First time around, Kent had been flummoxed, mumbled a lame apologyand just stood there while the man belittled him. This of course had been exactlywhat Summerfield had planned. But this time he had come prepared and wasn’tgoing to be intimidated. This was his first opportunity to show that he wasn’tsome lame duck that could be trodden all over.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” said Kent, with a total lack of sincerity. “Ididn’t realise that my job description now included what I am and am notallowed to eat. My mother always told me that breakfast was the most importantmeal of the day. ‘Breakfast like a king,’ she used to say. Certainly not like asparrow,” he added, mimicking the look Summerfield had directed at his midriff,as he cast a derisory glance at Summerfield’s muesli.
The police commissioner looked shocked. He wasn’t used topeople answering him back. After a couple of seconds he regained his composureand managed to string together a response.
“You know, I don’t think that’s an appropriate way to talkto your police commissioner. I’ve got my eye on you, Kent. Think on.” As hesaid this he put down his tray and did that annoying gesture where he liftedtwo fingers to his eyes and then turned them around and pointed at Kent.
“Whatever you say, sir,” replied Kent as his toast poppedout of the machine. It was done to perfection. He decided not to push this encounterany further. He didn’t want to mess his plans up for later on. It was importantthat Summerfield continued on exactly the path he had before. If Kent took himto task too much now, it could have a knock-on effect that would alter hislater behaviour.
Toast on plate, happy to have got the upper hand in thisopening skirmish, Kent walked off towards a table where he could see Dan Bradley,a D.I. from Banbury, sitting on his own. He liked Dan. He was even more old schoolthan Kent so he would feel quite comfortable having breakfast with him.
Behind him, he heard Summerfield curse “Bloody hell.” Helooked back and was amused to see that he had burnt his toast.
“One up to me, I think,” said Kent under his breath. “Enjoyyour breakfast, Gideon.” Chuckling to himself he made his way over to see hisportly colleague who had a plate piled even higher with artery-clogging food thanKent’s.
Thankfully there were to be no heart attack-inducing outsideactivities on this second day. That was all done and dusted. They were to becooped up in the conference suite for the day, a slightly smaller hut than therestaurant set-up for training purposes. It was also where the wedding ceremoniestook place.
Kent made sure he got to the room bright and early to reacquainthimself with the layout. It was not that different to the average hotel conferenceroom, except instead of the usual panelled walls, the sides of the room weremade from vertical timber beams.
At the front of the room was a raised platform with alectern in the centre. He noticed there was a top of the range brand new AppleMac on top, which would undoubtedly be Summerfield’s. He hadn’t noticed thatthe first time he had been here, four months before.
How hypocritical of the man. It had been around this timethat Hannah and Adrian had pleaded with him to get some new computers in theoffice. The ancient laptops they were using were creaking with age. Kent’s was theworst of all. It still had Windows Vista on it. When he had put a request in toSummerfield for some new equipment it had been refused. Apparently there was nobudget for it. And now here he was with a sparkly new Mac.
Behind the stage was a seriously impressive-looking bigscreen onto which the laptop was projecting. There didn’t seem to be any of thewires or overhead equipment that Kent remembered from his haphazard attempts topresent things in the past.
His last effort had been a couple of years ago when he hadtried to display some new guidelines at a Pubwatch meeting. On that occasionthe laptop had stubbornly resisted all attempts to connect to the projector.When he finally did get it working the slides were upside down, much to theamusement of the assembled pub landlords.
Why did these things always have to be so complicated? musedKent. Back when he was training at Hendon he had given a presentation as partof his final examination and he hadn’t had any problems then. The whole thingwas done on printed-out slides, photocopied onto clear acetate and projectedmanually onto a wall. It was simple, and short of the bulb going, nothing couldgo wrong.
Gideon Summerfield clearly wasn’t going to have any such problem.Kent didn’t know how he was connecting to the screen but it was doubtless withsome modern, easy technology not available to the likes of him. Bluetooth, probably,something he still didn’t fully understand and didn’t want to after the incidentwith the know-it-all assistant in the electrical store.
The screen unsurprisingly read “Embracing Change” which waswhat they were here for. The mere title infuriated Kent. He didn’t want toembrace change. He liked things just the way they were. The old-fashioned wayof policing suited him down to the ground and had served the country reasonablywell for decades. Why was there always some upstart like Summerfield trying tothrow a spanner into the works?
He could understand the benefits of some changes such asimproved technology, not that much of it ever found its way to his station. Buttrying to change the entire culture of the force just for the sake of change? Kentcould see no purpose to it other than inflating the hideous man’s already bloatedego.
Kent turned his attention to the other end of the room wherethe rest of the delegates were filing in. The room had been set up for the dayin four rows of tables with around ten seats in each row. Each seat had alreadybeen allocated to a specific attendee with a name tag. There was paper andcomplimentary pens adorned with the logo of Greenland’s Training Centre, aswell as jugs of water, biodegradable paper cups and some complimentary mints.
These
