The weight of the world

 Miss Trevelyan’s house had been designed by an architect who had been inspired by both Gaudi and Frank Lloyd Wright but lacked the technical skill and imagination of both.  There were four floors above ground and three below ground and the rooms were intended to have an organic aesthetic about them.  Large windows opened onto a subterranean garden on the second basement floor: an eternally gloomy, damp mushroom grotto of despair that housed a rare colony of albino toads whose presence meant that a preservation order had been slapped on the garden and no improvements or renovations could be effected without planning permission from all of seven different government agencies.  An ingenious cantilever moved the third above-ground floor out from the main column so that its glass floors could look down on the world below.  Since the planning authorities were adamant that the house could not extend over the road it had to extend over the neighbouring property instead, whose owners had promptly retaliated by installing a glass roof to look back up at anyone on the third floor.  The third floor had been intended to be a bathroom, sauna and bedroom area and this had caused some embarrassment and Miss Trevelyan was still embroiled in a law-suit regarding indecent exposure.

The housekeeper led Bill and Ben, gentlemen thieves posing as the Feng Shui police, into a lounge on the ground floor.  It was roughly oval in shape and painted in shades of red and orange that felt intestinal; this was part of the Gaudi elements that the architect had dreamt up.  The couch was lozenge shaped, tilted slightly forwards, and lacked a back, forcing visitors to sit awkwardly on the edge of it, stiffening their spines to remain seated.  There was a wooden chair in one corner that, given manacles and an electric cord, would have looked right at home in an American execution chamber and a television on the wall with a cracked screen.

“Bloody hell,” said Bill with feeling.  He looked around as though expecting to be sprayed with stomach acid at any moment.  “Is Miss Trevelyan a serial killer then?”

“No!”  The housekeeper’s eyes widened with horror.  “This is the Gastric Lounge!  It’s famous.”

Ben nudged Bill with an elbow to silence him.  “Indeed,” he said, grinning like a Cheshire Cat about to do a vanishing act.  “However, it’s also a listed part of a listed property, so there’s nothing we can change in here, you know.  We’re the Feng Shui police, you see, so we definitely can’t break the law.  And we have to be aware of all the laws we can’t break too.”

The housekeeper looked disappointed, almost as though someone had told her an immediate family member was terminally ill.  “Are you sure?” she said.  “Only of all the rooms in the house—“

“Very sure,” said Ben quickly.  “And,” he pulled his Feng Shui meter out of his pocket and tapped at the screen, “as you can see here --“ he flashed the device at the housekeeper too rapidly for her to read the number on the screen “— this room isn’t the problem room at all.  We’re too low.”

“Too low?”

“Yes, your madamling,” said Bill.  Still no reaction from the housekeeper and he was starting to wonder if she had selective hearing.  “Too low.  There must be an upper storey to the house, we could see it from the outside.”

Ben glared at him.  When the housekeeper looked upwards as though wondering to herself if there were more floors above them he slashed a hand across his throat swiftly.  Bill winked.

“Yes, of course,” she said.  She sounded bemused.  “But they’re off limits to guests.”

“We’re not guests,” said Bill helpfully.  “We’re the police.”

“And you’re not a guest,” said Ben.  “So as long as we’re with you, we’re fine.”

“Miss Trevelyan wouldn’t like it,” murmured the housekeeper, but she was sounding tired.  Bill slipped an arm around her shoulders.

“Bad feng shui can affect you as well,” he said comfortingly.  “I can see that you’re already feeling tired, and I suspect that everything seems a bit confusing.  When the Earth dragon gets chained to the ground and the Dragons of Wind and Fire are at cross-purposes, people get caught in the cross-fire.  I bet you’ve had a lot of minor illnesses recently?  Things you haven’t wanted to bother Miss Trevelyan with?  Things that matter, but you’ve put a brave face on because someone has to look after the place, and it’d go to pieces really quickly if you weren’t here to look after it all?  I bet you’re not appreciated for everything you do, either, are you?”

Ben slipped out of the room as silently as a shadow fleeing the sun while the housekeeper swayed on her feet, unaware that Bill was gently rocking her back and forth.  “I have been a bit under the weather,” she said.  “Now that you bring it up.  I wouldn’t want to complain.”

“Oh but you should,” said Bill.  He lowered the pitch of his voice by half an octave so that he almost sounded like he was purring.  "If you don’t complain about the things that are unfair, who else is going to?  Everyone else is always looking out for themselves, am I right?  You keep looking after them and no-one looks after you.  Am I right?”

“Well,” said the housekeeper.  She found herself sitting down on the couch, perching on the edge of it to keep her balance.  Bill stood next to her, resting his hand on her shoulder, unobtrusively holding her in place.  “Well, I don’t want to sound like I’m doing everything all the time—“

“But you are, right?” Bill sounded encouraging.

“Well, no,” said the housekeeper, honesty warring with the desire to have someone listen to her list of grievances.  “Maybe not all the time, you know.  It’s just that sometimes, when I’m here on my own—“

“And Miss Trevelyan hasn’t told you when she’ll be returning, again?”

“I mean, would it kill her to be a little bit more considerate?  I don’t want to complain about her, she’s a very understanding woman in her own way, but sometimes I think she treats me like furniture.”

“That’s why the Feng Shui affects you so much,” said Bill.

“What?” The housekeeper shook her head from side to side.  “Are you saying I’m furniture too?”  She tried to rise, but Bill’s hand was like a lead weight on her shoulder.

“Oh no,” said Bill.  “Definitely not. I’m saying that because Miss Trevelyan treats you like furniture you’re getting more ill.  The Feng Shui is affecting you much more than it would affect her.  That’s probably why it’s taken us so long to find you and come and investigate.”

“Oh,” said the housekeeper.  “That… doesn’t… make sense?”

Ben stepped back into the room, edging around the wall until he was behind the housekeeper.

“Well, if you’re not happy with us being here, we’ll leave,” said Bill taking his hand off her shoulder.  “I mean, we’re only here because you’re letting us in, and we’ve said that we can’t do anything in this room.”

“I think you should leave,” said the housekeeper, standing up and looking about her.  “And where’s — oh there you are.”

Ben waved a hand.  “Checking the walls for the Dragon of Damp,” he said cheerily.  “I think you’ll need a certified Feng Shui plumber to be honest, miss.”

“Your mademoiselle-let,” said Bill, still pushing for a reaction.

“You need to leave,” said the housekeeper, making her mind up.  “You shouldn’t have come in at all.”

“Fair enough, missy,” said Bill.  For a moment he thought she was going to retort, but then a sullen intransigence crossed her face and she shooed them before her to the front door like naughty children.

“Don’t come back,” she said as she closed the door firmly.

“Don’t need to,” murmured Ben.  Bill looked at him.  “Got it,” he smirked.

Feng shui police

 Bill and Ben, gentlemen thieves, were standing together outside an Edwardian townhouse. Bill lifted a cast-iron door-knocker shaped like a gargoyle’s head with a protruding tongue and let it fall against its iron plate with a loud clack.

“Noisy and unpleasant,” said Ben thoughtfully.  “Strange that this took off as a way to knock on a door, don’t you think?”  Bill lifted the knocker and let it fall again.

“I guess it’s easier than using your knuckles,” he said.  “More comfortable, maybe?”

“A doorbell has to be better though.”

Bill considered this, tilting his head slightly to one side like a dog waiting for a treat.  “Depends,” he said at last.  “I mean, some of those doorbells that play tunes, for instance….”

“Effing horrible,” said Ben, and the door swung open to reveal a short woman in a beige dress adorned with a large flower-print pattern.  “Not you, of course, ma’am.”

“Feng Shui police,” said Bill with a broad smile.  He offered her a little leather wallet containing some official looking laminated cards and photo-id.

“I didn’t call the police,” said the woman holding the wallet in one hand and looking confused.  She looked at Ben and frowned.  “What’s so horrible then?” she asked.  Bill gently removed the wallet, which she still hadn’t looked at, from her hand and slipped into an inside pocket.

“Well,” said Ben in the tone of someone who has a long list of things to go through and is glad to have been asked about it.  Bill poked him in the side before he could go any further.

“We were discussing another case, milady,” he said, “and since that’s police business we can’t very well tell you about it.  You didn’t overhear any of it did you?  Only if you did we’ll have to arrest you.”

“No!  I— I don’t know why you’re here.  I didn’t call the police!”

“No, your madamship,” said Bill who was getting curious to see if she would react to any of the titles he was bestowing on her.  “This is a prophylactic visit.  We’re here before you need to call us, you see.”

“No?”

“There’s been a disturbance in the force,” said Ben, grinning.  The woman in the doorway looked at him again, still frowning.  He was wearing a suit, but when she squinted it looked like it might be a very faint leopardskin print on it, despite its ordinary-seeming grey colour.  “We’ve been called out, though by not you as you’ve so helpfully told us.  Twice.  Because there is a feng shui problem building up, located inside this building, and we need to defuse… heh, even diffuse… it before it gets to be a serious problem and you have to call you out to deal with it.”

“I don’t understand,” said the woman.  She looked back at Bill, hoping that he would make more sense.  He smiled at her again and she started to feel like an orchid caught in a spotlight, and wilted a touch.

“Feng shui,” said Bill.  “You know, the flow of chi around a property.  Good fortune and prosperity when you get it right, and bad luck and dragons of foreshadowed doom when you get it wrong.  Firecrackers in February if everything’s good or fireballs in your fireplace if it’s not.  That kind of thing.”

“…help?” said the woman.  She crossed her arms across her chest and then uncrossed them, looking dejected, when Ben tutted at her.

“Crossed arms,” he said, shaking his head gently as though reprimanding an eager but misguided child.  “That’s never a good sign in a house with bad feng shui.”

“What?”

“Can we come in, please?” asked Bill.  His smile seemed to notch up another level and became dazzling.

“No,” said the woman.  “I’m not the owner, I’m the housekeeper.  I… you’ll need to wait for Miss Trevelyan to return.”

“No time,” said Ben.  He started patting the pockets of his suit and as the light rippled across it the woman in the doorway started to feel a little dizzy.  “Ah, here we go!”  He produced something the size and shape of a smartphone from a pocket that didn’t seem to have been big enough for it and waved it at her.  “This is a feng-shui meter.  It will tell us how high the negative energy levels here are.”

“Don’t forget to calibrate it first,” said Bill.

“Oops,” said Ben.  He tapped the screen and it lit up, and he swiped at something on it.  The woman in the doorway craned her neck to try and see it more clearly but every time she moved Ben turned away, waving the device around in the air as though trying to get a signal.  “Aha,” he said after a moment, and suddenly shoved the device under her nose.  She recoiled, startled, and then looked at the screen.  All she could see was a large, bright-green, number: 132.

“Is that bad?” she said, feeling nervous.

“Very,” said Ben, nodding like a priest at confession.  “The scale only goes up to 150.”

“Oh!”

“When will Miss Trevelyan be back?” asked Bill. He sounded concerned.

“Um, Tuesday, I think,” said the woman.  “She doesn’t always tell me when she’s planning on returning, but she definitely said it would be mid-week.”

“I don’t think we can wait till Tuesday, your madamliness,” said Bill.  Still no reaction from the woman.  “Perhaps you can let us in if you escort us?  If you’re with us everywhere while we sort this out, then it’s not like we alone in the building.”

“I don’t think that’s the point,” said the woman, but she was sounding uncertain.  Bill pressed home what looked like an advantage.

“Are there things in the house that would be of interest to the police then?” he said.  “I mean, we’d rather not leave feng shui levels this high unattended, but we can go and get a warrant if there’s something that you’re trying to hide.”

“Won’t take more than a couple of hours,” said Ben.  “Levels this high ought to be a public emergency if only more people knew about them.”

“And us,” said Bill.  “We’re the forgotten side of the police force you know.”

“No?” said the woman.  She took a step backwards.

“That’s the problem, you see.”

“There’s nothing illegal in this house!”  The woman rallied, taking a step forward again and remembering what Bill had been insinuating.

“Then there shouldn’t be a problem with you showing us round and us showing you what the problem is then, should there?” asked Bill.

The woman looked at Ben for guidance and then wished she hadn’t.  He was tapping at the device and it was flashing and beeping now.

“That sounds bad?” she said, hesitantly.

“Very,” agreed Ben.

“You have to stay with me at all times,” said the woman at last.  “No getting out my sight.  And I need a written report from you saying that you were here and why you were here.”

“Of course,” said Bill, his smile beaming at her and making her feel even more dizzy.  “No trouble at all.  Would you like me to write it out now, before we come in?”

“No,” said the woman.  “No, let’s just get this over with.”

Reverend Bartle

"Why are you wearing a dress?"  It would be unfair to describe Detective Inspector Playfair as snarling as then one would run out of words to describe his increasing levels of aggression too quickly.  The priest looked up, a little startled, and smoothed the front of his Jane Asher exclusive down.
"Do you like it?" he said.  "It's for the summer play.  We're doing Streetcar."
"Never heard of it," said Playfair automatically.  Miss Flava, stood next to him, and who thought that the priest seemed far too comfortable in the dress, equally automatically disbelieved Playfair.  She'd come to the conclusion that her boss worked very hard to give everyone the impression that he was like a wasp-stung bulldog on a short chain: ferociously aggressive and dangerously short-sighted, while in fact the brain of a classics scholar worked like a well-oiled machine in the background to discover the real facts of any given case.  All she had left to prove was the brain of the classics scholar was in fact his own, and she'd be free to admire him and his incredible depths of cynicism.
"Oh?  That's a shame, it's a fantastic play.  I do confess, I've been having to work on my Deep South accent a little for it though."  The priest giggled, and Miss Flava looked away, feeling a little uncomfortable.
"Right, Stanley," said Playfair.  "We're here looking for a Reverend Bartle.  Derek Bartle.  What have you done with him?"
"Oh, hah, that's me, I've done nothing with him!  Well, maybe hidden him in a dress.  Who are you?"
Playfair produced a bus pass, then his wallet, then a hip flask, and finally his warrant card.  "DI Playfair," he said.  "This here is the lovely Miss Flava, she's my gorgeous assistant and makes people disappear while I keep the audience entertained."
Miss Flava glared at Playfair and produced her own warrant card on the first try, since she kept it ready in an inside pocket.  The priest peered at both cards, and then at their respective owners.
"Yes, well that seems in order," he said.  "Perhaps I ought to change then, if this is official business?"
"It is, and don't bother," said Playfair.  "You're wearing more than some people I've interviewed in the past, and that's a relief.  Oh, Calamity!"
"What's the ma–" started the Reverend Bartle, but his words were lost as Calamity leapt on his back and pushed his face into the gardenias.  She leapt up at Playfair a couple of times, pawing the air and landing each time with her paws unerringly on Bartle's head.  After the first occasion he stopped trying to lift his head until the weight of the dog was off his back.  Miss Flava hurried forward to pull Calamity off, still wondering how the dog managed to do just what Playfair wanted despite that no-one ever saw him training her.
"Thank-you," said Playfair to Miss Flava as she hauled Calamity away from the priest and his now-awry gardenias.  "I'm sorry about Calamity," he said to Bartle.  "She does depend on the kindness of strangers."
"Urghh." said Bartle wiping compost from his eyes and mouth.  "That was... why is she called Calamity?"
"Calamity Jane, my favourite Crimean nurse," said Playfair.  "Why do you sign letters as Melpomene?"
"What?"  Bartle looked confused.
Playfair stared off into the distance instead of answering, looking at the length of the garden, the scattering gardening tools: tiny forks, trowels, lengths of dowel, string and unpotted plants waiting for embedding into the spring earth.  Beyond the garden was a cottage of sorts with heavy stone walls, huge doors and tiny, leaded windows, and behind them was a solid, Saxon church that looked as though it could withstand a siege.  The church had a campanile, at the top of which Playfair could see at least three bells, and after that trees obscured the view of what was very probably the graveyard.
"Someone killed a man here," he said at last.  "You found the body, and someone sent a letter to the local paper claiming the kill and calling themselves Melpomene."
"I didn't send the letter!  I just found the poor soul, hanging from a tree with a screwdriver sticking out of the side of his neck.  The ground all around him was soggy with blood!  It was dreadful!"  The man had whitened a little, but seemed to be otherwise retaining his composure.  "Why are you here?  We have a police-force of our own, and they've been and talked to me already.  And they were much nicer about it too!"
"That's why I'm here," said Playfair.  "They didn't get anywhere with their tea and cupcakes approach."
"So you come with your monstrous dog and your veiled threats?  I shall write to your superior officers about this!"
Miss Flava silently handed Bartle a business card.
"His immediate superior is the first name on the list," she said after a moment.  "Each name after that is one rank higher.  The address for all of them is on the back.  I can supply you with a form letter to copy from if you'd like, his superiors prefer to be able to identify the complaint quickly these days."
"You... you mean he gets a lot of these complaints?  Why's he still a policeman?"
"He gets a lot of results," said Miss Flava.  "Actual results, and not just convictions that are overturned as unsound or wrong, months or years later."
"I'm still complaining."
"Then here's the form letter."
Bartle stared at first her, then at Calamity who was now frantically digging up tomato plants, and then at Playfair.
"Do you use bonemeal for your plants?" asked Playfair.  Bartle nodded.  "That's why she's digging."
"How can I help you then," said Bartle finally, sounding depressed.  "You won't go away until I do, will you?"
"How much do you know about Feng Shui?" asked Playfair.

The commission of Feng Shui

"I wouldn't try moving that," said Deadneck quietly, her voice barely audible over the clatter of her typewriter keys.  Miss Girard stopped pushing Janet's desk and looked over.
"Why not?" she said.  "Look, I'm being paid to do a job here and it seems like you're all determined to stop me! Your Chief Constable has hired me to do this, you should be helping me, not saying stupid things about how you think things should be done!"  Her voice rose steadily as she spoke, and because it all came out in a torrential flood of words she ran out of breath at the end and found herself gasping and squeaking like a cat toy.
"The desks are bolted to the floor," said Deadneck, not stopping typing.  "That's why you can't move it."
Miss Girard gave the desk another futile push, and then knelt down to peer at its legs.  Sure enough, they were bolted to the floor by two different bolts on each leg.
"Why?" she said plaintively.  "Everywhere else in the police station has been fairly easy.  Of course, people complain when you move things but they see the sense in the new system fairly quickly.  I've improved the filing system, I've made the hot-desks places it's nice to spend time, I've even made the ladies toilets something less than a horror movie.  Why is so hard when I try and deal with Inspector Playfair's side of the office?"
"Probably because we all know what he's like," said Deadneck.  "And we know what's likely to happen when he comes back, and because none of us want to take the blame for it."
"What is he, some kind of monster?"
"Oh no," said Deadneck pulling a sheet of paper from the platten and getting a new one ready.  "Monsters can be killed."

Miss Girard's response to that disappeared behind the opening of the door to the rest of the police-station again, which heralded the arrival of her handyman, Oliver.  He was wearing his usual blue overalls with the paint splashes down one leg, a white t-shirt with a frayed collar, and carrying his metal toolbox.  He looked around the room, nodded at Deadneck, and wrinkled his nose.
"Smells like dog in here," he said.
"I don't care," said Miss Girard.  "I need these desks unbolting so that they can be moved."
"That don't sound right," said Oliver.  "You just pushes a desk, Missus."
"Not these," said Miss Girard, pointing.  Oliver followed her finger, but still looked puzzled, so she knelt down to show him the bolts.  There was a low discussion down by Deadneck's feet as Oliver wanted to know why the desks were bolted down and Miss Gerard made wild guesses.  Eventually they both stood up again.
"It'll take a while," said Oliver.  "Someone's sheared the heads off all the bolts."  Deadneck just nodded quietly.  "And it might get a tad noisy, we'll have to drill the bolts out in a number of places."
"That's fine," said Miss Gerard with the casual arrogance of someone who doesn't have to be there listening to the noise.
"Er," said Deadneck who felt it wasn't fine.
"Right then, let's get started.  You might not want to stay in here, miss."  Oliver looked at Deadneck, who shuddered and typed a little faster and a little harder.
"It's the energy of this room!" said Miss Girard suddenly.  "There's a strong negative energy here, so strong that I can almost feel it!  It comes from... she swung around, her eyes tightly closed and her finger outstretched.  Oliver stepped back to avoid it.  Deadneck never stopped typing, but her eyes were also on Miss Girard, fascinated to see where she'd stop.  There was nothing for a few seconds but the squeak of Miss Girard's heels on the floor. Then she stopped, somehow facing Playfair's door.  Without saying anything, she swivelled slowly until she was facing Miss Flava's door, and then she shivered.
"Warring factions," she said, her voice thick and slow.  "There is a powerful energy here, but it runs into opposition before it can gather real momentum.  It is tamed temporarily.  We must direct the energy to a better source, we must guide it into productive lines."
She opened her eyes again, and seemed to recover herself a little.
"We must bring in tokens of disillusionment!" she declared enthusiastically.  We must re-route the energy around the contestants, so that they are calmer within and withof themselves!"  There was a noise from Deadneck's direction that might have been a stifled laugh.  "I have just the things in the car!"
"Is she always like that?" asked Deadneck after Miss Girard had left, struggling womanfully with the door.
"Not really," said Oliver.  He opened the toolbox and took out a power-drill and started looking for a socket to plug it into.  "I think the police station's getting to her a bit."
Deadneck just nodded, wound the sheet of paper out of her typewriter and picked up the next report.  She wondered, just for a moment before returning to her job, what Playfair would decide to arrest Miss Girard for when he discovered what she'd done to his office layout.

Pouffe

The door to Playfair's office opened slowly as Constable Wright leaned heavily on it, needing his whole weight to push it open.  The limiter on the top of the door, the triangular armature that on normal doors slowed down the closing to prevent them from slamming, was configured to slow down the opening of the door because Inspector Playfair tended to race through the office and slam anything (and anyone) in his way until it got out of his way.  When the door was this hard to open he had to go through it at what other people considered a normal rate.
Miss Girard watched, a little puzzled, but understanding now why she'd thought this door was locked when she'd been exploring the police station the previous week.  Beyond the door was a medium-sized room with three desks and two more doors.  Deadneck and Janet were sitting at desks, both typing and the third desk had a little nameplate for someone called 'Calamity' and a large bowl of water.  Neither of the other doors were open; one was labelled 'Playfair' and the other 'Flava'.  Both Deadneck and Janet were staring at her wide-eyed and pale.  Janet lifted a pale hand to her lips and looked as though she might throw up.
"Miss Girard," said Constable Wright waving a hand in her direction. "This is Janet," he pointed at the ill-looking woman, "and this is Deadneck.  They're Inspector Playfair's secretaries; they look after any paperwork that survives him, handle his expenses, phone-calls, and try to intercept people like you before they can get to him.  His office is through there," and he pointed at the door labelled 'Playfair.'
"Deadneck?" said Miss Girard as politely as astonishment would allow.
"Yes," said Constable Wright, and Deadneck raised a hand a little way, almost shyly, to indicate that she was the person with that name.  Janet burped, her mouth still hidden behind her hand, her eyes still wide with dread.
"I'm here to–" said Miss Girard and stopped abruptly as Janet turned a deep green colour.
"Commit Feng Shui!" she gasped, and ran for the door, pulling it open with an herculean effort.
"Is she alright?" asked Miss Girard peering after her through the rapidly closing doorway.
"Probably," said Constable Wright, who hadn't a clue.  "Might be bird flu."
"Bird flu?"
"Miss Flava says the secretaries are like canaries.  Dunno what she means myself."
"Twit twit, tweet," said Deadneck without looking up from her typewriter.  Miss Girard suddenly realised that there was no computer equipment in the office; the most modern looking thing was an electric fan.
"The layout's all wrong," she said, looking around, letting her professional expertise come to the fore.  "Look, it's obvious that so much of the energy in this room will be obstructed with the desks like this, they should be better spaced out and back against the walls so that people can look into the room from where they're sat.  That plant should be over in this corner, nearer to the light so that it can lend it growth, and life-giving green as the light comes in.  We need curtains, not blinds, and a token to shield the room from the eye of the Dragon of Disturbance."
"Calamity?" asked Constable Wright, screwing his face up as he tried to follow what she was saying.
"Isn't Calamity another secretary?  She has a desk here."
"Calamity's a dog, miss," said Constable Wright smiling now that he knew the answers.  "A Rottweiler."
"Dogs don't need desks!"
"Are you going to be the one to tell her, then?"
Miss Girard fell silent as she considered how one went about telling a Rottweiler called Calamity that they weren't allowed a desk any more and decided that it was outside the realm of her experience.
"I'll leave you to get on with it, then, Miss," said Constable Wright.  "Deadneck here'll keep an eye on you.  Don't get too... floral, though."

Soft furnishings

Miss Girard, the Feng Shui consultant, had turned up wearing a hat that Constable Wright had last seen in a film about the nineteen-twenties.  It had to be nearly three feet across, most of which was a floppy brim, and the whole thing was cerise.  Somewhere underneath it was a short, slim woman with the personality of a razor-blade.  He was rather unsure if he should be arresting the hat for attempting to eat the woman, or arresting the woman for wearing a hat likely to cause a breach of the peace.  He was also thinking wistfully of his plate of steak-and-kidney pie that was cooling in the break room behind him while he tried to deal with this woman at the front desk.
"Would you mind removing your hat, ma'am?" he said.  "I think it's rather hindering matters here."
"How can my hat be hindering anything?" she snapped back, her voice high and waspish.  "It's a hat."
"It's an obstruction," said Constable Wright slowly, "in particular, it is obstructing me from seeing who I am talking to."
"You don't need to see me!"
"Right ma'am, you see, I definitely do.  You are asking for permission to come into a police statio–"
"I'm telling you that I have an appointment!  You asked me to come here!"
"I can tell you right now that I didn't," said Constable Wright with heartfelt emphasis.  "And you can't have an appointment with Inspector Playfair, and you're refusing to let me see who you are.  You can leave now, or I can arrest you for suspicious behaviour."
"Susp–!  Beha–!" The woman jerked with each cut-off exclamation, quivering like a mushroom about to release its spores.  "Who are you?  Who the hell are you?  I'm here to see Inspector Playfair, and I want to see him now!  How is that suspicious behaviour?"  She was screaming as she reached her last sentence, and to Inspector Wright's gratitude the noise had summoned a senior officer to the front office.
"Asking to see Inspector Playfair is very suspicious behaviour," said DCI Alan Conner, coming out of an interview room where he'd been applying nicotine patches.  "No-one who knows him, or knows of him would ask to see him, and people who don't know him wouldn't know to ask for him.  So you're in trouble already.  Take that stupid hat off and let's find out what your grudge is."
"This is a Zandra Rhodes!"  Miss Girard's voice was getting very squeaky as rage pushed its pitch higher and higher, and listening to her now was like listening to fingernails being dragged down a blackboard.  Both men shivered.
"It's a hat, and you have to take it off."  DCI Conner cracked his knuckles and ignored the look of awe that he got from Constable Wright.  "Or we can take it off you."
The hat was slowly removed.  Miss Girard was actually too short to be able to reach the brim while wearing it, so she had to push it off her head, let it tilt forward, and then catch the rear rim before it hit the ground.  She could only just hold it off the ground.  Without the hat she looked business like but starved.  Her black hair was tangled up with combs and other detritus artfully poked into it, and her make-up had been applied with more enthusiasm than skill.
"Bloody hell!  You look just like–"
"Naomi Campbell, I know," said Miss Girard.
DCI Conner, who had been going to say "Amy Winehouse" with much more accuracy decided not to continue.
"Well, why do you want to see Inspector Playfair then?"
"I need to look round his office and talk to him, get a feel for who he is.  I need to see how he approaches his space and interacts with it.  You can't just go putting any old soft furnishings into a room, you know."
"Crap."  DCI Conner looked at Constable Wright, who still looked very puzzled.
"This is the Fungus Shoe woman," he said, gesturing vaguely at Miss Girard, who despite not wearing it was still doing a very good job of hiding behind the hat.  "She's redoing the office for some reason."  Constable Wright sudden looked enlightened, and his mouth opened in an expression of comprehension.  "She's not allowed anywhere near Inspector Playfair."
"What?" said Miss Girard at the same moment as Constable Wright said "Right!"  DCI Conner pretended he hadn't heard her.
"She can be escorted round his office, but not left alone in there.  She can talk to his secretaries, but someone has to be there at all times with her.  And she is completely in charge of soft furnishings, except where common sense says otherwise."
"Right," said Constable Wright.  "I shall escort her after lunch."
"Steak-and-kidney?" said DCI Conner, sniffing.  "Good choice.  Miss, please take a seat and someone will be with you shortly."
"The Shoe Fungus only affects the kawagina plant, you know," said Miss Girard putting her hat back on and sitting down.  The view from the counter was 'talkative beach umbrella.'  "What I do is called Feng Shui.  And I do need to meet Inspector Playfair."
"We call that a death-wish," said Constable Wright cheerfully.