the memory but rather twisted it to a worse one. He considered the option of what was the worst:

  Have a very positive memory that nothing in your everyday life can compare with so your daily life becomes dull and pointless

  Have a very negative memory that comes back and haunt you in your nightmares.

  “Oh well they are both curses” was his conclusion. Now all he needed was to stabilise his emotional life and get rid of his anxiety. He took one of the antidepressants for the first time in six weeks, and he soon fell asleep to a dreamless unemotional sleep.

  1.6 James Locker gets promoted

  BARRY ITCH WAS CONTEMPLATING his options on how to proceed. Since Michael Fuller resigned, the team needed a new detective. Looking at the length of service and chain of command the natural officer to promote would be John Dean, who had always been close to Michael Fuller and had a lot of experience since he had been serving in the team for 15 years. But Barry Itch had some objections to this natural order of promotion. First of all, he did not want to promote John Dean since he considered it likely that John Dean had been an accomplice or at least known something about the cocaine scandal involving Michael Fuller. Secondly, he did not feel that John Dean was a natural leader at all. It's one thing being the right-hand man of a genius who solves most of the cases singlehandedly and an entirely different thing being the one in charge presuming responsibility. Third and finally he had never liked John Dean on a personal level.

  Another option would be to promote someone from another team to lead this team. Barry did not enjoy this idea either as there had been no-one who had stood out positively in the other groups. In the best of worlds, he would get an outstanding detective to transfer from another metropolitan area, Brisbane had a few good ones, for instance, so the CSMI got in some new blood and some fresh ideas. This plan would take some time, however.

  Barry Itch looked at James Locker's file. James Locker had had an unusual and bizarre development. On the one hand, James Locker had suffered from severe depression for several months medicated with heavy antidepressants. On the contrary and this was the great contradiction during this period James Locker had had an outstanding track record, outperforming even Michael Fuller. Barry Itch finally found the solution: He would offer James Locker a three-month amendment to his contract where he was serving as a provisional detective for the team. If he turned out to be a great detective, he could always be offered the position permanently afterwards and if not, well then the official version would be that James Locker was only intended for the temporary position and it was always Barry Itch's intent to get the replacement from another metropolitan area.

  Barry Itch called James Locker to come over to his office, and a few minutes later James Locker entered the office

  James Locker:

  - Good day sir. What gives me this great pleasure?

  Barry Itch:

  - It's about Michael; he suffered from some severe liver problems yesterday, and will probably be away for at least six months, provided that he makes it. I told him that the most sensible thing to do would be to resign considering his age which makes him applicable for sick leave pension if we look at his liver condition as a work-related issue.

  James Locker:

  - Oh my god, this is a tremendous loss for this team, Michael is the best detective Sydney has ever seen.

  Barry Itch:

  - Yes and that’s why I called you here, but first I nee
d to know. How is your depression going?

  James Locker:

  - Oh, it has improved a lot, most of the nights I make it through without my antidepressants and I have not experienced any daytime issues for over two months, and that's why I am cutting down.

  Barry Itch:

  - That‘s great to hear. Well, I have some good news for you. I have reviewed all the police inspectors at the CSMI, and you are the one with the best results over the last six months. You even superseded Michael Fuller in performance which is outstanding

  James Locker:

  - I am delighted to hear you say that sir.

  Barry Itch:

  - As am I to see such advancements among my subordinates. And that's why I called you over. You know, I plan to hire an outstanding detective from another metropolitan area to take command of the team. But since it will take time to find and recruit the right candidate the team will need a provisional detective for three months, and that's where you come into the picture. Would you be interested in this opportunity

  James Locker:

  - Well, sir. I must say this came much unexpected and I have not considered the option until now. But of course, it's a fascinating opportunity. Since one does not make progress by rejecting it, I will accept your offer.