“Edgewater!”

Timmy snapped to attention and in his haste he had guessed in which direction the voice had come from. As with most things in life, he chose wrong.

“Turn your sorry self around, boy!” Sergeant Errol had a voice that could shatter glass. He was always red faced and barking at someone or something. The eternally irate Sergeant crossed the precinct floor to the shabby little corner desk all the junior corporals shared inbetween duties.

“Sorry sir,” Timmy spun and threw a hasty salute.

“You’ve been seconded!” Sargeant Errol growled, a dismissive edge to his voice.

“I have?” Timmy squeaked.

“Yeah, the Mulvane pig show needs a stand in for one of the contestants!” A voice cried from the corner of the room. Guffaws bounced around the precinct as Timmy went pink.

“No… not this time,” Sergeant Errol said. “You’ve been requested by some big shot Detective Sergeant, all very hush hush.” He announced this to the precinct who made cooing noises.

“I have?” Timmy squeaked again, feeling sweat trickle down his brow.

Life had taught Timmy that being the centre of attention anywhere was usually a painful and embarrassing experience for him.

“You and… that can’t be right,” Sergeant Errol said, squinting down at the paper in his hand. “Washbottom?”

“Wally!” Timmy said excitedly.

“What’s this about, Edgewater?” Sergeant Errol growled.

“You don’t know?” Timmy asked.

“No.”

“Then I’m afraid it’s above your pay grade, sir.” Timmy hopped off his seat and grabbed the paper out of Sergeant Errol’s hand.

Timmy knew he would pay dearly for that one, but it was worth it for the rare win. Timmy strode out of the precinct with his head held high, strolling past his colleagues with a smug look on his face. Just as he reached the door he stopped dead, a quiet groan escaping his lips. He turned, head down, and shuffled quickly back to Sergeant Errol.

“Sir?”

“Edgewater.”

“The paper doesn’t say where we’re supposed to report to,” Timmy muttered.

“Ohoooo, I thought that was top secret.”

“No sir.”

Sergeant Errol ground his teeth so hard his enamel sounded like kernels popping while the other officers sniggered.

“Corner of Ash Grove and Furnacers Lane,” he growled finally.

“Out West?” Timmy couldn’t keep the tremble from his voice.

“Bandit country.” Sergeant Errol gave him a wicked grin.

“T-t-thank you sir!”

Timmy started to turn when he felt the heavy hand of the Sergeant on his shoulder.

“You’ll be doing foot patrol in RatHoles for a year when you waddle back in here,” he breathed in Timmy’s ear.

Timmy gave a frightened squeak and hurried out of the room with laughter ringing in his ears. Once the door slammed shut behind him he breathed a deep sigh of relief. He then lifted the crumpled paper in his hands again and grinned wide. There was his name! Next to words like: ‘seconded’ ‘top priority’ and ‘confidential’. He practically sprinted off to find Wally.

It took nearly half an hour for him to track down his recalcitrant partner. Washbottom was a naturally good lurker and an even better shirker. No one shirked and lurked like Wally Washbottom, especially when he was on shift. Timmy eventually found him in a custodian’s cupboard, perched on a mop bucket chewing on toffees and making paper hats for the verminous residents of the cupboard.

“Wally!” Timmy breathed, his chest heaving and his round face so red it looked like his cheeks would pop.

“Wot!” Wally said, hopping from his perch so high he banged his head on the shelf above and spilled the contents everywhere.

“Quick! Quick!” Timmy pulled at his arm, helping him extricate himself from the tangle of brooms and mysterious cleaning powders.

“What’s goin’ on Tim!” Wally wailed as he tumbled out of the cupboard. “You’ve got soap on me toffees!”

“We’ve been seconded, Wally!”

“Wot? No… did you get the itch of that sort from Cumberley too?”

“What? No?”

“Oh… me neither,” Wally sniffed, wiped his nose, and then gave his groin a surreptitious scratch.

“No, we've been seconded! Sergeant Nairo has requested us again, personally. By name!”

“Oh no! Wot did you say?”

“Say? Say! Wally it’s our duty we’ve been ordered by a superior officer!”

“Still dunno wot make ‘er so sooperior,” Wally grumbled.

“It’s hierarchy!”

“I mean she’s fit but I wouldn’t hire ‘er.”

“What? Nevermind. We don’t have a choice, Sergeant Errol has told us we’re doing it.” Timmy lied, remembering the Sergeant’s whispered threats.

“Ahhh man. Why us!” Wally moaned as he was pushed and pulled by Timmy. “Where we going?”

“West.”

“West?”

“Yes.”

“‘Ow far west?”

“Oh… a little bit over the bridge.”

“‘Ow far over the bridge?”

“Furnacers Lane.”

“I’m not going out there! We’ll get killed… or worse!”

“We’re coppers, Wally!”

“Exactly! That’s the Landlord’s stomping ground! If ‘e catches us…”

“Well, that’s where we’ve been told to go,” Timmy huffed. “But don’t worry. I’ll bring us some tea and mum’s jam sandwiches.”

Wally perked up.

“‘Ow many?”

“How many do you want?”

“Two… no three and a pack of them biscuits with the chocolate on ‘em.”

“That’s the spirit!” Timmy slapped him on the back as they made their way out of the precinct. “I feel it in my bones this time Wal. We do this right, no mistakes, and there’ll be a big fat commendation in it for us.”

“That’s what you said last time! And look ‘ow that turned out. I can’t even get a cuppa in the canteen no more without people oinking at me.”

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

“They’ll be laughing on the other side of their faces when we’re in the papers and we get some stripes on our shoulders. Sergeant Nairo’s probably gonna be sending us undercover, I bet.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, like proper espionage.”

“What’s that?”

“Like spies.”

“Cool. We’ll still be getting jam sandwiches though?”

“Even spies have to eat.”

“Yeah exactly.”

“I’m telling you Wally, this is the big time!”

*

“Big time,” Wally snorted.

It was the fifth time he had muttered this phrase since they had arrived. It had grated on Timmy the first couple of times but now he had to admit their top secret secondment wasn’t as exciting as he thought it would be. They had been met by a grizzled, grey haired old veteran, who took one look at them and snorted so hard snot had shot out of his nose. After a gruff debriefing, they had been sat down in an old abandoned flat, above a closed down grocers, overlooking a nondescript lane.

The so-called ‘Bandit Country’ had long been known to Timmy as a no go area. He had grown up on the streets in the quiet suburbs just north of Goblin Town. There, a Human could raise a quiet little family in poverty without much villainy or criminality. Where Timmy had grown up people were poor but house proud. They kept their front gardens tidy and the streets swept, and they’d only nick things at the end of the week when their coin purses were light. But Timmy had always been warned to keep himself on his side of the bridge. Out West, folk were different, nastier, and altogether more violent. They’d cut you and rob you, and sometimes not even in that order. Everyone knew the name and legend of The Landlord and that was enough to keep people away. He ruled the cobbles, clubs, pubs, diners, and cottage industries of the more traditional quarter of the city. Out West, Humans were able to Humans. None of the greasy, smelly, foreign food. No funny sounding names. No non-Humans coming in and undercutting good hard working Human workers. The Landlord had kept his quarter of the city free from moving with the times and that was how his people liked it… or else. Now Timmy was here though, it was kind of exactly like everywhere else in the city. Dirty, a bit run down, always slightly damp around the edges, with some law abiding people, some hard workers, and some just grinding out a miserable living. All in all, Timmy was rather disappointed.

They had been hunkered down for almost two hours in the miserable cold. The gruff old vet had stationed them at a five way junction off one of the main thoroughfares. Apparently there were five illegal gambling dens, one on each artery of the junction. The rain had kept the streets fairly quiet, even some of the legitimate shops had pulled down their shutters and closed up for the day, making the junction even quieter.

Everything was wet, despite them being inside, and the smell of damp had completely ruined the taste of their jam sandwiches. They had also run out of tea. Now they sat, wiping their constantly running noses, and hugging their arms around themselves, shivering miserably.

“What are we even doin’ ‘ere!” Wally moaned, cupping his hands to his mouth and blowing into them.

“We’re on a stakeout,” Timmy said. “We’re looking out for a dangerous villain on the loose.”

“All I’ve seen is some rough little kids and old mums carrying the washing.”

“Well it’s getting dark now, villains don’t come out in daylight do they.”

“‘Ow are we even gonna know who ‘e is?”

“Well I imagine a HobGoblin would stand out around here.”

“What’s a ‘obGoblin gonna be doing round ‘ere? Goblins are about as welcome as coppers.”

“Well… maybe…” Timmy began before giving up. “Honestly, I don’t have a clue. But this is what Sergeant Nairo wants us to do so this is what we’re doing.”

“Why do we have to do what she tells us? Not even like she’s our Sergeant.”

“All Sergeants are our Sergeants! That’s how rank works.”

“Yeah well… you’re only so keen ‘coz you fancy ‘er.”

“No I don’t!”

“Yes you do! I see the way your ears go red when she says your name.”

“No they don’t!”

“Wot, you don’t think she’s fit?”

“Well… ummm…” Timmy cleared his throat. “She’s obviously in good shape, she’s a high ranking officer and…”

“You fancy the pants off her!”

“Shut up!”

“Bet you love a bird wot tells you wot to do.”

Despite the cold, Timmy felt himself reddening.

“S’pose you could do a lot worse,” Wally mused. “Not for me though.”

“No, you like tarts who’d sell it for a copper coin.”

“Not always! But I do like a salt of the earth type girl. You know, a girl that can walk the cobbles in her bare feet with a basket on ‘er ‘ip and a smile on ‘er face. Simple like.”

“What happened to her shoes?”

“Probably got nicked or sumfin.”

Timmy snorted and shook his head.

“Sounds like the perfect girl for you.”

“Don’t knock it my friend,” Wally said, stretching out his legs. “That’s your problem Tim, you’re always tryna be better, do better, find something better. Promotions, commendations, pictures in the paper. That’s why you're so miserable.”

“I’m not miserable!”

“Yes you are.”

“No I’m not!”

“Your like a dog yapping after a hansom cab. You’ll chase it forever, but you got no clue what to do with it if you got it. Me? I’d rather sit and scratch me ear and look for a scrap o’ dinner. At the end of the day we’ll both still be dogs, just you’ll be knackered and I’ll have a full tummy.”

Timmy didn’t know what to say to that surprisingly cogent metaphor.

“You’d be happy if you spent your whole life just as you are?”

“We got food in our bellies?”

“Yes.”

“We sleep somewhere warm?”

“Yes.”

Wally shrugged.

“Pretty much all there is for fellas like us.”

“But there’s so much more!”

“And there’s a lot less too.”

Timmy mulled over Wally’s uncharacteristically wise words and sank back into sullen silence.

“Let’s just keep our eyes peeled,” he muttered after a few moments.

“You do that. I’m gonna take a little nap I reckon.”

“We’re supposed to be keeping watch!”

“Yeah, so you take the first one and you wake me if you see any Goblins wandering about.” Wally shuffled down in his seat and put his feet up on the window sill. Within seconds he was snoring gently, his helmet pulled down over his eyes, and his hands tucked firmly in his armpits.

Another hour passed and Wally was snoring loudly enough to disturb the pigeons nesting in the ceiling. Despite his best efforts, Timmy began to feel his eyelids droop. Fog creeped towards the centre of the grubby windows as the late afternoon gloom fell across the five ways. The streets were now dimly lit by glowstones deep under the haze of the day's rain. Just as his head drooped, something caught the fuzzy corners of Timmy’s attention. With a grunt, he pulled himself upright and peered into the streets. There again! A tall figure, shrouded from head to toe in a black cloak, was stealing up the lane. Timmy pushed his face against the glass, furiously wiping away the condensation to get a better look. The figure stopped. It looked up the street and then down before vanishing into an alleyway.

“Wally!” Timmy hissed. “Wally!”

Timmy slapped his slumbering partner’s thigh as he stumbled to his feet.

“Wuh… wot?” Wally woke with a start, his helmet tumbling from its precarious perch on his head.

“I think I saw him!”

“Who?”

“The HobGoblin!”

“You did?”

“Well… I’m not sure.”

“Wot d’you wake me for then,” Wally grumbled as he settled back in his chair.

“Come on! It could have been him. He was tall! Taller than a normal man and he was all wrapped up in a big cloak like he didn’t want to be seen.”

“It’s cold out, wot d’you expect?” Wally grumbled, tucking his frozen hands deeper into his armpits. “Wish I had a cloak.”

“He disappeared down the alleyway where the card house was. We have to go and check it out!”

“Check it out? We’re supposed to just watch, not go and check things out.”

“We’ve got to confirm it’s him before we contact Sergeant Nairo,” Timmy said, remembering their last comm scroll cock up.

“I’m not going nowhere,” Wally said, putting his feet back up. “I was ‘aving a lovely dream.”

“Fine. I’ll go myself then!”

Timmy grabbed his helmet and his truncheon and then stood around for a moment longer. Wally opened one eye and looked at him.

“By yourself?” he asked.

“That’s what you do when your mates don't have your back.”

Wally looked hurt for a moment. He may be amoral as a high interest loan with premature repayment penalties, but to be accused of not having your mate’s back? That wasn’t right.

Timmy looked at him pleadingly as he shuffled towards the door.

“Alright, fine! But we’re not going out dressed like coppers!” Wally huffed.

“Why not?”

“Coppers? In the dark? Round here? You’re asking for trouble.” Wally stood up and stretched his bony frame before dropping his badge into his helmet and turning his blue tunic inside out.

“There we go,” he said.

“Now we just look like a pair of pillocks,” Timmy said, tugging at his inside out uniform self consciously.

“Better a living pillock than a dead copper.”

“I guess,” Timmy said. “Come on, let's go!”

They scurried down the rickety stairs and out onto the street, the cold air waking them up. With forced casualness, they crossed the quiet street and after a second of dithering, they dived into the dark alley the cloaked figure had slipped into. They crept down the alleyway, their stealthy pursuit spoiled somewhat by the splashing of puddles under their feet, and Wally accidentally kicking a trash can didn’t help.

“Aaah,” he cried in a strangled whisper.

“Shhh,” Timmy hissed at him.

They bunched up together as they saw a solitary light down the alleyway above a door. In front of the door was a thick brute of a man with a shaved head and features that were so squashed he looked like a boiled potato someone stuck their thumb in.

“That must be where he went,” Timmy whispered as they huddled in the shadows behind a large pile of rubbish.

“How’re we gonna get past him?”

“I have a plan,” Timmy hissed.

“You do?”