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The chief superintendent had informed John and Jamie that they would have their team expanded so that they could tackle the numerous murders of the county at a quicker pace. This was especially for the sake of Jamie being under the weather too often, which was infuriating for the DCI- how Winter couldn’t take care of himself when it came to physical limits. The fact that the transferee would arrive in the midst of a murder investigation was a relief for John. A murderer with a strange addiction to the theme of knitting and sheep was still on the loose, and the absence of DS Winter- dying from a cold- was proving to take its toll on Barnaby.
That announcement came on Monday, then came the homicide the next day, and the following day had John having to work alone because of Winter catching a horrible cold from one of the suspects. So 3 days into the investigation, John was on his own. At the same time news of the addition to his little team spread around the station like wildfire, and John soon found himself eavesdropping on a conversation between two PCs, during the late hours of that week’s Friday, when people were starting to head home. He briefly stared at the PCs who were in the hall with their coats on, envying them. Late night for me.
He was currently looking through some finances from one of his suspects, but he was beginning to zone out from his work and starting to pay more attention to the two constables conversing outside of the office. Upon listening to them for just a little longer, Barnaby realized they were talking about the detective who would be transferring. He actually didn’t know much about who the new person was, only that they were young and a DC- though from where and when, he wasn’t told by his superior yet. The higher up man had some of his own affairs going on, so the announcement to John and his sergeant was a very brief one.
“Did you hear that DCI Barnaby is getting a new guy in his team?”
“Oh yeah...aren’t they from Brighton or something?”
“Yeah. Apparently one of the PCs did some digging in their downtime at the station and pulled up the bloke’s file. Asian guy apparently.”
“Really?”
“Uh huh.”
“You don’t see many of them coming out here though...I would’ve expected for him to try and transfer to one of the cities with a bigger Asian population.”
“Same here, mate. Some people around here already don't trust cops, imagine how they might treat this new guy because of his background.”
“Yeah, that's a fair point. But also— when is he coming?”
“Someone from uniform did some eavesdropping on the chief superintendent yesterday and said they were talking about getting a desk ready for the detective on Monday.”
“Huh,” the other constable huffed with a slightly confused tone. “A bit soon, isn’t it?”
“Maybe the DCI’s sergeant is really sick or something.”
And that was the end of their conversation about the transferee. Their topic of conversation quickly switched to something about grabbing dinner together, voices getting fainter as they left the floor. Honestly, they weren’t totally wrong about Winter. He was apparently dying, according to what Sarah read from his Twitter spam.
Monday? That soon? The DCI made a hushed snort. Transfer processes usually took at least a month to go through. Maybe the chief superintendent was desperate for him to have a partner to work with, for the sake of getting to the bottom of this homicide investigation faster. A thought came to mind, and Barnaby opened his inbox to find an email from the superintendent that had been sent in the afternoon at his busiest of hours. The subject line read “transfer detective file”, and a smirk slowly crept upon John’s face as he gave himself the excuse to dismiss his investigation for a few minutes. He immediately clicked on the linked file, the tiredness briefly disappearing as his interest peaked.
A few moments later, the file had fully loaded. Obviously, it was a profile taken from the main police system. The first thing John did was look at the picture to see what the man looked like, though he already had a vague idea of what the detective might look like. He found himself looking at the image of a very young looking man. The DC was 29 years old, not too far behind Winter. Barnaby began to read more into the young man’s background— surprised to see an undergraduate background in entomology, a joint institution degree between Manchester and Beijing. Could be of use at crime scenes if he did specialized courses in forensic entomology… he considered, whilst letting out a long yawn that reminded him how long of a day it had been.
John rubbed his face with a sigh of exhaustion, pausing when the faint ding of the elevator down the hall from the main office caught his attention. It was quite late into the evening, so most of the station was likely empty, minus some of those who were working overtime or doing night shifts on other floors. It was probably just someone from this department who had forgotten their lunch kit by accident or someone who wanted to return some files.
Barnaby’s eyes wandered back to his computer screen to continue reading about the DC. A few moments passed before he shivered at a small draft that crept into the room.
“Um, hi.”
John nearly fell out of his chair at the sudden voice, low-pitched and soft. He jerked his head in the direction of the voice, eyes locking with a young Asian man standing there. The sudden eye contact caused the young man to quickly drop his gaze to the floor, who wasn’t expecting the abrupt reaction from John. The brief shock quickly dwindled away as Barnaby’s brain clicked after he took a quick glance at his computer screen. The person standing before him was the new Detective Constable.
As he maintained his gaze on the man, John put out his hand. “DCI Barnaby.”
The man looked up at him and slowly reached out to shake it.
“Detective Constable Aiden Gou,” he introduced, a slightly nervous tone in his voice.
“You scared the living daylights out of me, Constable.”
Aiden chuckled nervously. “Sorry about that, sir. It’s a weird habit I have. My boss tells me that I have a... quiet gait .”
“Stealth is an essential for the job sometimes,” John joked, eliciting a relieved smile from Aiden. “Just don’t give me a heart attack next time.”
DC Gou quickly made a nod of affirmation alongside a muddled response, something along the lines of “Yes, sir. Sorry.” He began to turn his back to the DCI in order to get a better look around the office, but was stopped when John inquired about his early-than-anticipated arrival.
“Oh…um, my boss had some words with the chief superintendent here and managed to convince him that I should have the weekend to get my bearings.”
“Then I guess I’ll leave you to it. And welcome to Midsomer.”
The DC made a nod. “Thank you, sir.”
An awkward smile was passed from DC Gou to John, who reciprocated it. John went back to his actual work, while Aiden quietly located his empty desk at the work station beside the two main desks used by Barnaby and Winter. The DCI could hear the quiet shuffling of items being placed and moved around on the desk.
Before John became too immersed into his case, there was one thing that came to mind. Aiden’s boss in Brighton. He recalled one of the PCs mentioning it in the conversation he had eavesdropped on, and with that location, a familiar name manifested.
“Gou.”
The shuffling and rustling of items briefly paused. “Sir?”
“You’re from Brighton, right?”
“Uh, yes.”
“I’m just curious, but who was your boss?” John asked.
Aiden glanced up from the desk at John, a look of realization appearing in his eyes.
“DI Ben Jones.”
“My former sergeant.”
DC Gou nodded as he developed a sheepish smile and looked down at his workstation. “Yeah. He told me that I would get put into your team. Didn’t realize it was you because I was so tired from the train ride here.”
“I’m surprised Jones never informed me before you came here.”
“Oh? I saw how excited he was though…”
And then things clicked in John’s head. His expression soured ever so slightly.
Damn you, Jones.
Even when he was miles and miles away from Midsomer, the DCI’s former sergeant still managed to press some of his buttons. The nerve of that man...almost inducing a heart attack. Jones was probably waiting for John to call him about it, since the DI recognized his former boss for being completely able to put the pieces of a puzzle together...and judging from the slightly-confused look on Aiden's face, the poor lad didn’t even know that he was an instrument in Jones’ small prank.
At this point, John was too tired to even explain it and just looked back at his screen, uttering something about wanting to call the DI to ‘check in on him’, which only resulted in a quiet ‘oh’ from DC Gou. A few minutes passed. Despite his sights being on a document presented before him, John overheard a low chuckle to his left— Aiden Gou had also put the pieces together. Barnaby smiled.
Smart kid.