The Shadow of Great Britain

Chapter 1606: Chapter 25: If the Mountain Does Not Come to Me, I Will Go to the Mountain

Only a true king can pull out the sword, and only the strongest knights of England can sit at this round table.

—Thomas Malory, ”Death of King Arthur”

Field sat beside Arthur, looking noticeably older compared to when Arthur first knew him.

Though he was clearly also a young man under 30, he always exuded a sense of fading heroism.

Just like Officer Colly and other subordinates from the Criminal Investigation Department would privately complain, this once promising deputy minister seemed to sneeze out a room full of decay.

A few years ago, he was a reputable and upright officer in Scotland Yard, a skilled investigator multiple times commended by the Home Office. How did he change so much in just a few short years?

Field’s downfall was closely tied to the departure of his mentor, Sir Arthur Hastings, from Scotland Yard.

When Field was transferred into the Criminal Investigation Department, his investigative skills were practically taught hand-in-hand by Arthur, and with his mentor’s attention and care, his path of promotion was always smooth.

On the eve of parliamentary reforms, when Arthur was busy overseeing the Intelligence Bureau during protests, he handed over almost unreservedly the work of the Criminal Investigation Department to him.

And Field rewarded Arthur’s trust well; he not only took up the responsibility successfully but also performed even better than when Arthur was in charge.

However, a gunshot rang out beneath the Tower of London, and Field’s path as a great detective turned a complete 180 degrees.

After Arthur left, Minister Luo Wan, at the behest of the Home Office, launched a major purge of the Intelligence Bureau, determined to root out the rebellious Hastings gene.

Among the middle and high-ranking officers of the Intelligence Bureau, except for the smooth-talking Director of Division Five, Ledley King, and the Ghost Team leader, Thomas Plunkett, who achieved great merit during the reform riots, everyone else received transfer orders to serve in various marginal departments.

The restructuring of the Criminal Investigation Department, on the other hand, was led by Sir Richard Mayne, the Deputy Minister.

As soon as the restructuring began, Field’s area was shifted from criminal investigations to internal officer training. Later, he was sent to different police districts for rotation and guidance on the grounds of frontline officers lacking investigative experience.

Had it not been for a highly impactful murder mystery occurring in London during this time, and the newly promoted group of rookies struggling to find a breakthrough, leading to Field being temporarily called back to solve the problem, he might already have been kicked out to god knows where.

During this period, Field did have moments when he thought of yielding to Minister Luo Wan.

However, on the one hand, he wasn’t as slippery as Ledley, and on the other hand, he wasn’t as eloquent either.

Furthermore, Field didn’t think that yielding would convince the higher-ups that he had surrendered.

Scotland Yard was ultimately the Army’s Scotland Yard; officers like him, promoted from the bottom, were naturally outliers who couldn’t see eye to eye with most people.

Shooter Plunkett was spared precisely because he was originally from the Army, a legitimate ”Green Jacket,” who had taken down a French major general in the Peninsular War and fought alongside the Duke of Wellington in the rain during the Battle of Waterloo. His performance during the London riots further solidified his position.

If Minister Luo Wan intended to take him down, the police chiefs and superintendents originating from the Army might not agree, and this would likely anger the masses and even possibly incur the Duke of Wellington’s wrath.

Field wasn’t as flexible as Ledley, unwilling to lower himself to say, ”I have floated through half a life, yet not met a wise ruler.”

Neither was he like Plunkett, the old British Army, who had followed the Duke of Wellington from the Iberian Peninsula all the way to Waterloo.

Moreover, his position was so crucial and prominent, far beyond Tom’s role managing archives or Tony’s position overseeing daily patrols in Greenwich.

Therefore, his suffering was understandable, given the circumstances.

Officer Colly always blamed Field for being crazy, running to Leicester Square at high noon to boost performance, but how could Field not be filled with anger? In Scotland Yard, being so sidelined—had finding a high-paying job in London not been hard—he would have submitted his resignation long ago.

The only consolation Field could have was likely the situation of Chief Inspector Brayden Jones, who oversaw the Tower Hamlets area.

This unfortunate chap first worked under Chief Inspector Clemens, who committed suicide out of shame after failing to manage the Manchester-Liverpool Railway opening. Afterward, Jones followed Sir Arthur Hastings, who was shot beneath the Tower of London and lay in a coffin at St Martin’s Church for three days.

Simply put, looking at Jones’s résumé, not only did it have a poor record, but his seemingly jinxed destiny of bringing bad luck to whoever he followed also made people suspect: Is this kid carrying some sort of curse?

This resulted in no one at Scotland Yard willing to back Jones, and given that he oversaw the high-crime-rate area of Tower Hamlets, being criticized at regular senior police meetings in Scotland Yard had practically become a regular ordeal for Jones over the past two years.