The Artisans

by J G Alva

“And of course, rule number three: try to tell the truth. This is not always easy to do. I know, I understand, how difficult this must be for you; after all, you’ve had a lifetime of hiding who you truly are from people, and you can’t expect to shed that in one meeting, or two, or ten. And nobody expects you to. But” – and here Mac raised his finger – “you’ll only get out of the group what you put into it. If you lie – which I’m sure you’ll feel you have to do from time to time – or omit certain things – which I’m sure you’ll also feel compelled to do – just remember, you’re only cheating yourself. Understood?”

  Heads nodded.

  “Good. Now. Who would like to begin tonight’s meeting?”

  Mac looked at them each in turn, his expression expectant.

  “I will,” Anna said, rising from her chair.

  “Anna. Good.”

  Mac sat down.

  Anna looked at all of their faces before saying, “hi, my name is Anna, and I’m a serial killer.”

  ◆◆◆

  CHAPTER 2

  “Can I help you?” The workman asked. He was dutifully feeding a skip broken boards and torn plastic sheeting.

  Benjamin Lewis stood with his head craned back to admire the building. In one hand he held a Bean Tostada, in the other his transfer request.

  “What is this place?” He asked.

  The workman shrugged.

  “Just a building.”

  The address to which he had been directed was an office block just off Temple Way, a grey modern structure with a lot of glass; a smart looking building, if a little impersonal.

  The workman’s face wrinkled in disgust. He pointed to the Tostada in Ben’s right hand.

  “You like that shit?” He asked.

  Ben made a face.

  “Not really. My wife makes me eat them.”

  The workman nodded as if he knew all about that.

  “Is it safe to go in there?” Ben asked. He indicated the building, and then the safety gear the workman was wearing.

  The workman checked him over. Ben was wearing a grey suit with a pink and white striped tie, a white shirt, polished shoes.

  “Depends. Do you value your head?”

  Ben smiled.

  “It’s not my favourite organ.”

  The workman stared at him in surprise, and then laughed.

  “Then go right ahead. But be careful. We’re not quite done yet.”

  ◆◆◆

  The building’s main lobby was grey and brown, with a potted plant that looked plastic in one corner, and an indistinguishable plaster of Paris sculpture in the other. Workmen had trampled dust throughout the length of it. There was no receptionist, only a large board on the wall with a list of companies, and the floor on which they resided. Fourth Floor was Wessex Water, which was odd.

  Even before Ben exited the lift, the ruckus and cacophony of the remodelling reached him. When the doors opened, the unfiltered sound was a barrage to the senses.

  “Jesus Christ,” he said, and could only just hear himself.

  Behind a large glass wall, the ghost of the open plan office lay somewhere beneath workbenches, power tools, and large sheets of murky polythene hanging from the tiled ceiling. About a dozen men milled busily inside this glass cage, chopping and cutting and hammering. Somebody was welding something in the back of the room; Ben could see a murky constellation of sparks through the polythene.

  At that moment, Helen Bekstone crossed the hall in front of him, and Ben went after her.

  The corridor went left. Helen was already at the end of it, but he managed to catch her just before she went through a door on her right.

  “Helen?”

  She turned, looking up from a folder in her hands. A smile broke out on her troubled face when she recognised him.

  “Ben. You made it.”

  “Made it where? What is-“

  “Now, I’ve bought some cakes in,” she said, talking over him, “you know, if you fancy them, just some fairy cakes and a few other assorted delights, just as a sort of welcome thing, I was up last night and I thought, you know, we need something to really welcome everyone-“

  “Helen, I can’t. The wife’s got me on a strict diet. You know how she is.”

  Helen looked crestfallen in that moment.

  “Well,” Ben said, relenting. “Maybe one then. She won’t mind if I have one. Not if they’re homemade.”

  Helen visibly brightened. God save me, Ben thought.

  “Helen, can you tell me what’s going on? What is this place? I got a transfer request this morning” – he held up the sheet of paper in his hand – “and I’ve been asking everyone I know what it’s all about, but no one seems to know a thing.”

  “Come with me,” she said, patting him on the arm reassuringly. “We’ll get you sorted.”

  ◆◆◆

  “Detective Chief Inspector? Detective Inspector Benjamin Lewis has arrived.”

  Helen stepped out of the way, ushered Ben inside, smiled, and then promptly took herself off to efficiently organise something else.

  This office was, at that present moment, at its minimal functional bareness: of two windows, only one had blinds attached to it; filing cabinets were pushed haphazardly into one corner; framed certificates and photographs were on the floor, leaning against the walls, waiting to be hung; an empty bookcase stood behind and to one side of the main desk, boxes of what Ben presumed must be books piled at its base.

  The desk was a cheap grey imitation wood, like something from Ikea, but it was big, and as such the man behind it seemed small in comparison, perhaps smaller than he really was. A bird-like man, he was short, thin, with thinning white hair slicked back on his head. He was perhaps in his mid-fifties, with a lined face, but there was an energy about him…a bird-like energy, Ben thought with amusement. At that moment, the Detective Chief Inspector was looking through half-moon glasses at an open file folder on his desk, hands planted on either side of it, as if he might bend to head butt it at any moment.

  The head came up a little bit, and the eyes, blue and a little murky with age, peered over the tops of the glasses at him.

  Ben felt himself being appraised in that brief moment before the DCI began speaking.

  “Do you know who I am, DI Lewis?”

  “No, sir.”

  “My name is Alan Brown. Detective Chief Inspector Alan Brown.”

  “Nice to meet you, sir.”

  Alan Brown stared at him.

  “Can I see your transfer request?”

  DCI Brown held out his hand, and Ben passed it to him.

  While reading the request, DCI Brown said, “do you know why you are here, DI Lewis?”

  “No, sir. I’m not even sure where ‘here’ is, sir.”

  DCI Brown looked up at him over his glasses; staring, not speaking.

  “You’re tall. I seemed to have missed that in your file. How tall are you, DI Lewis?”

  “Six four, sir.”

  “Alright. You can dispense with the sir. This isn’t the army.” DCI Brown paused. “I’d offer you a seat, if only to save my neck, but as you can see we’re still in the process of setting up here, so you’ll have to stand, and my neck will have to suffer.”

  DCI Brown sighed, dropped the transfer request on his desk, took off his glasses.

  “You see, the problem is, this is all a little rushed,” he said, in a tone of mild disapproval. “This wasn’t planned to happen for another three months, by which time this place would have been ready. But unfortunately, recent events have exacerbated things.”

  DCI Brown cleared his throat.

  “I’m going to explain all this to you, but I’m not going to do it twice. I’ve been assured by the workmen that the Briefing Room will be free in approximately thirty minutes. I want you to go down and fetch DC Sarah Goodchild and bring her back up here so we can get started.”

  “DC Goodchild?”

  “You know her?”

  “Yes, sir. Sorry, I mean –
yes. I know her.”

  “As of today, she’s your new partner.”

  Ben frowned.

  “DC Goodchild?” Ben repeated, not sure if he had understood DCI Brown correctly.

  “Yes. Do you have a problem with that?”

  Ben hesitated.

  “It depends on what I am being partnered with her for.”

  DCI Brown smiled with dry amusement.

  “A very diplomatic answer, DI Lewis. I heard you were good with people. I can see, from speaking to you, how that would be so. Although it is a useful talent, it is not the be all and end all of what is needed for a CID operative.” DCI Brown paused, pursed his lips. “I don’t want to start off on the wrong foot, so if you have concerns I am willing to hear them.”

  “What – now?”

  DCI Brown smiled thinly.

  “No time like the present.”

  Ben hesitated. How the hell did he get himself into these situations?

  DCI Brown smiled again, but with more warmth this time.

  “It’s alright, DI Lewis. I don’t advocate punishment for opinions, valid or otherwise. I encourage my officers to speak freely. It’s better all round, I find.”

  Ben hesitated, and then said, “alright. Since you asked. My only concern is with her inexperience, Detective Chief Inspector. As a fast tracker-“

  “I think the term you are looking for is High Potential Development, DI Lewis.”

  “Yes. Of course. As an officer in the HPD scheme, I feel that these individuals lack the…seasoning, which a more traditionally promoted officer attains through years of experience.”

  “She has gone through the two year Crime Investigations Development program.”

  “I know, Detective Chief Inspector. It’s not her intellect I doubt. It’s her experience – or lack of it – as a constable on the beat, that concerns me. There’s a reason we start at the bottom, Detective Chief Inspector.”

  “I agree with you,” DCI Brown said. “That’s partly why you’re here. You are a seasoned officer. You did come up the old fashioned way. She will be looking to you for guidance. I would hope that you will give it, freely.”

  “I will.”

  “Good.”

  “Also…”

  “Yes?”

  Ben hesitated again.

  “I’m concerned that her attainment of the title of Detective Constable, at such a young age, has been based less on her ability, and more on who she knows.”

  DCI Brown made a disapproving clucking noise. He sniffed, shuffled papers on his desk.

  “Or who knows her mother, you mean.”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll tell you this, DI Lewis,” he said, his voice low and slightly menacing. “Such a person would not be allowed in my division. She’s good. Will you take my word on that? I might even go so far as to say she has a gift. That’s why I have requested she work with us, here. Not because of undue influence.”

  Ben was sweating ever so slightly.

  “I trust your concerns have been appropriately addressed?” DCI Brown asked him.

  “For now, yes,” Ben said.

  Brown seemed amused at this.

  “Yes. For now. Very well. In that case, can you go down and fetch her? She’s in a café down the street. I think it’s a Starbucks.”

  “Café?”

  “That’s correct.”

  “Why is she in a café?”

  Brown blinked.

  “Because I sent her there. She arrived early, and I didn’t have anything for her to do. Besides, the sawdust was irritating her allergies.”

  “Allergies?”

  A sense of unreality touched Ben. This morning had a vague flavour of the absurd about it, like a Carry On film.

  “Is everything alright, DI Lewis?”

  DCI Brown was giving him that stare again.

  Ben nodded. Sure, everything was just fine. Just tickety-boo.

  “Then I’ll see you back here with your new partner in” – Brown looked at his watch – “twenty minutes.” He smiled. “Consider this your first assignment.”

  ◆◆◆

  Starbucks.

  Bustle. Noise. Screaming children.

  Just like home.

  Ben lingered in the doorway, ostensibly to let a sudden throng of people pushed passed him to the door, in truth to give him the chance to study DC Sarah Goodchild with fresh eyes…and without her aware of his inspection: she was oblivious to his arrival as she had her nose in a book.

  She sat in the corner. There was no way to be nice about it: she was a plain woman. Not ugly, but certainly no raving beauty. A wallflower, his father might have called her, and perhaps it was no coincidence she sat in a seat against the wall now. At only twenty six, she was young for a detective. Her hair was dark, thick, but short cut around the ears; a sensible haircut, like she might operate heavy machinery or chop up fish guts for a living. Her glasses were a decade out of date. Her body seemed in good proportion, but it was hard to see under a shapeless black cardigan and what appeared to be men’s slacks. Her face seemed to have a slightly haughty air to it; a fat bottom lip stuck out petulantly.

  Ben walked over and without preamble sat himself in the seat opposite her.

  She looked up from her book.

  There was a moment of awkward silence. Ben smiled widely.

  “Can I help you?” She asked. Her voice was deeper than he had expected.

  “I was thinking you might hinder me personally, but I could be wrong.”

  She dropped the book down further, narrowed her eyes.

  “You’re Detective Inspector Benjamin Lewis,” she said.

  “I am,” he confirmed. “And you are Detective Constable Sarah Goodchild.”

  “I am,” she too confirmed.

  He nodded at her book and asked, “what are you reading?”

  She flipped the book back so he could read the title: The Magus, by John Fowles.

  Ben nodded, completely adrift. He had never heard of the book, or the author.

  “Have you read it?” DC Goodchild asked, and there was an amused arrogance in her tone. She knew he hadn’t.

  “Not unless it was recommended on Top Gear.”

  She nodded, less certain now. He thought she might not know what Top Gear was.

  “Let me read you some of it,” she said. “Listen to this: men love war because it allows them to look serious. Because they imagine it is the one thing that stops women laughing at them.” She looked at him. “Do you think women laugh at men, DI Lewis?” DC Goodchild asked, taking off her glasses.

  “In my experience, most definitely. Especially when I try and dance.”

  “You dance? You are full of surprises.”

  Ben narrowed his eyes.

  “What is it you think you know about me?”

  “It’s not what I think I know, it’s what I’ve inferred.”

  “And what have you inferred?”

  “Do you always ask so many questions of your new partners?” She challenged.

  “All part of being a detective, I’m afraid. And being a detective, I’ve observed your careful side step of my question.”

  DC Goodchild nodded. The amusement left her eyes then.

  “My inferences,” she confirmed.

  “Indeed.”

  He waited. She looked suddenly awkward.

  “It’s not from personal observation,” she said, as if regretting this turn of the conversation.

  Ben looked around as he said, “I know what your inferences are. Now let me give you mine: if this conversation was an attempt to impress me with your wit and education, then it’s not a very good attempt. Personally, I think it would be better if you kept the fact that you are an inexperienced university graduate to yourself. Surely, to highlight that which you so sadly lack – namely, experience of law enforcement – must only emphasis your disadvantages. Which is not smart at all.” He paused before adding, “and starting off on the wrong foot with a superior officer cannot do
you any good either.”

  DC Goodchild turned her head away awkwardly.

  Thinking that he might have been a little overzealous on the offensive, he said, “listen. I’m old and I’m cranky. And I don’t especially like surprises.”

  DC Goodchild sneezed into her handkerchief suddenly.

  “Are you ill?” Ben asked.

  She shook her head, wiping her nose.

  “No. I’m allergic to testosterone.”

  Ben stared at her.

  “I thought it was sawdust.”

  She gave him a grim smile.

  “I’m allergic to a lot of things.”

  “Not hard work, I hope?”

  She shook her head, wiped her nose again, tucked the handkerchief away.

  “Look,” she said, and hesitated, cleaning her throat as well. She made an effort to meet his eyes. “I don’t like surprises either.”

  He waited.

  She didn’t continue; it seemed as if she did not know how to continue. An apology, of sorts, that had not left the starting gate…and perhaps all the apology he was going to get.

  “Alright,” he said for her. “So we’re both a little off balance.”

  “I’m also well aware that I am…inexperienced. But I’m willing and eager to learn.”

  “So are you saying that, if we dance, you’ll let me lead?”

  She smiled slightly and inclined her head in the affirmative.

  “Yes,” she said. “I will follow your lead. Even if, by your own intimation, you’ve confessed that you are not a good dancer.”

  Ben wanted to sigh but didn’t. He felt like a man about to scale a mountain…or perform some other thankless task.

  He indicated her coffee cup.

  “Are you finished? We have a meeting in about ten minutes.”

  “The room’s ready?”

  He nodded.

  She gulped the last of the coffee and stood up, as did he.

  She held the cup aloft, shook it in front of him.

  “A Soy Chai Tea Latte,” she said. “I’d recommend it.”

  “Soy milk?” He said, as she dropped the cup in a nearby bin.

  “I’m intolerant to dairy,” she said seriously.

  “Of course you are,” he said, smiling brightly and following behind as she led the way out.

  ◆◆◆