Listen…
To your characters. This is what I ended up with when I
actually let my fingers take me where my protagonist wanted to go. He’d been
telling me he was too tepid and very much too one dimensional. This scene
changed that only because I finally opened my ears and listened.
“Come
on Bell, what’s with all the ‘sir’s?” Carter’s
look covered Rae Bell’s small body like a skin tight dress and couldn’t have
been more deliberate. Thain, watching her hold back her anger, almost went off
himself on Carter. It wasn’t hard for him to get riled whenever the DI opened
his mouth.
“Just
doing my job,” Rae Bell answered, sitting back down at the table.
Carter
took a step closer to her. “Why don’t you explain this report to me over coffee
downstairs?”
“She’s
got better things to do,” Thain said, no longer able to make his tongue behave.
“You do know, I suppose, how to read a report, sir? We are here to
answer any questions you might have, when you’re ready.” Thain clipped the
sentence as if with sheers. Then he too, sat down, as if daring the DI to say
something. Mistake, because he did.
“Stand
at attention, D.S. Thain.”
Thain
slowly moved to his feet.
“What
is your problem, D.S. Thain? Since
when do you ride safety over DS Bell?”
“Since
she’s on my team, sir.”
“Oh?
Does she need protection from her commanding officer on that same team?”
“With
the look you gave her, apparently, sir.”
Thain kept rubbing that ‘sir’ in.
DI
Carter said through clenched teeth, “I’ve reason enough to kick you off this
team right now.”
“And
that reason would be…what, sir?”
“Insubordination,
talking back to a higher ranking officer, to start.”
Thain
would have enjoyed this interchange if it had been anywhere or anytime but here
and now, and not with so many witnesses that were on his team, just like the
last time. The deadline hanging over their heads already charged the room with
stress they all felt.
“I’m
sorry, sir, if I pissed you off.”
“That’s
it,” Carter roared, throwing down the report on the table in a dramatic
gesture. He took a step toward Thain. Someone pushed the door open and DCI
North stepped into the room.
“What
the bloody hell is going on here?”
©2011
©2011
Don’t think anyone would mistake Thain
for milk toast here, do you? Glad I’m starting to listen. This scene almost
wrote itself because I finally heard him telling me what to write.
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