résolu.

@dllsprk / eve.

              you don’t particularly like london. it’s busy, and loud, and the thought of stepping onto the underground leaves you cold – you get nothing out of being pressed against the inside of a train carriage for twenty uncomfortable minutes, while trying to avoid touching what you’ve seen to be touched recently. this is something of a punishment to you – olivier beckoned you to his office and told you to go to london like it was the news of a family member passing, and he offered nothing except a sad smile as if to say unlucky, élise.

              “so you think she is still in the country.”  viIIaneIIe skates around the continent, from paris to budapest and leaves a trail of corpses in her wake, but they haven’t been able to get any closer than this. (you often think about how eve has seen her in person. up close. eve has been the other side of a knife’s edge to a murderer, and dodges death as though it’s a game.)

               “why is she interested in you? there’s nothing extraordinary about you.”

@dllsprk / karl.

               “no.”     you lower your head to read the transcript,  and sift through page after page of french insults that you aren’t sure translate.  karl waits for you,  and you can see him out of the corner of your eye playing with the arms of his glasses and staring down over the top of them.  you don’t quite catch the i presume it’s an insult, so i don’t need to know that plays in his tone,  and instead supply him with an answer:

            “it translates to… – you are a stupid fucking pig,  and you should go to hell.”

he looks guiltier by the minute, and even though you know that having a distaste of anyone armed with a shiny badge and a sausage roll (in karl’s case) doesn’t make them guilty, you only look back at him.

@kaptaine | starter call

———

Cold water on his face doesn’t help clear his head, doesn’t clear away the silly paranoia that he’s been found out for who he is. Even though there could be no possible way – people are so sceptical these days, besides! and even the believers would take the literal truth as a spiritual meaning! – the fear of some disruption to his stable-right-now life causes him no end of panic.

When he exits the bathroom, he reintroduces himself in his best French; rusty, and perhaps grating to a fluent ear, but passable. “Titus Mallory. Doctor, neurosurgeon, from America on vacation for a week, and I… I don’t recall seeing anything suspicious.”

                she decides already that she doesn’t like the way his voice grates on her nerves. he fumbles with pronunciation, and when she deciphers what he’s trying to say, she only glares over at him. (a part of her wishes those who didn’t speak french didn’t try, and a part of her prefers it to karl’s broken err... comme si uncertain babble, or the english’s refusal to learn any language other than their own.

           “i can speak english.”     she says it only so she doesn’t have to listen to another inflection that makes her cringe, and élise pulls out a straight, sharp hand for him to shake. behind her is the bustle of men in forensic white coveralls as they shuffle under various yellow tapes and through the flash-photography of olivier’s preferred forensic analyst, and élise takes an unconscious step away from the noise.

meme.

                 she’s reminded almost instantly of karI. she’s reminded because every time eryka kIein is mentioned in passing, his eyebrows raise and the word girlfriend slips out, and is met with an instant she is not my girlfriend rebuttal. (she knows when karI is teasing her. she knows, because the corners of his mouth will eventually curl and that same english glint behind his eyes that’s responsible for the mess in his car and the way he cheats on his wife lights up again.)

                “i am not considering pursuing a relationship with eryka kIein.”

more than anything, she confuses her. fascinates her. eryka steps into her space and there’s nothing in the room that éIise should be staring at more -- because although the name eryka kIein is threaded throughout the case, she doesn’t believe it. eryka isn’t a domestic terrorist, and the more time éIise spends questioning her, and sifting through pile after pile of evidence, the less she believes it. be careful. it doesn’t matter. feelings don’t affect her police-work. éIise doesn’t feel that for her anyway. and besides, gaël used to breathe too loudly when she was trying to fall asleep, and talked over her thoughts too often.

“look, you say stealing. i say re appropriating an artifact that doesn’t belong.” a cheeky grin from the thief, who has a small greek statue in his hands as he stares at the police captain, “it’s for a good cause, mate.” he’s ever so slightly backing away from her, mind running through potentials, given the lady is blocking his planned escape route.

@kaptaine

                   “you are breaking the law.”    it’s not exactly her area of expertise: élise has more luck staring at her computer screen for a break until her back aches and she pulls a deodorant stick from her drawer, changes at her desk, and eats a mars bar for breakfast and staring at gruesome picture after gruesome picture than hunting artefacts that she doesn’t entirely understand anyway. (olivier had explained it as plainly as she’d bother listening to, and élise is nothing if not efficient and respectful of the law).

                 “excuse me. you cannot put your phone-box there.”      -- for a moment, her brain is still catching up with the logistics of an english phone-box showing up in the middle of calais without so much as a call of disturbance or local complaint, except for the fact that it’s blocking her porsche in and she has a list of things to do as long as her arm. but she reads phone-box, not cabine téléphonique and she hesitates. her eyes dart from the man, to the box, to each letter in black ink, and back to him.