“Detective Gemma Alderton,” Gemma held up her phone to reveal her badge, then motioned to the man leaning on the rail behind her, “this is my partner, Assistant Detective Luis Schulz.”
Kasia stared speechless at them. Constables were common enough, roaming around with deregulated power, sometimes giving citizens a deregulated beating up. But when citizens needed more than corporal punishment, detectives could make them vanish.
Unlike constables, they were immune to bribes - a combination of pride and pay packet. When not undercover they wore ultramarine overcoats, trilby hats they habitually removed when stepping indoors, and aviators they never took off. The uniform was designed during the rebrand, tailored at Savile Row, and implied composure, professionalism, and private funding. It was formal enough to inspire respect, and bohemian enough to wear to a bar. This the detectives were notorious for doing. Bar staff were aware not to charge them.
“Nothing to say?” Gemma removed her hat and stepped inside without waiting for permission, “your daughter. Eva Szymanska?”
Eva nodded rapidly.
“Dobry wieczór, Ewa,” the detective’s Polish sounded basic, but well-practised, “I’ll talk to your mother outside. Watch the apartment, yes?”
Eva’s mouth hung open. Kasia shuffled outside without resisting.
A fleet of cars parked across Kendi Estate’s opening, sealing it from entry or escape. Lightbars of flickering blue revealed police officers working door to door in an unusual show of effort. Residents filmed and chattered, eager for spectacle, and in the middle of all of this, frozen on a plaza bench, sat Misha. Even from this distance, Kasia could see she was in shock. Imany was standing over her, in discussion with two more detectives. Behind them Sermon paced about, visibly stressed, swatting down the phones of recording neighbours.
“This won’t take long Katarzyna,” Gemma replaced her hat and shut Kasia outside, “what can you tell us about the missing child?”
“I don’t know anything?” Kasia’s pupils darted left to right. Luis’s mouth curled into a smirk. Gemma carried on.
“Joey Abbas, missing since Thursday morning. We were notified at 3pm today. This is far too late. What information do you have?”
Kasia swallowed and said nothing.
“Were you at home on Wednesday evening?”
“Yes.”
“Doing what?”
“I… was playing a game with my daughter.”
“I didn’t have you down as the gaming type?” Luis stepped forward to join his partner, boxing Kasia against the wall, “what do you play?”
Kasia tried to remember the game Eva was currently raving about, “It’s called Adventures in Azeroth.”
“Adventures in Azeroth?”
“Yes.”
“A little old for that aren’t you?” Luis looked Kasia up and down. She could almost hear his smirk purr.
“Yes, I guess so.”
“Class?”
“…I’m sorry?”
“What class are you?”
Kasia stammered, racking her brain for details she only ever half-listened to, “it’s a wizard.”
“A wizard!?” Luis held a wagging finger up, “I play a warrior; never liked ‘wizards’, they’re too fragile. Plus, warriors are better healers are they not?”
“Yea… yea…”
“But neither are doing very well against Chocobos at the minute, are they?”
“No, I suppose not.”
Luis’s smirk opened up. Daggered canines flashed through it. Kasia faced his partner with a pleading face. Gemma tried to look serious.
“Who have you seen in the estate that’s new Katarzyna?”
Kasia prepared to act ignorant but suddenly lit up, remembering a useful detail, “actually there are loads of vagrants by the river at the minute. They look like they’re organising for a job.”
“I see,” Gemma tapped down what she already knew, “who on the estate do you suspect of Revolutionary or Vedic affiliation?”
“Nobody.”
Behind their shades Kasia felt the detectives reading her, catching every twitch of muscle. She wanted to gulp, but dared not risk being caught doing it. She stood like a plank, wanting the ground to drag her under before the interrogators could. Online conspiracy theories of police corruption played in her head.
“Ms Szymanska!?”Gemma clicked her fingers at Kasia and handed over a paper contact card, “I want to find this boy soon. If you see or hear anything I expect to hear from you, do you understand?”
Kasia took the card and nodded. Both detectives smiled in a way she knew was mocking her.
“Dziękuję Ci Katarzyna,” Gemma flicked her chin up, “speak soon.”
Kasia bowed her head low in deference, groped for the door handle behind her, and slowly backed inside.
“Mama what happened?” Eva was hugging her knees, peering through a slit in the lower bunk’s curtain.
Kasia exhaled and rubbed her face, “they’re looking for that Joey kid, although they seemed more interested in that bloody game of yours. I said I was playing with you ‘cause I thought they’d leave me alone but they wouldn’t drop it. I had to make up stuff about your wizard and all sorts.”
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
“It’s called a mage mama, I told you this before and you forgot again… don’t blame me if they take your to Broadmoor for singin’ lessons.”
“Oh do me in the ass! Why always me!? Why now!?” Kasia spat out every slur her second language contained, aiming half of them at the detectives and the other half at herself. Eva rolled over with laughter, and complained in vain when Kasia stopped her filming the outburst.
Eventually Penthouse: Soho came on to distract them. They swung the bunk bed to face the TV as the hosts paraded each contestant out. The two Szymanskas placed their bets, predicting which contestant would make it to the end, how each loser would be undone, and in what order. Eva was getting good at this, but Kasia’s ability to call the results with just one episode appeared prophetic.
Each new contestant sparked a bonfire of online comments. Kasia and Eva contributed to the flow from their phones, able to flick between their devices and the TV with barely a glance. At times Kasia remembered the detectives and went cold; a child waiting for punishment undeserved but coming anyway.
The detectives completed their sweep and returned to the car. The whole exercise felt pointless; all the estate could offer was listless drones, unable and unwilling to cooperate. Luis was snickering to himself over the Hong Kong refugee who had tried to deny speaking English. His reminder, in fluent Chinese, of her flimsy immigrant rights was worth it just to see her face scrunch with panic, even if she had no useful information.
Packs of police officers were lingering about, waiting for the call to head back. Gemma perched on the car bonnet beside Luis. In unison they reached into the inner pockets of their overcoats, produced vogue-shaped, platinum e-cigs, and drew.
“Any locals looking like terrorists to you?”
“Never mind that, we’ve got something important to talk about," Luis raised his glasses to address his partner, "that child was nicked by the gang we saw. We should have intervened; I told you a Chad would never fly out here, do you know where it ended up?”
Gemma huffed and shook her head.
“In Southwark, chasing drunk students out of some bellend’s garden. I told you we -”
“We never could have taken them on our own," Gemma silenced him with a raised hand, "and we won’t be in trouble anyway; there was no sign of criminal activity when we left.”
“If we’d have stepped in there wouldn’t be any now,” Luis rubbed his eyes behind his glasses, “so what do we do?”
“We stand on ceremony; once the locals turn up nothing we’ll be able to get some muscle to press the vagrants.”
“They’re increasingly organised, probably trafficking for god knows who... you reckon that kid’s unspoilt after all this time?” Luis searched for Misha and found her in the square, surrounded by neighbours. He scanned them with his lenses.
“The mum turned to that dready woman with her first - Imany Eshun. One of those agony aunts you get in these estates. She’s not online but she’s got the old activist vibe. I’d be surprised if she didn’t cook a few fascists in her time. Then there's that Bantu lad who rubbed your bonnet.”
Gemma scanned the squat man standing aimlessly in the plaza, “and every estate has a dealer.”
“Indeed. Plenty of data on him: kicked out by his family as a kid, too wild to get through school. He’s big into the Afrocentrist scene now, with R-B sympathy too.”
Gemma gave his profile a second look, “let’s have a chat with him.”
“No, you stay here,” Luis pulled himself off the bonnet, “an overly-competitive girl-boss won’t be what gets him up.”
“A smug Aryan prick might do it though right?”
He smirked at her and adjusted an invisible tie. Sermon saw him get close; recognised the leering face of a crooked cop. Before he could back away, Luis lunged forward and grabbed him.
“Not so fast Usain Bolt,” Luis gripped Sermon’s struggling arm, “stop. panicking. I don’t care about you taking the piss the other night, nor do I care about the stuff you’re selling.”
“Fam you ain’t got nothin’ on me! Why don’t you fuckin’ look for that kid instead!” Sermon tried again to wriggle free. With each struggle the gap between him and the local crowd increased. The fearful residents pretended not to notice. Imany made a show of paying attention to Misha, but listened in.
“Sermon! Sermon... Why don't you try swallowing your pride for once instead of your distributor’s discharge?” Luis made a face to say that whatever Sermon tried, Luis would win, “I am trying to find the kid, and you’re dodgy enough to be of use to me.”
Sermon went still, wondering how the detective knew about his distributor, “alright. What do I know?”
“You saw the same vagrants I did,” Luis looked around, pretending to ensure they were alone, “obviously it was them who took him.”
Sermon kept silent. Luis read agreement on his face anyway and let go of his arm, “I need better reasons than I have to send a force strong enough for the job. That gang's grown since Rajesh Tomar’s resignation video; I can hardly go in with one stroppy lesbian and a couple of tasers.”
Sermon sighed and rubbed his chin, “yea… I reckon it was them too. I checked Misha’s flat and it reeked of fags; girl swears she doesn’t smoke.”
“Show me.” Luis beckoned him to the flat, and noticed him stepping away, “Sermon I’m recording you as a primary lead. If we can’t find Joey, perhaps Opus Veda can speak to you when they hack our case and take over.”
The flat had been trampled by constables. Luis was used to them giving up after five minutes, usually with pocketed souvenirs - snacks for the station, suicide notes for the desk, used underwear for an evening in. He wasn’t interested in souvenirs or constables, relying instead on local noses to sniff up the biggest truffles. Misha Abbas’s home was a single room occupancy, battered by flooding and dank with mildew. A bed hung from cords against a wall carpeted with spotty mold. The window had been bricked in.
“No forced entry,” Luis searched the doorway for cigarette ends, “I wonder how they got in?”
Sermon ran a finger down the door’s edge, “swiped the lock with a card.”
“Vagrants with credit cards?”
“They nick them and max them out before the bank cancels it. It’s never enough money for the banks to pursue, right?”
“And it’s a ball ache for us that they don’t,” Luis squatted over two floorboards, finding a bead of ash. He pinched it between his fingers and smelt. Satisfied, he leant against the kitchenette counter with his arms folded and watched Sermon.
“This gang in particular, where’s home for them?”
“Underground. The old silver line towards Greenwich,” Sermon tried to look busy searching, “they come outta there, grab whatever they can, and back they go.”
“I wonder why they’d come this far all of a sudden?”
“They must be sellin’ him off to some chat room or somethin’...” Sermon's nose wrinkled with disgust. He kicked a sandbag and faced Luis with an aggressive but earnest look, “it's a fuckin' disgrace! Traffickers don’t hang about mate, you gotta stop them now or it’s gonna be too late.”
Luis held the door open to leave, “I will.”
The police departed for the station. Kasia eased, but not fully. She wished Imany were here to advise her, instead of staying downstairs to help Misha. What more could she do? What could justify all this fuss?
Eva was sleeping with her headset on, her phone dangling out of her hand. Kasia prised both devices off her and peeked outside, wanting to ask someone for an update on the Joey story she couldn’t yet find online. When she heard the buzz of drones she quickly retreated. Now was the time to be normal and unassuming. When the police had no suspect they sometimes chose at random, and the favours they asked for clemency could scar. She dreaded the wrong officer getting a look at her daughter.
Her mind wandered to the detectives. She tried to recall their names.
Their contact card. She dared to look them up. She couldn’t find much - certainly no social profile - but some pictures surfaced from old news reports. Gemma was barely older than her, with olive skin and short, neat hair. Kasia found her handsome, but wry and frigid.
Her partner was with her in most photos, sneering as he did in person. He was Aryan and intense; lither than his partner but still intimidating. Kasia searched for biographic details and found none. In a society where people’s lives could be searched for and summarised in under a minute, fewer things were creepier than a life that could not.
She tucked herself into her bunk, placed her earbuds in, and counted the mattress springs to ground herself. Eva’s arm hung from the bunk above. She softly pinched one of her fingers and pulled the sheet across. The crying from the plaza outside was getting louder. She turned the volume up, letting a gentle whispers playlist block the real world and send her to sleep.