His eyes settled on the normal seeming, quite large house on a long street filled with rows and rows of similar buildings, in different hues of dull, matte colours. “Is this the place?” he glanced at the police officer near him, Rickila Assanova. 

“Yes, Durch,” she smiled at him, “Should be ok. Don’t worry about, man. You’ll probably be in there for only a few weeks,” she clapped him on the back as he stepped out of the car to stand next to her.

“You know I didn’t do it,” he looked at her, seriously.

“Of course, I know you didn’t do it,” she shook her head, “You’re not like that,”

“Thanks, Ricki,” 

“No problem. Now, get inside that house, and you’ll be outer there in no time,” she smirked and followed him up the steps to the wide-open front door. 

It was nice inside, he could give that to them. How much money had they spent on this anyway? The hallways were warm and clean, unlike the room they’d been in half an hour before, and the rooms were well furnished. He strolled around, peeking into the kitchen, the living room, all the other public rooms, before heading upstairs to pick the bedroom he wanted. Not like he’d plan on using it much, other than for sleep. 

Although he’d been thrown into this scandal, he was intent on doing his job. He was a junior detective, after all. He wasn’t going to let this setback ruin his whole career. He strolled back down the stairs after choosing his room and confirming it to Jim who was on duty in the upstairs landing. Rickila was standing, on guard, at the front door. 

“Is that necessary?” he joked, “I mean, look out how much security is on that one door,” there was a kepypad, the normal keyhole and other stuff he didn’t know the name of. From his observation of outside there were no guards visible, but the inside was well secured; there were no windows he had seen and most of the furniture was bolted to the floor. Even the kitchen was devoid of any kitchen equipment, most of which being locked up in cupboards until they were actaully needed.

“I see what you mean, Durch. But still, I need to patrol this area,” she winked as she continued, “especially because I don’t know what tricks you have up your sleeves. , You’re a trained cop after all,” 

“Ah,” he said, matching her smile although he wasn’t feeling happy at all. “Of course. Well, I’ll be on my way, leaving you to your duties-” he turned from her and walked down the hallway to the stairs, never looking back at her to see her expression. He quickly returned to his room, and closed the door behind him, away from Jim’s prying eyes.. He would wait it out, skip lunch, and come down for dinner. The little patience he had left, had run thin, and all he was left with was the sour taste of a growing bad mood. 

“Hey,” 

His anger had been growing all day, and it was lodged up inside him like a dam…

“Hey!”

His fists clenched as he stared down at the counter, at the kettle whistling as it boiled the water, at the cloudy steam rising from the beak.

“HEY!” she snapped. The blonde dutch was looking at him, her eyebrows raised, “It’s rude to zone out on someone, especially when you’re the one who started the conversation,” her blonde hair was tied in a bun that wobbled whenever she spoke. It made it hard to take her seriously, with a jelly-like blob on her head, but as soon as he took one look into those hardened green eyes, the comical image disappeared from his mind.

“Ah, sorry,” he smiled, sheepishly at her. “What were you saying?”  

“Can you please cut those vegetables,” she motioned towards the knife and chopping board to the left of the kettle. It seemed he’d already started chopping the peppers. The rest of the day had been a rush for him and only now he was starting to really process what was happening. He’d woken up from a daze. 

He picked up the knife and made quick work of the rest of the pepper, eggplant and spring onion.Strawb watched, her eyebrows rising again, “Be a bit more careful, she commented as he moved the knife in quick motions to chop up the onion. 

The woman beside him; Strawb de Jong, as she’d said her name was. A tall girl who was in her last year of high school, planning on pursuing law as a career and in his eyes, she looked smart, talked smart and acted smart.

He laughed to himself, as the word smart rolled around in his head. He felt drunk, almost, his head spinning round and round, him; planet Earth orbiting, the word;the sun. “Did I perhaps drink a bit of anything?” he asked, giddily.

“Yeh,” she nodded, focusing on the meat frying in her pan, “You downed that whisky bottle over there. It was only a halfer, anyway,” He glanced at the empty stout glass bottle.

“Ugh…” he placed a hand on his head, “Halfer?”

“Half full, half empty,” she looked up from her beef and looked him dead in the eyes, emerald green and chilling, “Half,” 

He let his hand slip back down to the knife and started playing with the vegetables, cutting them even smaller, before a clear of the throat interrupted him.

“If you’re done with the knife,” he turned to look behind him, a blonde headed man stared at him back, his hand out, expectantly. Klaus was a new police officer in their works, although he had a habit of being arrogant, a trait that didn’t match his time in service or his ranking. “I’ll take it back now,”

Of course, they wouldn’t let a murder suspect have a knife unsupervised, but he didn’t remember Klaus being there when he first came in to grab the whisky, 10 or so minutes ago. “You’re not doing your job properly, man,” Durchdenwald smirked. “I’m drunk and you let me use this. Good Lord!” 

The man snatched it away, with a sour look on his face. “Well I tried,” he said, irrated, and walked out of the room huffing and puffing with the knife swinging in his hand.

“Why’s he being so grumpy for?”

“He tried before you sucker-punched him,” Strawb called over her shoulder at him. “Sounds like it hurt,”

He smirked at her, rubbing his hair between his fingers. “I think I’m starting to sober up, now, I’m no threat anymore,”

“Thinking and knowing are two different things. Go sleep,” she jerked her head in the direction of the ceiling, her eyes still on the sizzling pork belly, “You’ll be in time for dinner, don’t worry,”

He recoiled at the idea. He’d been in his new room for too long, the plain white walls, the bed with the white sheets, without a speck of life. He nodded, even though she wasn’t looking and turned away from the kitchen.Instead of going back down the hallway to the stairs, he turned down the part of the house he hadn’t been bothered to venture into yet. 

The first door he saw had a silver plaque embedded into the wood, ‘Authorised Personnel Only: CCTV Operation Room’. 

A surveillance room. But where were the cameras? He hadn’t seen any anywhere, yet.He looked around. 

Perhaps, someone was watching him at that moment… 

He shrugged and continued on his way, down the hallway to the next door at the end, only to be led to something disappointing. The plaque on this door simply said, ‘No Entry’. He was guessing that it led to his colleagues’ part of the house, where they would live for the time being. 

“Hey,” a voice said behind him. Why did everyone address him by ‘hey’ nowadays? He had a name, you know. He looked over his shoulder to see Klaus standing behind him yet again. “Get out of here,” the man motioned with his thumb.

“Ah ha, sorry,” Durchdenwald smiled. “I was just looking around. But where’s Greg? I thought he’d be here?” Greg Landlof was one of the officers that Hym loved to use as a command or leading officer of sorts for a variety of work. Greg himself had told Durch that he’d be there to supervise the experiment.

“He’ll be back later at night. Now get out!” Klaus said again, with more anger in his voice, and Durchdenwald happilly obliged  because gosh he needed some rest.