'You seem sane enough. Not like your wacko little friend here.'

Although Ben was annoyed by Wallis's smugness and criticisms, he could tell that the Doctor wanted him to keep quiet so that he could try his own methods to get his way with Wallis.

'Captain,' the Doctor began, 'I think you should start by investigating the actions of the film's director, Leonard De Sande.'

Wallis put his head in his hands. 'Why me? Please God, why me?'

'I suppose you're just one of the lucky ones.' The Doctor seemed oblivious to Wallis's mockery. 'What I've told you is pretty shocking, isn't it? So will you help me? Will you try to expose the film's true purpose?'

Wallis's face fell blank, amusement draining from it. After several seconds of silence he spoke. 'No.'

'No.' No questions. No arguing. Wallis's face said it all.

'What do you mean "no"? Lives are at stake here!'

'Doctor, don't.'

'It's all right, Ben, I'll handle this.' The Doctor looked away, took a deep breath, then looked up at Wallis. 'Why won't you help me?' he asked, like a child asking its parents why the pet hamster won't wake up from its nap.

Wallis stood up and leant over his desk, his imposing height casting a long shadow over the Doctor and Ben. 'I don't believe you. It's a film, for God's sake. A piece of trash. The whole damn industry turns people into zombies every day, so why should I care about this one?'

Wallis pointed out of his office window. 'Doctor, out there hundreds of crimes are being committed every day. Crimes against people, not art. Dealing with those is what I'm paid to do, and you can either leave my office now or you can jump straight out of that window and get a real close-up look for yourself at what life on the streets is like.'

'Captain,' the Doctor said, raising his voice, 'I don't think you quite understand the severity of the situation!'

'No, Doctor, you're the one who doesn't understand! I can't go up to the DA and ask him to put an injunction on a film just because some guy claims it's going to brainwash the city. It's ludicrous, and you don't have a shred of evidence to convince me otherwise. Besides, this is Hollywood. The studios and the city have... an agreement. Off the record, they're not quite as subject to the same laws as the rest of us. They're powerful, you know. They're everything here, and they can do what the hell they like, whatever the LAPD think. And do you know what?

That little system works quite well.'

'But '

'No buts, Doctor. You come back here when you can prove in court that the movie should be banned, not before. Now do I have to call someone to escort you out of here, or what?'

'No, no,' the Doctor said with a sigh. 'That won't be necessary.' He paused. 'Before I go, there is one other thing I want to ask you. Until the other day, I was a major suspect in the murder of Harold Reitman.'

Wallis turned away suddenly, placing one of his hands on the window as if he was unsure of his balance. 'They found the killer. You were cleared of suspicion.'

The Doctor nodded in agreement. 'Oh yes, of course, Captain Wallis. But you saw me without an appointment, you didn't even ask me about the murder once, yet the evidence against Mr Chate was very thin indeed.'

Wallis walked up to the Doctor and pulled him out of his chair by his jacket. 'Meaning what?' he growled.

The Doctor's voice was calm, collected. He wasn't intimidated in the slightest. 'Meaning that I don't think Chate was the killer at all. And I think you know that.'

Wallis was silent.

'I'm right, aren't I?'

Wallis let the Doctor go, and raised his hands in the air.

'You want to talk about Chate?' he sneered. 'Let's talk about Chate. Robert Chate died the other night in his apartment. He blew himself up. Suicide! One final, oh so typical act of cowardice. Why would he kill himself if he didn't murder Reitman? And if it wasn't Robert, then who the hell do you think was the killer?'

'Ah well,' said the Doctor, clearly troubled by Wallis's news, 'that remains to be seen. Tell me, Captain, did you love your son?'

Wallis's face was reddening.

'He was not not my son!' my son!'

The Doctor smiled. 'Well, of course he was adopted, but then there's nothing wrong with that. It's the emotional connection between parent and child that matters, surely, not the biological connection?'

'After the tragic fire that killed Chate's parents I took him in because I felt pity for the child. My first marriage had just ended and I wanted a chance to do right by someone. Never once did I receive any thanks for my favours. I gave that kid everything, risked my career to look after him, and he did nothing but throw it back into my face nothing but leave my care for a world of crime, a world far more suited to an abomination like him than that of the good American citizen I hoped I could bring him up to be. I gave that boy everything and he betrayed me. When I finally found happiness with my second wife he left me and refused to stay in touch. That's when he turned to narcotics instead of college, that's when I knew there was no longer any "emotional connection" between us.'

'But you've been keeping an eye on him all this time, haven't you? I can see it in your eyes. You're concerned. There's a part of you that still cares about him. A part of you that is grieving over his death.'

Wallis shook his head. 'You're wrong. He betrayed me. I don't care if he's dead, he would have gone to the gas chamber for what he did. I hated him, he hated me. We were both more than happy with things being left that way.'

'I believe you framed your son.'

Wallis was fuming. 'You're tooting the wrong ringer, Doctor. Why the hell would I do that?'

Ben sighed. The last thing he needed was another of the Doctor's smug summations.

'For one simple reason,' the Doctor began. 'I saw Chate's reaction at the Silent Gold. He didn't strike me as a murderer. I saw the fear in his eyes as people fell wounded all around him.

I've seen the convenience with which he has been blamed and the case has been closed. It smells of scapegoating, and let's face it, who better to choose for that? We've all heard the stories, how your men snigger at you behind your back, how they laugh at the cop who turned his son into a criminal. You can't deny that if you pin a case on Chate that gets him life imprisonment, if not the death penalty, then you'll at last get the respect you deserve from the rest of the force.'

'How dare you?' Wallis shouted. 'Get out of my office before I have you arrested for trespassing.'

The Doctor straightened his jacket, clearly affronted. 'Come along, Ben,' he said indignantly. 'I think we know when we're not wanted.'

They walked out of Wallis's office, and Ben slammed the door hard behind them.

At the end of the corridor outside the office was a flight of iron stairs leading down to the rest of the hustling police station.

As the Doctor and Ben began to walk down them a burly man with a disgruntled look on his face barged his way past them, clearly unhappy about something.

'Detective Fletcher!' the Doctor called cheerily to the man.

'Hello! Remember me?'

The man turned and glared at the Doctor. 'What the hell are you doing here?'

'Ah, I was just learning one or two things about how your fine force operates. I'm on my way out now, though, but perhaps we should meet up for a bite to eat some time?'

Fletcher glared at the Doctor, then stormed down the corridor and barged straight into Wallis's office.

'Come on, Doctor,' said Ben, shaking his head as they continued to walk down the stairs. 'Some people just don't like small talk.'

Uninvited, Fletcher marched straight into Wallis's office. He was angry and he wanted to make a point. He found Wallis rummaging around in a cupboard at the back of the room. The light bulb inside it must have been on as the interior of the cupboard glowed brightly despite the room being filled with daylight.

'Sir,' Fletcher said, in a tone that was nowhere near as aggressive as he had intended it to be.

Wallis slammed the cupboard doors shut. He spun round and glared at Fletcher.

'Detective,' Wallis reprimanded. 'Don't you know to knock?'

Fletcher had planned to give him a piece of his mind. He wanted to tell him he was too angry to knock, that Wallis didn't deserve the respect that knocking on his door would show him, but as he stared into his boss's steely black eyes he felt his spine crumbling away as the old fear of damaging his career filled his mind once again.

'Sorry, sir, I did but you mustn't have heard it.' Cowardice.

Pure cowardice.

Wallis seemed to accept the explanation and smiled. 'So what can I do for you on this fine day?'

'What do you think?' Fletcher said. He reached into a pocket in his trench coat, retrieved a piece of LAPD-headed notepaper and slammed it down on Wallis's desk. 'This, of course. Traffic duty? What the hell? Do I look like a goddamn traffic cop? I'm a better detective than anyone in the bureau. You can't do this.'

Wallis moved closer to Fletcher and prodded him hard in the chest. 'William, my friend, you have an attitude problem.'

'An attitude... Sir, this is extremely unorthodox. How can you '

'How could you lose a suspect who was surrounded by five armed cops? How could you spend all night looking for him, then let him be found dead in his own apartment? An apartment your men were supposed to be guarding!'

'It wasn't my fault,' Fletcher insisted. 'You know that.'

Wallis paused, then walked over to the window and closed the blinds, reducing the light level in the room.

'For every police error,' Wallis lectured, 'for every public outcry, someone has to pay. Suspending you from the bureau will show the public that the LAPD isn't beyond accountability.

Your reassignment is only temporary. Once the papers have forgotten the story four weeks, at the most you can return to your current position.'

Fletcher was silent as what Wallis was asking of him sunk in.

'You want me to take the fall.'

Wallis still stood facing the window and Fletcher was unable to read his face.

'Damn right you're taking it, and you deserve everything you get. The way you handled the Chate pursuit was abysmal. Never in all my years on the job have I seen such a bungled effort.'

Fletcher looked down at Wallis's desk and saw a pile of stationery, along with a letter-opener in the shape of a sharp-looking dagger. On its hilt a rose had been engraved. He reached over and picked up the letter-opener, then started to turn it over in his hands.

'That's not fair,' he argued, 'and you know it. I followed procedure to the letter. I did everything in my power to find him. I'll make sure my men know they messed up.' He slipped the letter opener into his pocket, forgetting that it wasn't his to take, stood up and placed his hands firmly on the desk. 'But please, let me stay. Don't send me down.'

Wallis turned round and Fletcher could have sworn he saw his boss's eyes moistening slightly. 'I feel that perhaps you've become too confident,' the captain explained. 'When we get confident, we get sloppy. You've been through some rough patches, but you've been getting some good results and I think they're making you sit back, making you lose the alertness that made you a detective in the first place. I think you need some time on the street to get your head together. Some time to yourself. Do you have a family, Detective? Go on vacation, take the girlfriend on vacation. You do have a girlfriend, I take it?'

'Until recently,' Fletcher growled. 'And a one-year-old son.

Both living with her mother in Monterey.'

'You have a son? Well, maybe you should go and visit him, let him know you care.'

Fletcher took a deep breath, and began to work out what this was really about.

'I didn't kill your son,' he said quietly. 'He killed himself.'

Wallis sat down at his desk. 'Go now, and flip the "Do Not Disturb" sign on the door round on your way out, will you?'

Fletcher thought about arguing more, thought about trying to make Wallis understand the unfairness of the situation, but the severity in his boss's eyes told him there was nothing he could say to change his mind.

'Oh, Detective,' Wallis said as Fletcher walked out of the room. He paused, then shook his head. 'I have no son.'

Chapter Thirteen.

Fletcher checked the number of the hotel room. 208, this was it.

He rapped hard on the door, unused to knocking on doors rather than breaking them down.

A pretty young blonde opened the door and looked at him expectantly. 'Can I help you?' she asked.

Fletcher barged straight past her, ignoring her protests, and marched into the room where the Doctor and the other English guy were sitting at a table drinking coffee.

The Doctor looked towards Fletcher and his eyes lit up.

'Good evening, Detective Fletcher!' he said, with surprise in his voice. 'How wonderful to see you! I really didn't think you'd take me up on my offer. I don't think we're quite ready to go out for dinner yet, though.'

Fletcher shrugged. What the hell was he talking about?

Whatever... he'd learned by now to ignore most of what the Doctor said. The man was a nut, but unfortunately he just couldn't seem to avoid running into him. 'I have some things to ask you,' he told the Doctor. 'Some things I want to talk to you about.'

'Not Harold's murder again?'

Fletcher shook his head. 'No, not the murder. I don't give a damn about that any more. They won't let me touch the case, so I'll be damned if I'll work on it for free.'