The detective is shown into the cabin, where the captain stands with his hands clasped behind his back, watching the distant world and the twinkling assembly of warships and defence platforms.
‘Evening, Captain,’ the detective starts, ‘I hoped I could begin by-’
‘Why are you here?’ the captain demands, not turning to face the detective. His tone is as short clipped as his hair.
The detective had anticipated this kind of reception. After all, men like this are not accustomed to having strangers beyond their control coming aboard their ship and going where they like to ask difficult questions.
‘I am here to investigate the killing, captain,’ the detective says simply. A dead sailor, so brutally butchered on the lower decks of a warship on the eve of battle, is bound to raise a few eyebrows.
‘Indeed?’ The captain nods out to the window, at the world and the enemy fleet orbiting. ‘There is about to be a lot of killing, detective. What makes this one worthy of your scrutiny?’
‘I rather suspect this killing was not done by the hand of an enemy,’ says the detective. ‘But rather, by one of your crew.’
‘Might be that all of us are dead by the end of this week, do you think that will be worth investigation?’
‘Maybe by someone better versed in war,’ allows the detective.
‘Strange that death warrants different kinds of justice,’ says the captain. ‘Death is death. There’s little you can do for the dead.’
‘I think you and I have a very different sense of justice, captain,’ says the detective.
‘But perhaps the same view of death.’
Paddy Dobson
10th October 2022