Ice Blue

Anthony Hetheridge, ninth Baron of
Wellegrave, Chief Superintendent for New Scotland Yard, never
married, no children, no pets, no hobbies, and not even an
interesting vice, would turn sixty in three weeks. With the
exception of his chosen career, his life had largely gone as others
had predicted, without foolishness or significant errors. He had
conducted himself with honor, and had even begun to think of
himself as one who “held up well” over the years. Growing old did
not torment Hetheridge; it was simply part of the graceful arc of
his existence. His twenties had been the time for exploration and a
thirst for learning; his thirties, for honing his strengths and
accepting his weaknesses; his forties, for cool, self-centered joy
only true professional mastery can bring. His sixties would be the
natural time of decline – retirement, withdrawal into burnished
memories, the descending curtain, the snuffed lights. One night,
over a gin and tonic garnished with lime, it occurred to him there
were dozens of ways to bring down the curtain himself, on his own
terms. It was only fleeting, but the unworthiness, the hollow
cowardice, startled him. Rarely these days did anything escape his
control, even an errant thought.

Hetheridge had never suffered the torments of
the mind that afflicted his chosen profession, from the greenest
Bobbies to his fellow superintendents, who subsisted on take-away
curry and bourbon. Hetheridge had sailed through midlife sans
crisis. Only once, when he was forty-two, had his calm been shaken.
A murder suspect – or, to be precise, a convicted murderer twice
over – had thrust a black, oil-smelling Glock in Hetheridge’s face
and squeezed the trigger. Before Hetheridge could steady himself,
before he could accept the indignity of violent death, a deafening
crack had sounded. He had dropped, unprepared for death, and yet
unprepared to find himself still alive. The police sniper placed on
a rooftop across the street had done his job, felling the suspect
before he could introduce Hetheridge’s brains to daylight. But
Hetheridge’s brains, still safe within his skull, had sustained a
resounding shock, as if daylight had broken in anyway.

For five days he had been unable to return to
work, and unable to suffer any visitors. One afternoon he found
himself sobbing in the walled garden of his Mayfair home – he who
never cried, loathed displays of emotion, and considered men who
revealed their innermost weaknesses the worst kind of fool. He
wondered if he could continue to feel on this level and survive.
But on the sixth day he awakened at dawn and felt the stirring of
his old familiar self-control. Fear receded, emotion receded, and
finally he drifted away from that time, like a man carried away by
a swift, smooth current, and his orderly life continued without
further interruption.

Now in three weeks he would turn sixty, and
the sun would set. His legacy: a brilliant career and a spotless
personal reputation. Perhaps he should exit his professional life
by retiring on his sixtieth birthday? Nothing was more pitiable,
and yet despicable, than a man who did not know when to take his
leave.

Standing before the cherry-framed cheval
mirror, he knotted his silk tie, waving away the alternatives
offered by his valet, Harvey. Harvey enjoyed being overly
accommodating in every sartorial decision, and Hetheridge enjoyed
accepting the first decent option and ignoring the other carefully
proffered choices. Harvey had “gone into service,” as he would put
it, in order to debase himself to a peer, and Hetheridge, resigned
to the bizarre effect his title had on a certain subset of the
population, played along.

Never tall and never handsome, Hetheridge had
been mild and boyish in his youth – the eternal “good cop” to his
partner’s snarling rendition of the nasty old copper. Time had
worked a curious alchemy on his features, he realized, studying
himself in the cheval glass. His eyes were still bright blue, and
his medium brown hair had long ago gone steel gray. But while most
of his contemporaries had gone doughy, jowly, and soft, Hetheridge
had grown into his features at last. The lines around his eyes and
mouth leant an authority his youthful face had lacked. Now, there
was a firm set to his mouth, and a thoughtful crease across the
brow.

And I could easily pass for fifty.
He
enjoyed the realization before rejecting it as foolish.

He dressed as he always did – in a
beautifully tailored suit, Italian shoes, heirloom cufflinks, and a
silk tie he’d purchased on Bond Street. His hair, as thick and
coarse as it had been thirty years ago, was trimmed every three
weeks to assure perfection. If Hetheridge discounted himself as a
man, if he considered himself obsolete in the sexual arena, he
counted himself fully as a Chief Superintendent, as a
representative of Scotland Yard, and – somewhat more distantly – as
Lord Hetheridge.

He passed the crawl of traffic from Mayfair
to New Scotland Yard as he always did – comfortably ensconced in
the back of the Bentley, trusting his driver, immersed in the Times
and wishing for a post-coffee cigarette. He had quit nearly twenty
years ago, yet the impulse to smoke on the way to the office had
never let him, not even for a day.

His driver made the trip with five minutes to
spare, and Hetheridge found himself at his destination with the
Op-Ed page still unread. Surprised, he tossed the Times on the
floorboards and climbed out of the Bentley, blinking in the bright
sunshine. He didn’t own a pair of sunglasses – sunglasses on the
elderly looked ridiculous. But he seemed to need them, he admitted,
putting up a hand to block the light as he made his way inside New
Scotland Yard. A hat was the more appropriate option. Bowler, or
wide-brimmed? Pondering this solution, he nearly ploughed into
Superintendent Vic Jackson, the most recent promotion at the Yard,
and Detective Sergeant Wakefield, who were rowing for the benefit
of all.

“You’re insubordinate!” Superintendent
Jackson shouted, his fat face pink with fury.

“You’re a plonker!” DS Wakefield shouted
back.

Hetheridge, recovering his vision under the
blessedly familiar artificial light, took in the rage of each
combatant, as well as the avid interest of receptionists, janitors,
and assorted members of the public. “I say,” he muttered, shifting
his briefcase from one hand to another.

“I won’t have any more insults from you, you
dirty little dyke!” Superintendent Jackson bellowed, unaware of
Hetheridge’s gentle interruption. “Your career is finished!”

“Dyke?” Wakefield screeched, incredulous.
“Because I didn’t fuck you? Because I wouldn’t blow you when you
waved that poor little thing in my face?”

My God, Hetheridge thought, staring at DS
Wakefield. He had heard of her, of course, and had seen her once in
passing, at a distance, across the length of a paved lot. But now,
within barely an arms-length, he stared at the woman as if he had
never been warned of her existence. My God, he thought again. He
felt chilled inside, as he had when that oil-smelling Glock
appeared in his face, and that merciless finger squeezed the
trigger. She’s beautiful.

“Clean out your desk,” Jackson said. Manhood
impugned, his voice shot up into his hideously squeaky upper
register. “Get out of my sight!”

“What about Commander Deaver?” Wakefield
screamed. “How d’ya fink he’ll like fis shit?”

“I say, that’s enough,” Hetheridge snapped,
his voice ringing through the lobby.

Every gaze snapped to his face. The lobby,
still electrified by DS Wakefield’s defiance, went cold and silent.
Her tone, goaded into its extremity, had betrayed the coarse bray
of the native East Ender.

“This useless mingebag,” Jackson began,
turning to Hetheridge for support. “She …”

“Enough,” Hetheridge roared. He knew he
appeared coldly unruffled, despite the contained rage in his voice.
His father, many years dead, might have been proud to hear that
aristocratic tone emanating from his only son – the son who had
never risen above adequate in his sire’s estimation.

“Sir, he…” DS Wakefield began. Her hair was
naturally blonde – more light brown than golden, strands revealing
the continuum of soft yellow to glossy brunette. Hetheridge, who
never noticed these things, noticed twice over.

“Be quiet,” he cut across her. She fell
silent. Her eyes, Hetheridge noticed, were hazel – more green than
brown.

“I shall be the one to speak to Commander
Deaver about this unfortunate display,” Hetheridge continued. “To
that end, I shall require a written explanation from each of you
within the next eight hours. In the meantime, no one will suffer
another personal insult,” he met Superintendent Jackson’s eyes,
“and no one will clean out their desks,” he added, gaze returning
to DS Wakefield. “And now,” he concluded, “if you will accompany me
to my office, Sergeant?”

He set a brisk pace to the bank of lifts,
aware he was still watched by every face in the lobby, and
unconcerned. What he felt – or imagined he felt – was the heat of
one gaze behind him, burning into his shoulder blades as she
followed him onto the lift.

Once aboard, he turned, stabbed number six,
and shifted his briefcase from one hand to the other. His duty was
clear. Superintendent Jackson must be supported. The chiefs and
supers always bolstered one another. And beneath that duty, less
openly discussed, but nonetheless understood, the males of Scotland
Yard always closed ranks against the females. A pretty face and a
soft tone were welcome, as were shapely calves, giggles, and a
dollop of compassion, when the moment called for it. But a harpy
seemed to lurk within every female constable, sergeant, and
inspector, rising like a cobra from a basket when least expected,
spitting recriminations about “fairness” and “reciprocity” and
shrieking accusations of sexual harassment.

The doors opened. DS Wakefield didn’t move.
Placing one hand so the doors could not close again, Hetheridge,
stiff and unsmiling, gestured for her to exit first. Hazel eyes
widened. A smile tugged at her lips, but she quickly smoothed it
back into a mask of obedience. She maintained a blandly downcast
expression as Hetheridge unlocked the door and switched on the
lights.

“Have a seat,” he said, placing his briefcase
on the massive credenza and shrugging out of his overcoat, which he
hung on the tall stand beside the door. He opened the curtains and
tilted the blinds to let full sunlight into the room and seated
himself in his capacious executive armchair, his back to the blaze
of daylight, as DS Wakefield blinked and shifted in her far less
comfortable seat.

“I say,” she murmured, smiling as she tried
to adjust to the glare.

“What?” Hetheridge was startled. He hadn’t
expected her to speak first. Certainly no male DS in the same
situation would have dared open his mouth before his superior.

“I say,” she repeated, meeting his eyes.
“That’s how you made the entire room leap to attention. I say,” she
grinned, the East End accent gone, replaced by a passable imitation
of Hetheridge’s public school voice. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard
that before, except in old movies. These days, it’s more like,
oi
!”

“Oi!” Hetheridge shot back, surprising
himself with the fullness of menace he could pour into that most
basic of exclamations.

“Perfect,” DS Wakefield crowed. “You could be
a football hooligan!”

“Oi,” he repeated, warming to her pleasure,
and the strange ease he felt in her presence. “If you imagine a
Cockney chimney sweep shouting ‘I say!’ at someone – sort of an
‘Oihgh sah,’ you can almost hear it turning into oi, can’t
you?”

DS Wakefield stared at him. “I never thought
of that. Is that true? Is that really how we all ended up shouting
‘oi, sunshine, you’re nicked!’?”

Hetheridge shrugged. “Perhaps.” He drew a
breath, trying to remember his original stern opening, then
deciding it was lost forever. “So what was all that then? The row
between you and Superintendent Jackson?”

DS Wakefield shifted like a defiant child.
“He’s a plonker.”

“Naturally.” Hetheridge sighed. “I’ll inform
Commander Deaver. At the Yard, the plonker defense has always been
ironclad.”