Simon Brown was admiring the impossibly blue sky.

The old house was coming along. He was working on the back porch today. sanding down the filler, getting ready for painting. It struck him that today would have been the perfect day for painting, but it would have to wait until tomorrow as that would be the time it would take for the filler to dry completely.

He had never been much into manual labour. He had done some odd jobs in construction in the years before he joined the force but hadn't enjoyed them, or lasted at them very long. This was different. For the first time there was a purpose to what he was doing. He was starting to understand how this stuff worked. 

He had gone for a checkup the day before. The doctor said that he was more or less healthy for someone of his age and lifestyle, but he could work on his weight. He had the beginnings of a beer belly now. He had always kept fit. But recently he seemed to be getting lazy. The motivation he had had even ten years ago just wasn't there. 

Taking a short break, he went back into the house. He barely remembered living in the house, but the white enamel oven still stuck vividly in his memories. It was still there, though the rest of the house had been remodeled and refurnished multiple times. The previous owner had restored it to its original condition at some point. 

Just looking at it gave him comfort. A reminder of a fortunate time in his childhood. One of the only fortunate times, before everything else happened... 

The full moon had been two days before. some wolves had come up through the laneway at the back of the property and the back fence had taken a beating. He would have to fix that later. 

It was a nice autumn day. the sky was a monochrome blue, and he could see the thin sliver of the Great Crow River below the riverside apartments along Margate Rd. A train rattled along the foreshore, and tiny people strolled on the banks.

He went back to work, filing away with gusto. Sometimes he was frustrated by the amount of process, but overall the house was coming along slowly but surely. 

The news had come down the grapevine that Elise Wu was transferring to Corviston. The news had come as a shock to him. He'd thought she would stay even though her unit was disbanded. She was a Wythaven girl through and through. Maybe she wanted a fresh start. He knew that theorising was unproductive, but he couldn't help it. He couldn't understand. Why? Oh well. The truth would come out in the course of things. No need to hurry it along, that was always bound to cause trouble. 

And he would have a chance to talk to her in due course. She was due to start tomorrow, and Dumeuil wanted him working with her, as they had worked so well in Wythaven, as per his own words. If only he knew the truth about that. 

He closed his eyes. It would be the usual procedure of getting to know a new colleague, though this time the task would be easier than usual. 

He stopped sanding, letting the fine dust settle. He felt the spots where the wood met the filler, feeling for any gaps or rough spots he might have missed. Taking a few steps back, he admired his handiwork. He could start painting, as soon as he got the paint ready. He had more than enough from painting the front of the house before. 

He went back in the house, got a beer from the fridge, cracked it open sitting on the porch while admiring the view. For a moment all was forgotten. 

Fingers crossed that the fine weather would last. 

***

The M1 was clogged, as usual. The stop start traffic was starting to get on Elise's nerves. The grabby clutch in the Integra was not helping this.

 The rest of her stuff was still in boxes in the apartment. A removal van would be bringing it down tomorrow. 

She thought about her old life. She had left all of that behind now. She had spent almost her entire adult life in Wythaven. She'd maybe spent a day total in the capital: Once during a school trip twenty years ago, and a few work-related trips in the past few years, and of course the visits to family. 

She had always gone along with the flow. Even joining the force had not taken a massive amount of initiative: she had just seen an advert and applied. For the first time she had gone out of her way to make something happen. And it wasn't even something that she was sure she wanted. 

For the first time she would be hundreds of kilometres away from the rest of her family. It would be fine, she told herself. She would be able to cope. She would call back frequently. They would visit, whenever they could, which was more often than not given they were retired. But it was not the same. She felt like she was leaving a part of her behind. It felt... permanent. Like she wouldn't be able to go back. 

She wasn't too happy with the way they'd handled things. They had done some good work in that unit. They had been a determined team. At times people didn't get along but overall she looked back fondly on the memories. Maybe they shouldn't have disbanded it. She didn't know. It was too early to make a call on that. 

The fiasco had been a blow, and one that she had never seen coming. Six months later, she still didn't know how exactly she felt about it. She felt angry, betrayed even, that D'Souza had covered things up. She remembered her days as a rookie all those years ago. She had looked up to him. Why had he done those things? Why had he accepted the money from the company? She couldn't reconcile that with the strict but fair taskmaster she had in her mind. The mentor she turned to when she was uncertain. The one that had shaped her career. 

She had visited him while he was in custody awaiting trial. He was thinner, his cheeks sallow. A shadow of the man she remembered. He still had the same resolve in his eyes though, and he spoke of evidence he said would prove he was innocent. She listened without saying a word, letting him air out his grievances at the people who he believed had let him down. She found it difficult to suppress the pity she felt. She knew he would have been dismissive. Oh, don't feel sorry for me, he would have said. 

Luckily the half-hour time limit had come up and the guard came to fetch her away at that point, and she had wished him luck. She would not have been surprised had he started spouting hate about the sea-gypsies and their role in ruining his reputation. 

He was going down for sure. They needed a scapegoat. She had to admit that she did agree with him a little bit on that last point. He had been let down by everyone he had trusted. He had been chosen as the scapegoat, and the many others who were complicit would walk free. They had known of this for the better part of two decades. They could have chosen at any time to release the info. But obviously the Cons needed a pre-election boost. 

He was due to be sentenced in a few weeks. She would have to come back for that. She felt he needed her in the courtroom supporting him.

She was getting closer to Corviston proper now. The open fields had given way to low-rise industrial estates and high-voltage transmission lines and subdivisions of townhouses that all looked the same. 

Maybe it would be a fresh start. 

***

The accomodation arrangements had not quite been finalised: the landlord was fixing something so for the first few days she would be staying with her aunt. She didn't know her too well. She had emigrated 10 years after her parents and they had not really stayed in touch. They only visited every now and then. Every time she would cook up a feast.

She suddenly realised she had seen more of her aunt in China than she had after she had emigrated. Maybe her decision had been an unconscious one to address this. 

She had only been there twice but it was enough to remember the address in Margate without consulting a map. left onto the Ring Road, get off at the Ravenview exit, quick jaunt through the local traffic. 

*** 

Her aunt's Corviston house was a block of 1950s flats a short walk from the bohemian cafes of Margate Rd. The place looked like it hadn't seen a lick of paint since she had last visited, but she had seen dodgier places in her life. 

She parked in the visitor bay (carefully marked out by the body corporate, the fresh paint contrasting with the dilapidated state of everything else, and walked slowly up the stairs. There was the faint smell of urine, and something else hanging in the air. 

She knocked on the door. "Coming! Coming!" The sound of shuffling slippers. She heard the sound of a deadbolt turning. The wrinkled, bespectacled face of her aunt poked through the gap. The expression of joy spread across her face as she caught sight of her niece. "Come in, come in." She ushered her into the house. It was neat and well-kept, though overflowing with things that she had collected over the years. "I hope you had a safe trip." 

"It was fine." Elise found herself saying. "There was a lot of traffic on the highway, though." There was the smell of cooking in the air. She sniffed. The smell made her hungry. She felt overwhelmed by her warmth, as she put down her things in the hallway and replaced her shoes with slippers from the rack by the front door. While her aunt rushed back into the kitchen to attend to something that had boiled over, she took a moment to compose herself.