Aaron Elkins - Unnatural Selection

“Wait a minute,” Gideon said. He was shaking his head incredulously. “Hold on, Kyle. Are we really talking about the same Mike Clapper? He was a famous detective? He was a chief inspector? What’s he doing as a constable sergeant out in the Scillies? What happened to him? Was he demoted?”

“Not exactly,” Robb said. “But just when he was at the top of the heap, a lot of things began going wrong for him. His life pretty much came apart.”

First, and probably most important, his wife of nearly thirty years died after a long, exhausting battle with cancer. Then, only a few weeks after her funeral, he received word that the position of detective superintendent, for which he’d applied months earlier, had gone to a much younger man with little more than half his experience and nowhere near his record of medals, commendations, and successes. What he did have was training in community relations and three years’ experience as departmental ombudsman-two areas that, as far as Clapper was concerned, had nothing to do with real police work, the meat of which was persistence, legwork, and the dogged, life-encompassing determination to put the bad guys away.

After that it was all downhill. Clapper turned bitter and became increasingly solitary. Once the pride of the department, he became perceived by his higher-ups as an anachronism: a stubbornly old-fashioned copper who had stayed beyond his time and whose hard-nosed approach to the job was outmoded and discredited. His positions on what policing was all about-and especially what it wasn’t about-had brought a string of in-house complaints from the chief of Community Relations, the representative of the Gay Police Association, and the head of the Diversity Enhancement Task Force. More than that, his increasingly negative attitude was becoming a bad influence on the younger members of the force. And on top of that-

Robb hesitated. “Well, he began… he had… other problems too.”

“Alcohol?” said Gideon.

“Exactly. He was drinking too much.”

It was time for him to go, and various efforts, some subtle, some not, were made to retire him, either voluntarily or otherwise. But with two years left to qualify for a full pension, he wasn’t about to be “made redundant,” and there was no way to force him. After considerable dickering, an unusual compromise was reached. Clapper would be transferred from the large port city of Plymouth to the obscure, virtually crime-free outpost of St. Mary’s, where he could harmlessly serve out his time without getting into trouble or offending anyone. But for him to assume the position of the Scillies’ “neighborhood beat manager” required that he be downgraded from detective inspector to constable sergeant. This he reluctantly accepted, with the proviso that his grade for pension purposes remain that of chief inspector. To this the department agreed, and to the Scillies he came, and here he had been for the last six months, out of the mainstream and pretty much going through the motions.

“Not that much beyond going through the motions is generally required here,” Robb said with a smile. “We’re not what you might call a hotbed of crime. But you can imagine how tough it must be on the old man to be reporting to people in Exeter who don’t know the half of what he does.”

“Well, I admit,” Gideon said as their waiter came to pick up their payments, “I’m impressed. About the only thing I had right about him was that he was counting the days to retirement.”

“Which isn’t hard to understand,” Robb said. “Things haven’t been easy for him.”

“They can’t have been too easy for you either,” said Gideon. “I didn’t get the impression he was the easiest boss in the world to work for.”

“Oh, not so bad. One has to make allowances. One has to consider who he is. It’s been a privilege to work with him, really. I’ve learned a lot.”

“I admire your staying power,” Gideon said.

“Well, yes, it was a little hard at first,” Robb admitted, “but after a couple of months on the island he mellowed. He likes the idea of living at the police station, for one thing.”

“He lives at the police station?” Julie said, surprised.

“Well, above it. Above the store, as we say,” Robb said with a smile. “Upstairs, on the first floor. My wife and I do, too. There are several flats up there. It used to be a common arrangement years ago, but you don’t see it much anymore, except in out-of-the-way places like this. And then…” He hesitated. “The fact is, he’s gotten himself a lady-friend who more or less lives there too. That’s really mellowed him. For one thing, she’s gotten him off the sauce. He’s a teetotaler now, which has made all the difference in the world. He’s put his life together again. But any time he has to deal with Exeter”-he shook his head-“he’s an unhappy man.”

They got up from the table and walked to the terrace’s metal railing to look out over the water at the outer islands for a few moments. The sun was warm on their faces, the breeze cool. “That’s Samson on the left,” Robb said, slipping on his tunic, “and Tresco over there, and Bryher lies between them. Beautiful, aren’t they?”

“Lovely,” Julie agreed.

“Enjoy the view while you can. This is what we call fog season, you know, and it looks like it may be a bad one. It’s already starting to build out there. I suspect we’ll be socked in pretty soon now.” He sighed, put on his helmet, adjusted the chin strap, and tapped it into place with his palm. “Ouch.”

“But it’s so becoming on you,” Julie said.

Robb smiled his thanks. “So what do you say, sir? Will you come by the station? Anytime now would be fine. He’ll have come back from lunch.”

“Okay, I’ll be there in half an hour or so. And Kyle-I want you to know I appreciate this. I hated to just let it drop.”

“You’re welcome. Mostly, I’m doing this for the sergeant. I know that working on a real murder case again would do him a world of good. Otherwise, you know, I’d never have said… I wouldn’t have told you…”

“I understand. But listen, you’re sure he hasn’t gotten any calls from Exeter today?”

“None,” Robb said laughing. “He’s as gentle as-”

“A lamb,” Gideon finished for him.

“An old lion with most of his teeth pulled would be closer to it,” Robb said, and then, in friendly warning: “But not all of them.”

Sergeant Clapper was awaiting him at the entry to Robb’s cubicle, leaning casually against the frame of the glass partition, sipping from a chipped mug of coffee and chatting with Robb, who was seated at his desk, sorting desultorily through the mess of files on it.

“Here’s the very man,” was his indisputably genial greeting. “PC Robb was telling me you might be coming in again about that bone of yours.” He was in uniform today: open-throated, short-sleeved white shirt with blue-and-gold epaulets decorated with chevrons; dark blue trousers; and heavy, polished black shoes.

“Well, yes, I thought that maybe there was a little more to talk about,” Gideon said.

“Indeed, yes. I was thinking the same thing. I was extremely interested in what you were saying yesterday, you know, but then we were interrupted by that…” He made a growling noise deep in his throat. “… that sodding telephone call, and when I came back you’d up and left, hadn’t you?”

That’s not quite the way I remember it, Gideon thought, but it didn’t seem meanly intended, so he let it pass with no more than a murmur. If that was the way Clapper wanted to recall it, that was fine with him.

“I’ve been thinking about it,” Clapper went on, motioning Gideon to follow him to his own office, “and I’ve done a bit of checking in the-oh, coffee?” he said, pointing to the coffeemaker in the unoccupied cubicle.