Chapter ten: Feeding the ducks
In which Ben and Alasdair continue their arrangement.
Instead of what's becoming their semi-regular lunchtime pint, Ben's waiting in a
greasy spoon to talk to McAvoy. Well. it's beginning to be 'alasdair' now,
they've been talking regular enough. The girl behind the counter puts his tea
down. "Did you want anything else?"
"Now I think about it, bacon sandwich if you don't mind, love." Ben says, pulling
out his phone and checking for messages. New text from Keira telling him the
fact that he hasn't seen Casablanca means his personality is lacking, and that
she's dragging him to the latest dance thing at the Barbican whether he likes it
or not. Some hip-hop dance troupe that has to be seen to be believed, and
she's stealing as many moves as she can memorise.
"Brown bread or white, and what sauce?" The girl asks.
"Which ever is least crusty, and brown. No butter." Ben says distractedly, then
looks up. "Thanks."
Alasdair blows in looking absolutely soaked. Ben's not going to make any wet
dog comparisons to his face, no matter how fucking funny they are. mostly
because Alasdair's started making dire threats about how he can pull out the
nasty sharp teeth at any time, and knows how to dispose of bodies legally. Ben
waves at the girl behind the counter. "Make that two bacon sandwiches and add
a coffee with a fuckton of sugar, love, will you?"
The girl takes a look at Alasdair. "Does he not own a brolly? it's been pissing it
down all morning."
"Bastard thing broke." Alsadair growls, peeling himself out of his jacket and
putting it to drip over the back of his chair as he pulls it out to sit opposite Ben.
"So what's so important that you couldn't leave it til lunchtime?" Ben asks once
the coffee's come and Alasdair's looking a little less like a drowned rat.
"Not so much important as getting a train off to bloody aberdeen at ten thirty."
Alasdair scowls. "Bastards wouldn't spring for a plane since it's it's not time
sensitive and the plane companies charge full business fare."
"Thought you'd like going home." Ben says mildly.
"Aberdeen," Alasdair says, punctuating the sentence by tearing another sugar
packet open. "is not home. Aberdeen is a cold grey wasteland populated by
scum-sucking oilmen and no-hopers that doesn't know the concept of daylight.
Anyway, I'm not from there. I'm from Inverness."
The girl from behind the counter - Ben really does have to think of a better
name, but it's cold and wet and waitress doesn't work - comes over with the
bacon sandwiches. "You did both want brown sauce, right?"
Alasdair wipes some water that's threatening to drip off the end of his nose
away. "Ketchup on bacon sandwiches is an abomination."
"See, that's what i keep telling my boss, but he insists it works." The girl says,
putting the plates in front of them.
"Your boss has defective tastebuds." Ben points out.
"He's also been known to diss Jaffa Cakes." She adds, straightening up and
pulling out a cloth to wipe the table next to them.
"There's no hope for him." Ben says, shaking his head. "You're just going to
have to call for the men in white coats."
"I know some people who can do that." Alasdair says, picking his sandwich up.
"Get someone committed, that is. Do you have a plan in place to run this
place?"
"No, but his wife does." the girl says.
"Sensible woman." Alasdair says.
They tuck into their sandwiches, and Alasdair gradually starts to look a bit more
alive. he takes another mouthful of coffee, rubs his nose, blows it, then sniffs.
And smirks. "What?" Ben asks.
"So you're who she's been shagging. Thought I recognised the smell." Alasdair
says.
Ben blinks, licking the brown sauce from teh edge of his mouth. There's no real
use in denying who you smell of to a werewolf, and there's only one person he's
been shagging lately. On and off, true, but considering he rolled out of Keira's
bed this morning to come here, he's pretty sure it's currently on. "Bit blunt." He
says mildly.
"I'm cold and wet, i'm allowed to be a bit blunt. And sluggish." Alasdair adds.
"Did I mention sluggish?"
"You know the air conditioning on the train's going to be cranked up." Ben points
out.
"Bastard." Alasdair mutters.
"So how do you know her?" Ben asks, taking a mouthful of tea.
"Done a couple of jobs for my lot in her time." Alasdair says. "See her out and
about a fair bit." He pauses and smirks. "So how is shagging an acrobat?"
"Not bad at all." Ben says, then adds, with a lift to the edge of his mouth "But
then we both dance, so I'll leave it to your imagination."
Alasdair lifts his mug. "Touche." he pauses. "How serious is that, then?"
Ben wiggles his hand in the 'iffy' motion. "Mates with benefits, more than
anything. Sex is good, but it's not like we'd be broken up about it if we stopped
tomorrow. How about you? you seeing anyone?"
Alasdair sips at his coffee. "Yeah, last couple of years. Started as one of those
don't see each other very often but couldn't keep our hands off each other jobs,
then developed into a proper relationship as soon as he was in London for an
extended period."
Ben lifts an eyebrow. "Extended period? He shuttle between countries or
summat?"
"Nah, actor. Which means he's got jobs up and down the country, and
sometimes he's off filming elsewhere." Alasdair sighs. "All i'll say is thank christ
for Skype and phone deals, else my phone bills would be through the roof some
months."
"All right, one thing I don't get." Ben says as he watches the MI-13 lot sort
through data, papers and photos and maps and so on in this little office on
Grays' Inn they're using for this case.
Looks a lot like when he ventured into the CID department, though one of them
is using something that looks like a bit of Accessorize jewellery to check for
fingerprints and match them. His contribution to this case was bringing in names
and eyeballing bastards in their natural environment. Apparently the more they
know about someone, the easier it is to do surveillance with their gadgets and
magic and spells. And pass through any wards someone's got set up around a
place of business.
One of the women - looks like someone's grandma from Southall, complete with
sari and all the bangles, and she always smells like she's been making curry,
though from what Alasdair's mentioned, she couldn't make daal to save her life,
the spices she smells of are all spell ingredients - looks up and sniffs. "Do
enlighten us." She's sniffy with everyone who can't do magic.
"Why do you need all this? Can't you just use a telepath to read their
thoughts?" ben asks, gesturing at the sprawl of equipment, laptops and
paperwork.
Everyone looks at Alasdair, who's generally made to translate for the muggle
copper. Alasdair sighs. "There's a huge effing problem with trying to use
telepaths."
Ben perks up. this sounds interesting. "Go on, explain then." he pauses, and
adds cautiously as he notes Alasdair has the long-suffering expression of a
secondary school teacher trying to get the Year 9s to take something in. "This
isn't going to turn into the rant like it did when i set you off on psychics, is it?"
Alasdair grimaces slightly. "Right, first step: How much're you thinking of at any
time? How many things at once?"
Ben shrugs. "I dunno, a couple?"
"And you've had thoughts about having to get more loo paper tomorrow in the
middle of having sex, right?" Alasdair asks, now looking slightly amused.
Ben scratches his neck sheepishly. "Yeah, but doesn't everyone?"
"That's the problem right there." Alasdair says, leaning against the table. "If
you're powerful to hear anything, you hear everything. every bloody little
thought, from everyone in the vicinity. Try sifting through that to figure out
what's important from one person in a room full of people. There's a reason
most psychics and telepaths are known as headcases. the few telepaths i know
who manage to walk around and function have to have their shields up so high
that they might as well not have the talent. And even then you get teh
occasional bit of completely useless nonsense filtering through, like being stuck
on the tube while everyone else has crap headphones."
"Can't they get lessons in how to focus?" Ben asks. "Like learning to use the
Force from Yoda?"
"Sure. There's telepaths up in monasteries and retreats who can do that."
Alasdair concedes, then continues. "Problem is when they come back to
civilisation and have to deal with the real world. Easy to focus and stay pure
when there's only a few people and goats for a hundred miles. Soon as they get
near the nearest village, where everyone's having to deal with rent, the
chickens getting out, the woman next door, the kids, the fence breaking, where
they'll be getting the next bit of food, unlike up in the monastery, all that
vaunted control comes crashing down aroudn their ears and the great and
focussed trained telepath is this blubbering little deafened over-stimulated
catatonic heap in the middle of the street. It's like labatory conditions for tests.
Unfortunately, in the world outside the lab, there's too many other influences at
once."
"So what you're telling me is that telepaths're essentially useless." ben says.
"Yep." Alasdair grins. "Disillusioned by reality yet again, the stories just don't
live up to it. Sorry about that."
Ben looks up and grunts. "Seriously, didn't you ever get disappointed by all this
not turning out like it does in the books and films?"
Alasdair grins. "You forget i grew up a werewolf, mate. I was too bloody
concerned with what stuff smelt like and turning furry once a month whether I
wanted to or not. You can imagine what a fucking crimp that put in my social
life when I was a teenager. 'Can't go out on the pull tonight, sorry, a bit of
moonlight hits me and I'll be sporting fangs, a tail, and my trousers'll be tangled
round my ankles'."
Meeting in Regents Park, by the lake as it's a nice day, warm and sunny. ben
even brought along the loaf he forgot in the bed bin and went a bit stale to feed
the ducks with. Which turns out to be a good idea as some of those ducks are
looking pretty feral, with very well-honed stale bread detection radar, clustering
in front of him and Alasdair with expectant looks and beady eyes.
Alasdair takes a slice, breaking it up with his hands and chucking some to the
ducks. "So what's the problem? You're the one that called me."
"My lot managed to wangle a building permit out of some councillors." Ben says,
flicking a few bite sized pieces at the ducks at the back of the group, who decide
to have a fight over it.
"And you can solemnly swear that none of thse councillors have shiny new cars
out of it." Alasdair chuckles. "So?"
"Don't ask me, i wasn't in on that deal." Ben says. "Problem is, after we struck
ground, we've been having people go missing."
"You sure they're not just scarpering after getting paid?" Alasdair says.
"From the middle of the building site?" Ben asks.
"Okay, you may have a point." Alasdair frowns. "Give us some more bread, will
you? this one by my foot's looking belligerent."
"I think it probably looks like that all the time." Ben says, passing him another
slice. "Thing is, it's not just us. Word is it's been happening on other building
sites nearby."
Alasdair frowns. "Any word from them after? Or kidnapping?" He pauses.
"Sounds like you might've tripped some old ward or curse. Do you know if
they've been coming up with any old bones?"
"It's London, there's always old bones somewhere." Ben says. "Had the
archaeologists in and nothing happened to them. and had a basic scanner in to
check for ground density." he fishes out a bit of paper from his pocket, a map
printed on it with sites marked. "I printed this out for you. Sites people've been
going missing at're marked."
Alasdair nods, glancing over it and nodding. "I'll get our lot to look over it. Any
reason this hasn't been brought to the police yet?"
"Other places did, they've been looking into it, but no results yet, and since it's
from the middle of the sites - they turn a corner, couple of minutes someone
goes round the same corner and there's no-one there - I thought it looked
dodgy enough to be brought to you." Ben says. "Reckoned you'd have more
luck than the coppers."
"Your boss mind you investigating this?" Alasdair asks.
"Mind?" Ben laughs. "Harry bloody expects me to be nosey. He even chucks
things my way when there's something new he wants looking into." he shakes
his head. "Seriously, it's got to the point where I'm becoming our firm's
investigation branch. Surprised he doesn't think I'm furthering my own agenda,
except it's pretty obvious I've not got my snout in the trough and I'm not
pushing for a better position."
"Still, not bad." Alasdair says, taking some more bread from the bag. After a
few minutes more, he sighs. "feeding the ducks in Regents' Park. I think I'm
going to have to turn myself into the spook section and admit to trespassing on
their cliches."
"Hmm?" Ben asks, intent on seeing if he can land a bit of bread on top of a
duck's bill.
Alasdair chuckles. "Look around. Time of day, there's no families out. Who else
do you see feeding the ducks?"
Ben glances around and notes a few other people chatting quietly and feeding
the ducks, two at a time, normally with pretty different looks. Ben winces and
turns back to Alasdair. "They're all talking to someone they really shouldn't be,
aren't they?"
"Yep." Alasdair agrees. "I can spot at least three secret service people from
here. The one on with the bald patch is CIA, there's an FSB man a bit further
on..." he chuckles. "Remind me to lend you Good Omens some time. It's
funnier than i am about this. Fuck it, let's go get a drink."
They're walking through the rose garden, having dumped the rest of the loaf in
the pond, causing a feeding frenzy, when Alasdair clears his throat. "I have to
ask. Is MI-13 a poncy name your lot just picked because it sounded spookier?"
"Nah." Alasdair says. "Technically we're MI-7 or 8, can never remember which.
Way I heard it was some Home Office tosser sneered about Weird Happenings -
our actual name - being better named MI-13. It stuck."
One of his check-ups with Inspector Sims. the inspector breaks a piece off his
muffin. "I heard from other sources that there's been a rash of MI-13 clean ups
in your area. You heard anything about this?"
"Sir?" Ben says, pulling his best innocent face and cradling his mug. "You were
the one who put me in contact with McAvoy."
"For one job." Sims states, looking slightly irritated. "Not to be their bloody pet
gangster."
Ben grins "And here i was told coppers and MI-13 worked well together."
"Give 'em an inch..." Sims sighs. "Should've known. Just remember, Cooper,
for all their fluffy exterior, they're still cold, hard, ruthless bastards at the core,
just like the other government agencies."
Ben just gives him a look. "You mean completely unlike the people you put me
in to work with."
Sims shakes his head. "all right, you've got a point. Suppose you're at least
being useful." He pauses. "What's this about your name coming up as the man in
your lot who takes an interest?"
Ben shrugs, blowing on his tea to try and get it cool enough to drink. "Blame
McAvoy. Word got back to my boss about me looking into the dog fights which
we didn't have any hand in, I told 'im it was because some of our competitors
were losing money on them and it looked a bit odd, now he's got me digging into
anything else that looks dodgy."
Sims nods. "You are going up in the world, my son. Well done."
Instead of what's becoming their semi-regular lunchtime pint, Ben's waiting in a
greasy spoon to talk to McAvoy. Well. it's beginning to be 'alasdair' now,
they've been talking regular enough. The girl behind the counter puts his tea
down. "Did you want anything else?"
"Now I think about it, bacon sandwich if you don't mind, love." Ben says, pulling
out his phone and checking for messages. New text from Keira telling him the
fact that he hasn't seen Casablanca means his personality is lacking, and that
she's dragging him to the latest dance thing at the Barbican whether he likes it
or not. Some hip-hop dance troupe that has to be seen to be believed, and
she's stealing as many moves as she can memorise.
"Brown bread or white, and what sauce?" The girl asks.
"Which ever is least crusty, and brown. No butter." Ben says distractedly, then
looks up. "Thanks."
Alasdair blows in looking absolutely soaked. Ben's not going to make any wet
dog comparisons to his face, no matter how fucking funny they are. mostly
because Alasdair's started making dire threats about how he can pull out the
nasty sharp teeth at any time, and knows how to dispose of bodies legally. Ben
waves at the girl behind the counter. "Make that two bacon sandwiches and add
a coffee with a fuckton of sugar, love, will you?"
The girl takes a look at Alasdair. "Does he not own a brolly? it's been pissing it
down all morning."
"Bastard thing broke." Alsadair growls, peeling himself out of his jacket and
putting it to drip over the back of his chair as he pulls it out to sit opposite Ben.
"So what's so important that you couldn't leave it til lunchtime?" Ben asks once
the coffee's come and Alasdair's looking a little less like a drowned rat.
"Not so much important as getting a train off to bloody aberdeen at ten thirty."
Alasdair scowls. "Bastards wouldn't spring for a plane since it's it's not time
sensitive and the plane companies charge full business fare."
"Thought you'd like going home." Ben says mildly.
"Aberdeen," Alasdair says, punctuating the sentence by tearing another sugar
packet open. "is not home. Aberdeen is a cold grey wasteland populated by
scum-sucking oilmen and no-hopers that doesn't know the concept of daylight.
Anyway, I'm not from there. I'm from Inverness."
The girl from behind the counter - Ben really does have to think of a better
name, but it's cold and wet and waitress doesn't work - comes over with the
bacon sandwiches. "You did both want brown sauce, right?"
Alasdair wipes some water that's threatening to drip off the end of his nose
away. "Ketchup on bacon sandwiches is an abomination."
"See, that's what i keep telling my boss, but he insists it works." The girl says,
putting the plates in front of them.
"Your boss has defective tastebuds." Ben points out.
"He's also been known to diss Jaffa Cakes." She adds, straightening up and
pulling out a cloth to wipe the table next to them.
"There's no hope for him." Ben says, shaking his head. "You're just going to
have to call for the men in white coats."
"I know some people who can do that." Alasdair says, picking his sandwich up.
"Get someone committed, that is. Do you have a plan in place to run this
place?"
"No, but his wife does." the girl says.
"Sensible woman." Alasdair says.
They tuck into their sandwiches, and Alasdair gradually starts to look a bit more
alive. he takes another mouthful of coffee, rubs his nose, blows it, then sniffs.
And smirks. "What?" Ben asks.
"So you're who she's been shagging. Thought I recognised the smell." Alasdair
says.
Ben blinks, licking the brown sauce from teh edge of his mouth. There's no real
use in denying who you smell of to a werewolf, and there's only one person he's
been shagging lately. On and off, true, but considering he rolled out of Keira's
bed this morning to come here, he's pretty sure it's currently on. "Bit blunt." He
says mildly.
"I'm cold and wet, i'm allowed to be a bit blunt. And sluggish." Alasdair adds.
"Did I mention sluggish?"
"You know the air conditioning on the train's going to be cranked up." Ben points
out.
"Bastard." Alasdair mutters.
"So how do you know her?" Ben asks, taking a mouthful of tea.
"Done a couple of jobs for my lot in her time." Alasdair says. "See her out and
about a fair bit." He pauses and smirks. "So how is shagging an acrobat?"
"Not bad at all." Ben says, then adds, with a lift to the edge of his mouth "But
then we both dance, so I'll leave it to your imagination."
Alasdair lifts his mug. "Touche." he pauses. "How serious is that, then?"
Ben wiggles his hand in the 'iffy' motion. "Mates with benefits, more than
anything. Sex is good, but it's not like we'd be broken up about it if we stopped
tomorrow. How about you? you seeing anyone?"
Alasdair sips at his coffee. "Yeah, last couple of years. Started as one of those
don't see each other very often but couldn't keep our hands off each other jobs,
then developed into a proper relationship as soon as he was in London for an
extended period."
Ben lifts an eyebrow. "Extended period? He shuttle between countries or
summat?"
"Nah, actor. Which means he's got jobs up and down the country, and
sometimes he's off filming elsewhere." Alasdair sighs. "All i'll say is thank christ
for Skype and phone deals, else my phone bills would be through the roof some
months."
"All right, one thing I don't get." Ben says as he watches the MI-13 lot sort
through data, papers and photos and maps and so on in this little office on
Grays' Inn they're using for this case.
Looks a lot like when he ventured into the CID department, though one of them
is using something that looks like a bit of Accessorize jewellery to check for
fingerprints and match them. His contribution to this case was bringing in names
and eyeballing bastards in their natural environment. Apparently the more they
know about someone, the easier it is to do surveillance with their gadgets and
magic and spells. And pass through any wards someone's got set up around a
place of business.
One of the women - looks like someone's grandma from Southall, complete with
sari and all the bangles, and she always smells like she's been making curry,
though from what Alasdair's mentioned, she couldn't make daal to save her life,
the spices she smells of are all spell ingredients - looks up and sniffs. "Do
enlighten us." She's sniffy with everyone who can't do magic.
"Why do you need all this? Can't you just use a telepath to read their
thoughts?" ben asks, gesturing at the sprawl of equipment, laptops and
paperwork.
Everyone looks at Alasdair, who's generally made to translate for the muggle
copper. Alasdair sighs. "There's a huge effing problem with trying to use
telepaths."
Ben perks up. this sounds interesting. "Go on, explain then." he pauses, and
adds cautiously as he notes Alasdair has the long-suffering expression of a
secondary school teacher trying to get the Year 9s to take something in. "This
isn't going to turn into the rant like it did when i set you off on psychics, is it?"
Alasdair grimaces slightly. "Right, first step: How much're you thinking of at any
time? How many things at once?"
Ben shrugs. "I dunno, a couple?"
"And you've had thoughts about having to get more loo paper tomorrow in the
middle of having sex, right?" Alasdair asks, now looking slightly amused.
Ben scratches his neck sheepishly. "Yeah, but doesn't everyone?"
"That's the problem right there." Alasdair says, leaning against the table. "If
you're powerful to hear anything, you hear everything. every bloody little
thought, from everyone in the vicinity. Try sifting through that to figure out
what's important from one person in a room full of people. There's a reason
most psychics and telepaths are known as headcases. the few telepaths i know
who manage to walk around and function have to have their shields up so high
that they might as well not have the talent. And even then you get teh
occasional bit of completely useless nonsense filtering through, like being stuck
on the tube while everyone else has crap headphones."
"Can't they get lessons in how to focus?" Ben asks. "Like learning to use the
Force from Yoda?"
"Sure. There's telepaths up in monasteries and retreats who can do that."
Alasdair concedes, then continues. "Problem is when they come back to
civilisation and have to deal with the real world. Easy to focus and stay pure
when there's only a few people and goats for a hundred miles. Soon as they get
near the nearest village, where everyone's having to deal with rent, the
chickens getting out, the woman next door, the kids, the fence breaking, where
they'll be getting the next bit of food, unlike up in the monastery, all that
vaunted control comes crashing down aroudn their ears and the great and
focussed trained telepath is this blubbering little deafened over-stimulated
catatonic heap in the middle of the street. It's like labatory conditions for tests.
Unfortunately, in the world outside the lab, there's too many other influences at
once."
"So what you're telling me is that telepaths're essentially useless." ben says.
"Yep." Alasdair grins. "Disillusioned by reality yet again, the stories just don't
live up to it. Sorry about that."
Ben looks up and grunts. "Seriously, didn't you ever get disappointed by all this
not turning out like it does in the books and films?"
Alasdair grins. "You forget i grew up a werewolf, mate. I was too bloody
concerned with what stuff smelt like and turning furry once a month whether I
wanted to or not. You can imagine what a fucking crimp that put in my social
life when I was a teenager. 'Can't go out on the pull tonight, sorry, a bit of
moonlight hits me and I'll be sporting fangs, a tail, and my trousers'll be tangled
round my ankles'."
Meeting in Regents Park, by the lake as it's a nice day, warm and sunny. ben
even brought along the loaf he forgot in the bed bin and went a bit stale to feed
the ducks with. Which turns out to be a good idea as some of those ducks are
looking pretty feral, with very well-honed stale bread detection radar, clustering
in front of him and Alasdair with expectant looks and beady eyes.
Alasdair takes a slice, breaking it up with his hands and chucking some to the
ducks. "So what's the problem? You're the one that called me."
"My lot managed to wangle a building permit out of some councillors." Ben says,
flicking a few bite sized pieces at the ducks at the back of the group, who decide
to have a fight over it.
"And you can solemnly swear that none of thse councillors have shiny new cars
out of it." Alasdair chuckles. "So?"
"Don't ask me, i wasn't in on that deal." Ben says. "Problem is, after we struck
ground, we've been having people go missing."
"You sure they're not just scarpering after getting paid?" Alasdair says.
"From the middle of the building site?" Ben asks.
"Okay, you may have a point." Alasdair frowns. "Give us some more bread, will
you? this one by my foot's looking belligerent."
"I think it probably looks like that all the time." Ben says, passing him another
slice. "Thing is, it's not just us. Word is it's been happening on other building
sites nearby."
Alasdair frowns. "Any word from them after? Or kidnapping?" He pauses.
"Sounds like you might've tripped some old ward or curse. Do you know if
they've been coming up with any old bones?"
"It's London, there's always old bones somewhere." Ben says. "Had the
archaeologists in and nothing happened to them. and had a basic scanner in to
check for ground density." he fishes out a bit of paper from his pocket, a map
printed on it with sites marked. "I printed this out for you. Sites people've been
going missing at're marked."
Alasdair nods, glancing over it and nodding. "I'll get our lot to look over it. Any
reason this hasn't been brought to the police yet?"
"Other places did, they've been looking into it, but no results yet, and since it's
from the middle of the sites - they turn a corner, couple of minutes someone
goes round the same corner and there's no-one there - I thought it looked
dodgy enough to be brought to you." Ben says. "Reckoned you'd have more
luck than the coppers."
"Your boss mind you investigating this?" Alasdair asks.
"Mind?" Ben laughs. "Harry bloody expects me to be nosey. He even chucks
things my way when there's something new he wants looking into." he shakes
his head. "Seriously, it's got to the point where I'm becoming our firm's
investigation branch. Surprised he doesn't think I'm furthering my own agenda,
except it's pretty obvious I've not got my snout in the trough and I'm not
pushing for a better position."
"Still, not bad." Alasdair says, taking some more bread from the bag. After a
few minutes more, he sighs. "feeding the ducks in Regents' Park. I think I'm
going to have to turn myself into the spook section and admit to trespassing on
their cliches."
"Hmm?" Ben asks, intent on seeing if he can land a bit of bread on top of a
duck's bill.
Alasdair chuckles. "Look around. Time of day, there's no families out. Who else
do you see feeding the ducks?"
Ben glances around and notes a few other people chatting quietly and feeding
the ducks, two at a time, normally with pretty different looks. Ben winces and
turns back to Alasdair. "They're all talking to someone they really shouldn't be,
aren't they?"
"Yep." Alasdair agrees. "I can spot at least three secret service people from
here. The one on with the bald patch is CIA, there's an FSB man a bit further
on..." he chuckles. "Remind me to lend you Good Omens some time. It's
funnier than i am about this. Fuck it, let's go get a drink."
They're walking through the rose garden, having dumped the rest of the loaf in
the pond, causing a feeding frenzy, when Alasdair clears his throat. "I have to
ask. Is MI-13 a poncy name your lot just picked because it sounded spookier?"
"Nah." Alasdair says. "Technically we're MI-7 or 8, can never remember which.
Way I heard it was some Home Office tosser sneered about Weird Happenings -
our actual name - being better named MI-13. It stuck."
One of his check-ups with Inspector Sims. the inspector breaks a piece off his
muffin. "I heard from other sources that there's been a rash of MI-13 clean ups
in your area. You heard anything about this?"
"Sir?" Ben says, pulling his best innocent face and cradling his mug. "You were
the one who put me in contact with McAvoy."
"For one job." Sims states, looking slightly irritated. "Not to be their bloody pet
gangster."
Ben grins "And here i was told coppers and MI-13 worked well together."
"Give 'em an inch..." Sims sighs. "Should've known. Just remember, Cooper,
for all their fluffy exterior, they're still cold, hard, ruthless bastards at the core,
just like the other government agencies."
Ben just gives him a look. "You mean completely unlike the people you put me
in to work with."
Sims shakes his head. "all right, you've got a point. Suppose you're at least
being useful." He pauses. "What's this about your name coming up as the man in
your lot who takes an interest?"
Ben shrugs, blowing on his tea to try and get it cool enough to drink. "Blame
McAvoy. Word got back to my boss about me looking into the dog fights which
we didn't have any hand in, I told 'im it was because some of our competitors
were losing money on them and it looked a bit odd, now he's got me digging into
anything else that looks dodgy."
Sims nods. "You are going up in the world, my son. Well done."