Testing the Water
[A piece of fanfic to while away the time]
She wore a baseball cap with a big blue star on it, jeans, a pilled fleece top and a hi-vis jacket. Hands on bony hips, she stared out at the horizon. ‘I love my job!’
There was no answer.
‘I mean … the sand, the sea, this early breeze in the morning.’ She took a deep breath. ‘The scent of salt in the air … the sound of waves! I bet there are dolphins out there.’
‘Come on, Patricia. We’ve got no time to commune with nature. They want the samples back today.’ Her companion rolled up his sleeves. In a hi-vis jacket too, his clothes were very different. For a start, he wore the company shirt, all ironed and immaculate. His well-combed hair blew in the wind, which came in from the bay, bearing the scent of salt and sunshine … and something else.
He raised his head. ‘What’s that I smell? Never mind—let’s do it, quick.’
But Patricia was not to be hurried. ‘Look! Look! Those are oystercatchers. Did you know they do everything in pairs? They mate for life. Committed pairs … so unlike humans. Oystercatchers need no laws or the threat of losing a house or having to fight for custody of the children. Those birds are just …’
‘Patricia!’
She turned away from the edge of the waves coming in from the edge of islands. ‘Trouble with you, Maurice,’ she said, her voice starting to sing-song a little, ‘is you have no head for the heights of perfection. Look at that sea … look at those islands out there … look at— are those pelicans coming our way? Wow!’
He hid a smile when she said perfection. None of that in her clothes, obviously. He eyed an old stain on her jacket and handed her two large sample jars with screw-top caps. ‘Do it. Go. I’ll do the writing. Never mind perfection, never mind the birds and the breeze.’
‘They have it better than us, let me tell you. They don’t need to be told to be faithful and loyal.’
‘True. Now please fill these jars. We need those samples. It’s what they pay us for.’
‘They pay us for wearing these orange jackets with TruSample Tests Dot Com on the back. That’s what my measly wage is for. For driving a big blue van with Our Tests are Five-Star! on the side.’
Maurice got down on one knee and took another two jars from the case, whose lid was thrown wide open. He hoped no sand would blow into it. ‘Go on. You know we have to do six. And I thought you said you love your job.’
‘I do! Look around you … this is our office! It’s the pay I hate.’ She hooted a laugh and walked to the edge, wading in to about half the height of her rubber boots. She unscrewed the lids, pocketed them, and scooped seawater into the jars. ‘There. Hand me another two,’ she said when she walked back to Maurice.
He looked at the sand stuck to her wet boots, hoping she would rinse everything off before she got back in the van.
‘What, Maurice?’
‘Nothing.’ He held a jar up against the sky and squinted, one eye shut. ‘The water looks pretty clear.’
‘You know that’s no indication.’
‘I know.’ He did not see a woman in a green raincoat walk up.
She stopped about two metres from him and swung her eyes to Patricia, out in the shallows. Maurice made sure the lids were on tight, placed them in the case and looked up when the woman’s shadow fell across the case.
‘Having a good day, pet?’
He squinted. Thrown into silhouette, the woman was just a big dark green shape from that angle, so he stood. He took in her large form, the green hat forced hard down above her eyes, the balls of her fists in the deep pockets.
‘Hullo.’ What else could he say?
‘Do you really need to test?’ she asked, her eyes full of mirth.
‘Well, yes. It’s what we do. It’s in our job description. We’re with …’
‘TruSample Tests. One doesn’t need to be a detective to notice that. Even my sergeant will pick that up, easy-peasy.’ She tilted her head backwards to indicate a young man trudging towards them in the sand.
Maurice watched him approach, watched him whip out an ID card with a crowned star on it, and the words Northumbria Police above his picture.
‘DS Ashworth,’ the young man muttered, out of breath. ‘Could you please step back from this area?’
Maurice did not move an inch. ‘What area?’ But he looked around and saw a taped-off length of sand to the side of a distant dune. Before either the woman in green or DS Ashworth could say another word, there was a scream from Patricia.
‘Out of the water, pet!’ The green raincoated woman took off at a run. ‘Come on, out you get. This is no place to be testing the water.’
‘What’s that?’ Patricia screamed again, pointing out toward the rolling surf.
‘Who’s that?' Maurice pointed at the large woman. 'Who does she think she is?’ He huffed and watched as Patricia was pulled back from the frothy edge, her boots leaving large drag marks in the flattened sand.
‘She …’ Ashworth took a ragged breath. ‘She is DCI Stanhope. My governor, my boss.’ Under his breath, he muttered, ‘For my sins.’
‘DCI …?’
‘Detective Chief Inspector, and you better do what she says. There are some uniforms coming down with bags and gurneys, and she’ll want you out of the way.’
‘Bags and gurneys?’
The sergeant stood taller. ‘Are you just going to repeat everything I say, or are you going behind that tape like you’ve been requested to do?’
Maurice's shoulders squared up. ‘But we’ve got to take samples. It’s our job. Do you know how dangerous E.coli can be? If you swim where the water’s contaminated, E.coli can give you a nasty …’
‘You’ll get something nasty if you don’t obey DCI Vera Stanhope, mate.’
‘Oh!’ Maurice had heard something about a Vera who scared the living daylights out of one of the other health inspectors. ‘Oh, her. My goodness, is it really her?’
‘There couldn’t possibly be another like her.’ The sergeant smiled and winked.
As they spoke, a troop of uniformed constables came down the dunes, accompanied by a number of people in white bodysuits. Three of them moved towards the taped line of sand, and another three, together with two people in wetsuits, came their way. Some men erected a marquee just inside the tape.
‘Step away please,’ one of them called. ‘Right now!’
‘But we’re testing for E.coli!’ Patricia’s voice travelled over the sound of swash and people’s voices.
‘Joe!’ DCI Stanhope’s voice was louder. ‘Get them behind the tape, will you?’ Louder and bigger than anyone else, she was.
‘I suppose we’ll have to move up the beach and test further on.’ Maurice pointed a finger.
Joe Ashworth glared.
‘I mean … I mean down the beach.’ Maurice pointed the other way. ‘I tell you we need those samples. We’ll have to close the beach if there’s a contamination.’
The sergeant laughed. ‘The beach is closed. The beach will be closed for some time, mate. I mean, sir.’
In five minutes, they all stood behind the tape, with Vera Stanhope panting a bit and Maurice flushed and outraged. A constable pulled shoe covers off the Chief Inspector’s shoes. Some of the uniformed policemen were peeling off gloves. Others, just arrived, were pulling gloves on, and standing on one leg to pull on shoe covers.
Patricia just stared, but Maurice was full of questions, which he did not hesitate to voice.
'No, you can’t go anywhere.’ Everyone stopped and turned to listen when Detective Chief Inspector Stanhope spoke, even though she did not raise her voice. ‘There’s something a bit more noxious in the water than E.coli, pet,’ she said. ‘Now listen to me. We need statements from both of you, so talk to this sergeant here, and that constable there.’ She gestured and everyone fell into step. ‘I could murder a cuppa.’
All she had to do was speak her desire aloud. A female detective ran up the sand towards the steps. With any luck there would be a pop-up van selling coffee and tea and perhaps an egg and cress sandwich. With any luck, DCI Stanhope would fork out the money for whatever she found for her to breakfast on.
Joe Ashworth watched Patricia and Maurice listen and nod, nod and listen. There was another little scream from Patricia.
It took all of twenty-five minutes before Maurice and Patricia sat back in their blue van, parked nose to nose with a Jeep Defender that had seen better times. They did not utter a word, but paused to summon their wits. ‘That was quite something.’
But the silence drew on.
‘We only took two samples.’
Patricia spoke after a while. ‘And those were for nothing. She … that Chief Inspector or whoever she is …’
‘She’s Vera. We’ve come face to face with Vera Stanhope.’
‘I believe that was her name, Maurice, but she …’
‘Her reputation, might I observe, is bigger than this beach. I’d heard of her, but never thought I’d meet her, on a work day, on the beach!’
There was an awed pause.
‘That raincoat, but.’
‘Is that all you noticed—her raincoat? The woman is a legend.’
‘Hah! A legend in a squashed hat. She’s pretty forbidding, isn’t she, but?' Patricia grew pensive. 'What reputation?’
‘She … oh, never mind! I seized up when she showed us there was a body behind the tape, under that marquee they put up. Jeepers!’
Patricia gave a little groan. ‘And another one in the water, Maurice … not three metres from where I stood in it, up to my boots!’
‘I heard you scream.’
‘You’d have screamed too—it was like four feet away. A lump in the sea. Ugh.’
‘More noxious than E.coli, she said.’ Maurice took a pensive pause. ‘Do you think that’s true, now? Are bodily fluids …?’
‘Stop it, Maurice! Stop it! Ugh. Don’t say another word. I filled two jars in that spot. I … we … we weren’t three feet from that floating corpse. Ugh, ugh.’ The distance grew shorter with every mention Patricia made. ‘Which is why they took the jars, duh.’ She shook her head and looked at her phone. ‘How on earth are we going to explain all this to Roger?’
‘Roger might be our boss, but he’s nothing compared to Vera.’
‘When you stop being so star-struck, Maurice, perhaps you’d do us a favour and drive to the office. We have some explaining to do.’
‘We sure do.’ But he did not move.
‘And there I was, thinking my day was made because I saw a pair of oystercatchers on the beach.’ Patricia sat back and waited for Maurice to turn the key in the ignition. ‘Watch that jeep,’ she said automatically. ‘It’s parked the wrong way round. Isn’t that illegal?’
‘It’s hers, I think. It’s the DCI’s. So it’s legal. Or can’t they do what they like, when it comes to parking, the police?’
‘How would I know?’ Patricia sniffed and looked out of her window. ‘What a morning. I thought the sea looked beautiful. First those birds, then a brush with two bodies.’
‘Never mind the bodies, Patricia. Think of who we met. Think of what’s more formidable.’
‘You’re never going to get over this, are you, Maurice?’
‘Over being so close to two dead bodies? Oh, the shock will pass with time. Over not bringing Roger any samples? I don’t know.’
‘Over meeting this Vera person, I mean. You’re so impressed. You’ll never get over it, will you?’
‘Never.’ He moved at last. The van’s engine thrummed to life.
000
© Rosanne Dingli 2025