Sherlock by Paul Osborne

Author:Paul Osborne
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House

Chapter 13

Just Another Day

‘There’s a part of me that hopes there is a God who watches over us on earth and that there’s another place we go when we die. But there are times when I struggle with that and wonder, with so much hatred and violence in the world, would anyone’s god really allow so much suffering?’

Yes, that’s me … I said that. It’s the firefighter talking. The firefighter that’s been inside me for half my life. Sometimes he comforts me and reassures me that everything that has passed is where it should be – in the past. Sometimes he niggles at me and makes me question myself, the universe and why every working day we see so many examples of man’s inhumanity to man. As I’ve been thinking such things for a long time now, I’m guessing it goes with the job.

Six thirty a.m. and the Thames looks really beautiful. Calm. Sherlock is paddling on the foreshore in the slack water and I can see he’s tempted to take a dip. He keeps looking across to me as if I’m going to make his mind up for him but he’s on his own with that one. It’s sunny but it’s cold for a September morning and I wish I had grabbed my fleece before leaving Dowgate. I try to bring Sherlock down here whenever I can because I think he loves this time of day and this place as much as I do. For me, it’s quality thinking time – no one around, being at one with nature, and the city still half asleep.

I’m looking at him now, standing in the shallow water, the yellow sun on his face and the silver reflection of the water creating a bit of a halo around his head.

There are times when I’m over-thinking things, about the report I’ve just read and the images I’ve just seen of a family lost in the flames of a house we are about to search, and then I glance over at Sherlock. He’ll be smiling because he’s at work and every outing for him is a chance to meet new people and run off some of his boundless energy. It’s comforting to have him there, and reassuring because he doesn’t change. He is the constant. To all of us in the London Fire Brigade Investigation Team Sherlock is one of us: he is a skilled investigator, he wears a uniform, and he reacts when the bells go down. He’d probably go to the gym, go for a pint and then enter a doughnut-eating competition if I let him.

When the Fire Brigade is called out they land as a team, as a single unit, more like a battalion of ground-force troops than one of the Emergency Services. As a body of men and women they are ready to tackle the enemy, which, in our case, is fire. Each individual on a Watch will have a specific role to play. Everything about you has to be focused on the job.

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