February 1920 - London, England
I hated waiting for Carter, I also hated feeling like I was hung up on someone, my daily and professional life was now revolving around the same woman and I wasn't sure how comfortable I was with that fact. I also now spent an exuberant amount of time hanging around on street corners waiting for her. I hadn't see Carter for a few days after the discovery of the first body, she had gone off and buried herself in her research until she'd come up with the answer (strangulation if anyone's interested – turns out her scarf theory was probably correct). She'd updated me over some admittedly tasty pasties and even apologised for not coming around to get me. I wasn't too bothered as long as I got the full report from her, which she gave with great enthusiasm, but a part of me was a little bit disappointed by the fact that she'd solved it without me. However, I knew she'd been in the zone and she looked so abashed that I forgave her rapidly.
"So why strangulation?" I asked looking up for the first time from my notebook to question her.
"Process of elimination really" she admitted pulling at one of her nails. "When every other option is ruled out you have to resort back to the obvious. Your first instincts aren't always incorrect."
"Well you're just brilliant" I said and I was surprised to find that I meant it. "You're paying my bills Carter. Just one thing, I don't understand why nobody wanted that case if you solved it that fast. It wasn't really that hard was it?"
"Dawson, you're forgetting that everyone else isn't me." Carter laughed and I joined in after a moment. Her ego was coasting but in all actuality it deserved to be after all she just solved a case that was on the brink of being called unsolvable. I raised my glass to her and she clinked hers against mine.
"Finally getting that fame recognition then?" I asked only slightly mockingly.
"Actually, I was going to talk to you about that." Carter's smile faded off her face and I frowned in confusion.
"Isn't this what you wanted? To solve a case and get a good reputation so you're hired more in the future?"
"You can't put my name on that article Dawson." Her brows knitted together and even with my excellent people skills I couldn't discern what emotion she was feeling.
"Why?" Sometimes I wished my brain worked like Carter's, maybe then I'd have more intelligent things to say on short notice.
She sighed deeply and massaged her temple with her fingers before looking back at me. "I don't want my family to read it," she said finally.
I opened my mouth to pry and then shut it again rapidly. Afterall, she was the secret to my success and I wasn't about to make a mess of my livelihood for my own curiosity – the irony of that thought wasn't lost on me after my previous record.
So in the end all I said was "okay."
Carter left me to my report writing with an extra bag of apples and her phone number to solve our getting in contact problems.
"They were going bad, I thought you'd still eat them," she said snidely when she left and I glowered at her.
"It's 1920 I'm not going to get scurvy," I shouted at her as she left.
As the light began to sink over the rooftops I headed back out of my apartment and towards the office. It was raining, which wasn't uncommon for that kind of year but was irritating in its frequency. I had to sprint the couple of streets to the paper's headquarters shielding my notebook and my photographs inside my jacket, it ended up being pretty futile in any case.
"Hey Dawson," said the guy on the door as I scurried inside closely resembling a drowned rat.
I plonked myself down in front of one of the company typewriters and began copying my notes across. Portable typewriters were still expensive and I currently didn't have one in my possession which was getting progressively more inconvenient as my articles got longer and my headlines got bigger.
"Still here?" the voice caught me off guard and I looked up to see my father standing at my shoulder.
"Just got here actually sir," I said with as much professionalism as my sodden and tired body could muster in the moment.
"Well, don't forget you have a deadline due tomorrow," said my father with more than a hint of awkwardness.
"I'm handing it in tonight before I leave, I think it's a good one," I chipped back immediately impressed with my time management for once.
"That's a good lad," he patted my shoulder stiffly and strode towards the door.
My clacking filled the entire office long after he'd gone and the whirring of the printing presses that surrounded me added to the news symphony that would debut with the birds and the morning light. I printed off the last page and placed it neatly on the top of the pile teetering on our editor's desk ready for the morning. With professional responsibility successfully fulfilled in full for the evening I did what any self respecting guy my age would have; I went to get absolutely wasted.
The bar was absolutely rammed by the time I got there late into the night and I only just managed to find a wall to lean against with my pint, listening absent mindedly to the gossip and chatter swirling past my ears.
As I was resting my senses for a moment a burly man stumbled into the wall right next to me jolting my drink and my brain in one swift thump.
"Oi watch it!" I looked up fuming, my shirt had already been soaked that day and I wasn't going to let it be again.
"Sorry mate," the man slurred straightening up and slapping me on the shoulder.
For a moment he looked at me slightly longer than was natural and then he blurted out "you're that reporter at the Yard yesterday ain't you?"
I inspected him but couldn't place whether I'd seen him before or not. Luckily, he didn't give me time to respond.
"You're the one that's stuck with Carter right, how awful is she like to work with?" He leaned against the wall next to me laughing much too hard at his non-joke.
I evaluated briefly and found myself far from drunk enough for conversations with the Yard's finest. "I work with her," I said after a moment "and she's alright."
"Oh we have to deal with her tips waaayyy too often, she needs to just back out of business which is far beyond her, thinks she knows everything that one." He rolled his eyes and smirked at me. "Look me in the eye and tell me she isn't the most controlling and conceited know-it-all you've ever had the misfortune to spend more than a minute with."
I had been downing my drink as he spoke and I swallowed to reply with a laugh. "Well she is a bit of a know-it-all but she probably deserves to be." I waved my hand vaguely for another beer.
The man looked at me with the same expression I imagined one would produce if their colleague told them they loved to drink water from the Thames. He seemed unable to comprehend what I had said in any way.
"But, she's awful," he said finally, slurring the words out so much that they ran together.
My annoyance bloomed inside me although I couldn't tell you why. "Have you ever even spoken to her? She may be conceited but she was damn smart enough to solve a case none of the rest of you could." I glared at him and he flared even redder in the face.
"Look here son, any man in that building could have solved that murder with his eyes closed we just didn't want to and you wouldn't want to be going down to the docks after what those workers said either."
I caught myself as I prepared to launch into another rant and frowned at him. "What do you mean after what they said? There was no witnesses in the file?"
The man shuddered visibly and lowered his voice. "They said they heard the guy screaming like he was burning from the inside out, they said it must have been the devil himself."
I straightened up unsteadily and looked him dead in the eye with scorn. "So Scotland Yard are even bigger cowards than I thought. You're so scared you couldn't even go to the site of the murder so you send a woman down there in your place – that's pathetic." I shook my head and my world moving around me caused me to stumble sideways, which was a good thing indeed because the man had smashed his glass into the wall where my head had been moments prior. I ducked under his arm and ran for the door as quickly as I could. I didn't think I was possible for me to lose even more respect for Scotland Yard but they always seem to find a way to drag themselves lower. I stumbled home through the fog that had descended on the city and sank into bed half unconscious. Right before I passed out I vaguely noticed my house still smelled of wet dog.