A million years ago - well, okay, maybe it was only a couple of hundred - I had met Dunsinan for the first time. Much to the disapproval of my family, I had enrolled in the Police Academy. Their dismay had in no way abated when I graduated with honours some years later - they did not attend the ceremony, of course - and was assigned to the Third Precinct.

I had arrived in a gaggle of new cops, all of us excited and nervous, to a Goblin determined to be a good cop and serve the public with neither fear nor favour. We had been kitted out in new uniforms with badges and buttons and buckles all shiny and pristine. They didn't last very long that way, I would soon discover; breaking up a couple of bar fights soon added scratches and the patina of wear to the brasswork. The moral determination didn't last very much longer, either.

We had stood in a line for inspection, under the gimlet eyes of the desk Sergeant. Now, time-served desk Sergeants have a role to play the world over, and one of their bit parts is the routine intimidation of their underlings, a process which starts on first meeting. This review was no different and convincingly terrifying at the time. I can still remember the sneer in his lips and the bloodshot glare from his eyes as his gaze swept from one new recruit to the next, leaving a swathe of trembling youngsters in its wake.

When his eye alighted on me, I returned his stare resolutely. I had spent much time being glared at by my old granny, who could have taught the Sarge a lesson or two, I reckoned, in the "disapproving look" department. With the faintest of nods and a loud grunt, the Sergeant's attention moved on to some more deserving victim in the line. It was then that I noticed the bulky Goblin behind the Sergeant, who gave me a very knowing look and nodded slowly. It was Ardoch Dunsinan, of course.

I was partnered with Dunsinan from the very next day; I learned later that he had specifically requested for me to be assigned to him. I learned a lot from his experience over the months and years - mostly police procedures and how to do things by the book, leavened with a few dirty street-fighting tricks which have saved my bacon on more than one occasion, as well as numerous insights into the nature of the Goblin mind.

Policing in the Lower Realms is similar in many ways to that in parts of the surface world. Cops patrol the boulevards and byways of the caverns in pairs, on foot - there are no cars or even bicycles down here, as the spaces are too cramped and the surfaces rarely flat. Coppers on the beat discourage the most obvious kind of crimes - muggings and bag-snatching, for the most part - and to be on hand to break up bar brawls and domestic disturbances with a minimum of delay. Of course, there are sometimes more serious crimes, but as a beat officer your role in these events is mainly keeping the rubbernecking crowds at a safe distance while the Investigation team gets on with the serious work.

Like the uniforms, the standard equipment is all very traditional: a wooden truncheon - a stout and very heavy club which can be fearsome in the hands of a long-armed Golbin - and a short piece of enchanted rope which can bind wrists or ankles in the event of making an arrest. This is accompanied by a whistle on a chain, a helmet of steel and leather with cut-outs for protruding Goblin ears, and a leather waistcoat magically enhanced to deflect blades and bullets.

A trick I learned from Dunsinan early on - and one which I have carried on to this day - is concealing a few cheap glamours in ones pockets. These cardboard-wrapped one-shot magics may or may not actually be illegal but are easy enough to acquire if you know where to seek in the quieter back alleys. He taught me that a well-deployed concealment or invisibility glamour could save your skin in a tight situation or ease your life on a boring night shift. A gift to the overworked copper.

I got to know him quite well - or so I thought at the time - with much chatter and gossip during quiet periods on patrols, a certain amount of bluster and male bravado when it was called for, and some wise advice uttered sotto voce over a glass of beer. But for all his worldly ways, his physical strength and mental determination and, it has to be said, a certain amount of charm and bonhomie when he could be bothered to turn it on, I got the impression that he was actually quite a shy person. He did not have many friends or even acquaintances; not once, in all the years we hung around in bars together, was he ever hailed in a casual way. He was, in reality, a loner, a solitary and rather reserved individual. Just like me, in fact. No wonder we got on so well.

I worked with Dunsinan almost every day for fourteen years before he was promoted to Investigations and reassigned to another station. Even after he moved to the Seventeenth Precinct, I still caught up with him from time to time to drink beer and chew the fat in some backstreet bar or other. He stayed on the force for quite a few years, turning himself into a quite successful investigator - a route I followed too in later years, with him conspicuously placed as a role model.

Then all of a sudden, without warning, he left the force: resigned his post and left the station within hours. He had said nothing to me about it, even though we had been cluttering up a couple of barstools only a few evenings before. Nothing was ever said about why he left, and I heard nothing to his demerit either officially or in the scurrilous gossip that circulates in the Precincts at unholy speed. It was, in its own way, an unsolved mystery.

Part 3

Part 5