Cas

Harvey Williams was sat by the window in the coffee shop on the corner, imaginatively called "Corner Cafe", drinking a lukewarm black coffee, as he did every morning.  Although he should have been in an optimum people watching position, he couldn't see much as it was one of those rainy days where even the brightest things looked grey.  People were converging in the shop, buying the cheapest thing they could in order to escape the damp. 

The Corner Cafe normally smelt of coffee beans and burnt butter but today it had the scent of collective damp clothing and mouldy umbrellas.  Yet through the condensation covered windows with their chipped white painted frames Harvey continued to stare, ignoring his fellow patrons.  Then, at last, his patience paid off.  Through the gloom appeared a petite woman in her early twenties.  She stood out from the crowd with her large, purple headphones, yellow umbrella, battered dark green parka jacket and bright red converse which had seen better days.  Her hair was light brown in tight shoulder length curls.  Harvey watched her as she walked by the cafe window, bouncing around the puddles which had formed on the uneven path.  He would have known Cas anywhere.

Time to go.

Harvey waited until Cas was well down the road before he exited the cafe quietly and headed in her direction, the yellow umbrella never leaving the corner of his eye.  The thing about following someone is that it is important to not get too close or to stare at them directly, common mistakes by those new to the discipline.  Harvey had no such trouble; he had been following Cas for years.  The other important thing was to not be too memorable.  Harvey was lucky for his chosen profession that he was of average height and build, had brown hair and possessed a face with no discerning characteristics at all.  His clothes completed the look, a crumpled cheap grey suit, unironed shirt, blue fleece, covering the suit jacket, and some trainers.  The outfit implied that he was a low level office employee commuting a fair distance to work and that the generic sports backpack he carried held his office shoes and maybe a laptop or gym kit, rather than the sophisticated tracking equipment it actually contained.  In short, he could fit in anywhere which was important for following Cas. 

Most people follow a set routine, take the same route every day, even cross the roads at the exact same point.  This was not the case with Cas.  Due to health reasons, her occupation had open hours and location - she had a bag full of flyers and had to hand them out to houses in the city until they were all gone.  The leaflets tended to be for fast food chains, charity collections or bank holiday sales but her employers never specified her route and paid her enough cash weekly to cover the rent on a city centre studio flat.

Cas seemed to have decided to travel to the outer reaches of the city today as she headed through the main shopping street to the bus station.  Harvey continued to follow, grateful for the extra level of disguise that his black umbrella provided as he had to get closer toCas than he would have liked to keep track of her in the swell of daytime shoppers, many with pushchairs.  Arriving at the bus station, a concrete slab worthy of the 1960s architecture, Casjumped onto the next bus as did he once her worn, red converse had disappeared from view up the steps.  It was one of the newer buses going to the wealthy suburbs on the outskirts as was evidenced by the leather coating on the seats of the bus and the lack of a putrid cloud dust emitted when he sat down.  He positioned himself behind an abandoned, damp daily paper near the door, pretending to read, as you never knew when she would decide to alight.

He had to keep a close eye on her.

Their destination was a long, tree lined street with variations on the 1930s four bedroom house.  It was a world apart from the cramped, red-brick apartments, fried chicken and betting shops that were nearCas's home.  Harvey had to be careful now as the street they were on was entirely residential and there were no signs of life apart from the two of them and the odd twitch of a curtain as the Neighbourhood Watch took their jobs too literally.

Cas had now started working, navigating past the BMWs, Range Rovers and Mercedes on each of the drives to drop off the flyers.  This was slow progress so Harvey could no longer pretend to be walking to work, he would be too conspicuous stopping all of the time.  He ducked behind a tree and removed his suit jacket and shirt so he was now in a white t-shirt and his fleece.  He then removed a yellow high vis jacket, measuring tape and clipboard.  With a blue pencil behind his ear, he started measuring the trees on the road and making notes under the guise of the council checking that the tree roots weren't likely to impact the water mains.  It wasn't the most elaborate of disguises, and he was dreading someone questioning him in too much detail, but it would suffice for now.

Suddenly Cas stopped and Harvey, recognising the signs, grabbed the button on the inside of his jacket and hit record while simultaneously reaching into his pocket to remove a battered notebook and a pen which was so badly chewed that it was barely functional.  Making sure to keep the camera hidden in his fleece pointed at her, he moved slightly more into view, no longer worried about being seen as she was already slumping to the ground.  This was what he was here for.

Cas started shaking all over, eyes shut, in the throws of a fit.  Harvey was keeping his attention firmly on her limbs as he crossed the street to get closer.  He was now grateful for the suburban privacy.  Cas's right hand waved once, her left hand was shaking furiously, her right foot tapped twice and her left five times.  Harvey took this all in, internally analysing the movements.  Once she had stopped spasming, he took out his phone and rang the only number stored on it.

"GPS location locked," announced his superior, in her usual clipped tones.  "Please report your crime."

"One right hand.  Murder," started Harvey, checking that he was not being overheard.

"Type confirmed," said the voice on the line, devoid of any emotion.

"Left foot five.  No method found."

"We shall confirm method upon arrival at the scene," was the reply.

"Right foot two.  Two streets away from current location," Harvey said, checking on his phone that the GPS co-ordinates had updated to his correct location.

"Only one possible location for this description."  She sounded relieved, it could get quite difficult politically when there were several places to check.

"Many left hands, thirty to fifty.  Number to be confirmed," Harvey continued.

"Noted.  We will dispatch unit and await your confirmation."

The line went dead.

PC Harvey Williams, one of three employees of the top secret C.A.S (Crime Anticipation System) division, ran around the corner, out of sight of Cas who was coming around slowly from her fit.  Her real name was unknown to him, hidden by the police in case he made an attempt at contact.  Any change to the setup could hamper two years of work, and the twenty seven percent serious crimes reduction C.A.S currently provided the city.  Harvey hit play on the video he had just taken and reduced the speed so that he could get the final piece of information to stop an imminent crime. He zoomed in on her left hand.  Once he had what he needed, he called the number again.

"Confirm left hand forty.  Four.  Zero."

"Thank you PC Williams.  We will confirm when operation completed."

Two streets away, at number 40 Brookstone Street, his colleagues had barged into a quiet, family home - much to the delight of the twitching curtains - and had disrupted the peace of a Mr and Mrs Marsh.  Initially thinking that there had been a mistake, the police had found that Mrs Marsh, upon discovering her husband's infidelity, was about to use rat poison on a much larger than average sized rat.

The call came in, perfunctory as usual "We've got her.  Five left foot twitches means poison."

"Got it," he replied, taking out the notebook and adding the latest translation, with far more of a flourish of the pen than was necessary, as the line went dead.  He was glad that the weather had cleared somewhat to avoid the notebook disintegrating entirely.

His working day was now over.  Experience dictated that she had at most one fit a day, regardless of any other crimes were committed, so he sat at the bus stop waiting to head back to his flat, deep in thought and enjoying the release from constant vigilance.  He stood up as the bus approached, forgetting that his notebook was still on his lap.

"Excuse me," said the other person at the bus stop.  "You dropped this."

He turned to see his notebook on the floor, next to some well loved red converse, and small hands, first removing the purple headphones from her ears, then lifting the book from the ground, with little knowledge of the precious cargo they had taken ownership of.  There was no avoiding her now.  Cas smiled at him gently, pleased at her good deed in a city which all too often ignored her fits, leaving her to recover alone.

Harvey grabbed the notepad from her as quickly as he could, thrusting it beneath his arm, before she could get too good a look at his face.  Guilt from how much she jumped at his haste did cause him to utter an earnest "thank you" as he bundled onto the bus, pretending that his hurry had been due to not wanting to miss the ride home.  He sat down near some rowdy schoolchildren from the local comprehensive, still reeling from the encounter and shaking with the adrenaline, smiling to himself.  They had spoken to each other!  However he could never mention what had just happened to his superiors lest he be taken off the project for fear of being recognised.

Until tomorrow, he thought.