TEST OF THE PROFESSIONALS: LEAP YEAR is now in print (and is in the process of converting to hardcover, LP and ebook format!). In the meantime, to thank everyone for their patience, here is one of the chapters I created and spliced into the final version...thanks, everyone!

Browne was without doubt one of the hardest-working Rail Police in London. His (unrelated) counterpart of the Met of the same name was just as diligent, adding to deep confusion on behalf of the newspapers and a schoolboy's delight amongst both police groups. Unlike the Met's Browne, the Rail-Browne was very broad, barely taller than Lestrade, and tended to keep his feet planted apart like a bulldog's when he was actually standing still. He was standing still now, but his heavy jowls worried at a thick cigar and his dark eyes squinted uncertainly in the poisonous atmosphere of the Rail.

"Didn't think you got my message, Lestrade." He grunted but he smiled. Browne's bark was worse than his bite—not that that was encouraging. His barking was perfectly awful. "How's it been? Heard you're joining the ranks of the happily married."

"That's what I heard too." Lestrade said without thinking, and then found himself pounded on the back and being told he was quite the wit. I'm not the wit; I'm still surprised!

"Been looking over the land-slip." Browne coughed. They fell into step together as men of all ages scampered back and forth with all the seeming sense of squirrels. It took practice to walk around an active yard full of trains, metal, people, and lots upon lots of shouting. "Not sure what to make of it," He coughed again, and spat expertly into a rough pile of scoil and scraped-off creosote. "Y'see a fair share of natural accidents on the rail...not as much as used to back in the day, but there's still the fact that when you grow a city too fast, you can skip a step."

Lestrade waited patiently for Browne to make his point. The big man only looked stupid; he was one of the smartest men he knew, including Gregson. They circled the beaten shell of a cargo-truck that was being re-assembled with a lot of dangerous looking tools.

"You were one of Davids' lads." Browne blurted. "I heard he sent you Under a time or two."

Lestrade was about to say yes, of course, he had to go undercover...but then he caught on to what Browne was actually saying. "A time or two." He agreed, his heart pounding.

Browne mulled that over, still keeping the cigar in his mouth. "You wouldn't happen to know if there were any of the Rivers close to the wreck-site?"

Lestrade stopped breathing for a moment. He closed his eyes, trying to think. "I'd have to double back on my notes," he said slowly. "This side of the Thames must have...well...I don't know how many Rivers could be under our feet."

"If this is a natural case, then it's just one of the Lost Rivers coming up and saying hello to us." Browne finally pulled his cigar out of his mouth, just as a wave of soot, cinders, and hot steam washed over them. The smell was indescribable. Lestrade thought of the weekly wash crossed with a smithy. Browne never turned a hair, but small wonder he was coughing.

"The slip happened because the ground grew soft and sponged under the ballast." The Rail-detective spat again. "In fact, y'can still see where the ground was wet—by dawn it glazed over, and hard as a brick it is still! But that was a cold night, and I can't think of why there would be water coming up beneath the earth to twist the rails out of true, nor do it without coming back now that the weather's softened." He puffed again, adding to the fume. "In fact, it froze over so rock-solid, that even though most of London is melting fast, there's still dirty great chunks of it left! Now I've been in the business for years, Lestrade, got engineer training before I joined up, but I never seen anything like this."

"You think one of the Lost Rivers could be the reason for the slip?" Lestrade hedged.

"It's the simplest explanation." Browne answered. "But that's the problem with the Lost Rivers, innit? They're lost because they're bloody hard to track down!"

Lestrade's expression was deeply unhappy. "I don't know." He said quietly. "Davids' maps weren't complete. And Browne...it's dangerous down there. Bloody dangerous!"

"Which is why I'm asking you." Browne puffed one last time, and threw the crumbs of his cigar into a rank pool. "If it isn't one of the Lost Rivers, then the slip was man-made, but that isn't the worst of it." He lifted his hands peacefully to the other man. "No culverts on the charts. Not there. But you know how scattered the papers are. I want to make certain this is or is not a problem. You can see what I'm trying to do-"

"I know." Lestrade assured him. "If one of the Rivers is changing direction, this could happen again. And that will make the government very unhappy."

"Very, very unhappy." Browne agreed. "Davids was the only lead I could think of. And of all the men he trained, you're probably the only one left."

Lestrade stared at his shoes, shocked free of blood. He was right. Cooper was dead; Roane was dead; Bonesy, Stemp and Worsfield were dead...he was the last one and he hadn't even noticed. Observations of his stupidity slapped him across the face. "I'll send you the maps." He said at last. "I don't have them in my office; it will take a day."

Browne's face sagged with relief. "Thank you." he said with emotion. Astonished, Lestrade took a closer look. The square face was heavy with bone-deep weariness and blue-tinged with cold. The magnitude of the accident—if indeed it was—was just beginning to settle into Lestrade's brain.

Browne rarely asked for help at all—but not out of misguided pride. He just rarely needed help.

"I wasn't certain if you could help." Browne was saying.

Dizzy, Lestrade shook his head. "What do you mean?" He asked sharper than he'd meant.

Browne's mouth twisted ruefully. "Even before I moved to the Rails, we haven't been on the best of terms."

"I'd forgotten about it." Lestrade said honestly. And he had. He preferred to forget as much of the Corruption Trials as he could. "And you were just doing your duty."

"I thought you were one of them," Browne would not mention the corrupted officers that Lestrade had infiltrated and spoken against. "You were good at your job; maybe too good."

"Maybe." Lestrade agreed faintly. Too convincing for the criminal mindset; even Dr. Watson said he looked like a strangler off the street, and Watson liked him. Good for work; bad for people. It was one of the reasons why he dressed as expensively as his wages afforded: people looked at clothes before they looked at the man wearing the clothes. "But it's in the past, you know. We can't afford to live there—nice though it is." They both snorted at that. "I'll get you the right map." He vowed. "As soon as I can." They shook hands. Something about it made Lestrade feel odd before he placed it: a weight was lifting off his shoulders; a weight from twenty years past and with it, spiderweb-thin tendrils that promised friendship.

Dinner with the future in-laws was over. Finally.

The idiotic bit about it was, he actually regretted leaving.

Showing some strange sensitivity, the family had drifted off to allow Andrew and Jasmine the heart of the room. Or perhaps it was just the fact that the two tended to be hogs for attention.

They stood in the foyer, Lestrade holding on to the gloves in his hand purely for something to do. Clea's own hands were clasped before her in a posture that was outwardly demure. The engagement-rings were heavy on their fingers. Clea kept looking at hers with the tiniest of smiles. She was happy. He was surprised at how that affected him. She was happy with something he'd offered.

"Will I see you again tomorrow?" She asked with a look that conveyed her awareness of his sudden attack of nerves.

"I hope so." He hoped this was the right tactic. "I could see you home tomorrow-evening."

"I should like that." She smiled. "And here, before you go."

He wondered how long she'd kept the small box in her dress-pocket, waiting for a moment of courage to pass it on or a private moment away from her family. It was a good enough moment. He slipped his own small box out of his own pocket, and they silently grinned at each other as they traded. It would be impossible to do this in privacy forever—they'd enjoy the victory now.

Neither had the courage—or rudeness—to open their gifts. They could talk about it tomorrow.

Elizabeth gently coughed from the doorway, but she was smiling broadly. "Shall we see you again tomorrow, Mr. Lestrade?" She asked gracefully.

"That would be my hope, Mrs. Cheatham." He touched his forehead with his hat-brim, and the manservant appeared out of thin air to hold open the door.

Clea sighed a little bit. "He looked a bit panicky." She said under her breath.

"A natural emotion in this household." Elizabeth pointed out. "Well? What is it?"

"You act like no one was ever given a thing," Clea scolded lightly, but opened the box. It was wooden like the ring-box, a light gold in colour with a soft red glow. The tiny thing inside was a brooch of highly polished wood, carved up to look like a twining serpent biting its own tail.

"Well done." Elizabeth noted. "I suppose that's his Welsh blood? You did say he was a fourth."

"It's also a very Celtic thing." Clea reminded her very Anglo sister-in-law. "A symbol of eternity."

"Fitting." Elizabeth said. "What did you give him, dear?"

Lestrade found that out a few minutes before the cab entered Paddington Street. It was ice-cold, ribbed, spiraled...and...what? The light was terrible and his eyes were tired, but after a long moment of frowning puzzledly, he gave up and pulled his candle-lantern out of his coat pocket for a closer look. Light hissed into behind and he one-handed the box lid up again.

Tiny stone eyes gleamed at him, a stone mouth hung open in an expression of defiance. Its body had begun untold ages ago as a fossil ammonite; now the open end was carved into a silent, hissing snake's head. Lestrade blinked, rather impressed with Clea that she'd managed to find a snakestone in London.

Well. London being London, everything was for sale. He could only hope it was legally bought and paid for. Despite himself, he laughed. It was just the right size to hang off his watch-chain, and after his tortures with Gregson and Bradstreet (especially Gregson), it was a fitting way to end the long, long day. And how very like Clea to offer him something that was both common and complicated at the same time. It was likely her good-natured observation on him.

His pleasant mood lasted until the cab stopped and he hopped out to almost run down Browne.

"Browne?" He blinked at the Rail-man.

The policeman looked worse than ever—as if he'd not only been amongst the trains all day, but under them. "Hello, Lestrade." He was dark under the fitful lamp-light. "I was walking past...I didn't mean to disturb you."

"Er." Lestrade took in the feverish burn of the man's eyes. He knew that madness. "Not at all." He said at last. "If you have a mo' I can get you the map...I haven't been home..."

"Perfectly all right." Browne said swiftly. "That's mighty decent of you. Mighty decent."

"Man, have you rested? Never mind, that's too forward of me." Lestrade swallowed and keyed the front door open. Browne followed like a pup up the steps. "Just a mo'..." He held the door for the blocky man. "Have a seat, t'will be just a bit."

Browne complied, and collapsed boneless into the offered chair. Lestrade turned on the gas so they could see, and took the time to pour two glasses of chouchen for the table. "Have a drink, Browne. That should keep you from being bored as I'm blundering in my records."

Browne only nodded. "I'm sorry to bother y'so late," he stared into the glass as Lestrade pulled a long wooden box off the top shelf of his small bookshelf. It had been perfectly hidden behind a line of battered-up old Classics. He kept his head politely turned to the side, as he pretended not to be aware that Lestrade had documents in his possession. Lestrade was glad of the courtesy. Browne was not too knackered to lose his sense.

"Did something happen today?" He guessed.

"You might say that." Browne laughed joylessly. "You heard about the Hyssop, I'm sure?"

"All I know is it's the ship Quimper allegedly took." Lestrade answered warily; his heart was thumping in a primitive warning system.

"Looks like it sunk."

Lestrade forgot to move. He all but dropped his box and stared at Browne. The blocky man almost glared at him from beneath the grime of his day.

"You're saying 'it looks like' it sunk?" He said slowly.

"Straight off the North Sea, was sliding acros't Channel sweet as you please...until she sails into a bank of fog just before going into the Swinge."

"Oh, God no!" Lestrade swore louder than he'd meant. "I'll believe one of Quimper's seamen wrecked in fog when I start believing in the other fairy tales!" He sputtered and reached for his drink. "The Swinge? That's damned inconvenient if they go down in the tidal race." He took another drink. "Terribly damned inconvenient." His lack of faith in the story's veracity knew no bounds. "Ridiculous! It's not that far from Plymouth, and he spent half his life there—the other half was on the French side!"

"Well, it's chivvied up the Office." Meaning Browne's office. "Someone from even higher up—some addlepate deep in Whitehall, I vow-" Browne drank, "-raised the question of the Lost River, and now there's pressure to get to the bottom of the question 'as soon as possible.' The Office is insistin' Quimper's escape wasn't just chance with the train-wreck. Some people are just as loud as sayin' it is. My lads are worn down to the woof, Lestrade! It's too much to ask them to go through a job when the weather's this raw and miserable. It's cheerier at the end of the Great Western Rail!"

"I believe that." Lestrade settled the box on his lap and dug industriously. Scroll after scroll of soft paper emerged, the edges of each hand-printed with a string of letters and numbers that was an identification code.

Browne was barely noticing, so caught up in his own weariness and the misery of the story.

"I should have known this would happen," he continued as Lestrade searched. "It's happened before. The train-lines follow the waterways as much as possible—river and rail, track and cut! Every so often there's a question of the two crossing, and then there's a royal howl over who is responsible. They won't try to share the work, oh, no. That's too simple."

Lestrade made an understanding sound. Browne was far gone in his personal punishment. "Are you hoping it is a Lost River?" he wondered.

"If it was just a Lost River, they would have made this the problem of the construction-workers, the labourmen and the crews who actually maintain repairs."

"They haven't? Why not?"

"Because I think it's more than that." Browne cleared his throat with a grimace. Lestrade freed one hand and tipped his glass full. "Oh—thank you." He sipped slowly. "About forty years ago, there was a rash of murders along that stretch. Do y' know anything of it?"

Lestrade frowned. "I can't say I do...but you're talking about an ugly time." That was the era of Quimper's father, the just-as-monstrous Ivo Quimper. He was alive and well in his Plymouth estate fat and happy because no one could prove him culpable of a thousand crimes. Lestrade devoutly hoped the bastard's gullion1 was enjoying every day of his freedom, because he lived for the day when he could take it from him in a court of law.

"Well, there was some adjustment to the rails along that time—before our years, but my old predecessor liked to talk, mind." Browne took a deep breath. "There was a gang of badgers2 taking advantage of the work and income along the stretch of river. At least fifteen people went missing—all healthy swells with money."

"At least?" Lestrade scowled. That was awfully vague for someone as careful as Browne.

"Seven were found but the rest never were. There were tales that the victims were bein' tossed down a hole somewhere that connected the river to the Underground. Old Taylor, he said he used to laugh at it, but one day he ran across the remains of such a hole. It was just a moment's walk upstream of that little tavern where y'can buy those old-fashioned pies—y'know, the ones baked into a water crust that comes out like a brick?"

"Oh—yes. They have to put a hammer to the top just to get the insides." Lestrade rolled his eyes. "Used to eat there."

"I hope y'didn't get worms...anyway. He said it was all filled in'n old, but there was a ghost track of the collapsed hollow. It'd gone all the way through the bank under the rail'n street."

Lestrade was puzzled. "You hope to find summat like that?"

"I don't know what I'm looking for. It's just that there's something missing. And Quimper's Da was supposed to be just as deep in crime...he had warehouses up and down that bit of land."

"I didn't know that." Lestrade snapped like a riding crop.

Browne's heavy eyes stared at him across the table. "We didn't tell y'everything and I'm sorry."

Lestrade swallowed again. "It's past." He tried. "Warehouses?"

"Ayeh. Most of them are gone now—gone the way of nature in London. But when he was...well...'in office' so to speak..."

"Missing goods as well as missing people." Lestrade finished numbly. "I thought as much. Jethro Quimper couldn't have started his crimes out of thin air. He had to have inherited."

"No...y'r right." Browne lowered his head. "Rumour had it he had a snake-knot of tunnels and thieves' caches on the watersides of London. But this landslip...someone somewhere thinks this is a Quimperish trick."

Lestrade was suddenly exhausted. "The whole family's made of foxes, Browne. I know. I've done my level best to get some sort of proof against father or son!"

"Well I've been going over the maps of the rails since the day they were charted on paper! I've gone over the maps of the canals going back a hundred years hoping there's something they built a road over and forgot to list...I've been looking at every map I can find, and you know what? They're just as terrible as one of those cheap maps the tourists buy for London."

Lestrade groaned. "You know there is no such thing as an accurate map for London!" A city that grew that fast for that long—and still growing fast-! He stood in his agitation. "Your best bet is to find the least inaccurate map! Lord, man! Entire boroughs are unrecognisable within ten years! Parks become roads! Graveyards go missing! Churches gone! Even the Thames isn't where it used to be—but at least we don't have anything to do with that! It's moving itself! Roads are ploughed up or re-made! Buildings change so fast—you know what you're up against! You think David's maps'll help?"

"Davids' maps were fantastic. He had details that weren't on the city charts."

"You're right." Lestrade breathed out. He went back to the box and passed over a thick scroll. Browne's eyes lit up and he grabbed it as happily as a child with a sweet. Lestrade sipped his drink and watched the man unroll the paper gently. His face glowed. "This might be what I'm looking for." he breathed. "May I borrow this for a day or two?"

"I'm not using it." Lestrade pointed out. "Just be careful with it if you can."

"I will." Browne left, still promising to protect the map with his very life if need be.

Lestrade sat alone, half-finished drink in his hand. He was deeply troubled.

Browne was in a mess. Every copper alive dreaded getting the attention of the superior powers of the Home Office. Promotion wasn't worth that sort of regard.

Davids had been called "The Wonderful Welshman" for a lot of reasons: His renowned ability to get the best out of his men, the loyalty he inspired, his wit and intelligence (he'd memorised most of the Bible, half of Shakespeare and a good deal of Chaucer), and the fact that he had crawled out of the worst possible beginnings in coal to be one of the best policemen in London.

Lestrade had been the last man Davids trained before his enforced retirement. Not a day passed without Lestrade thinking it was Davids' endorsement that kept his career alive after the Corruption Trials. Even Miller wouldn't go up against Davids...not directly.

Lestrade would have given that training back if it had meant Davids could have stayed in the Blue longer. He missed him to this day. It made him proud to be the last of the students...but sad and worried as well.

David's maps weren't his originally; they'd been draughted by a former nick...a very odd reformed character who was more attuned to the London below than the above. He'd never known the identity of the man who had commissioned the maps in the first place—but the physical description could have been Ivo's.

The nick had bequeathed the maps to Davids in proof of his turnaround...and Davids, with his miner's eye for the dark world below an already dark city...had been most cautious about how the information was used.

Browne's borrowed map wasn't the original. The real maps were safe in Lestrade's personal vault. He paid well for the security. He'd moved them back when matters had gotten too thick between himself and his brothers. They had pretended friendliness, but Lestrade hadn't believed it. Fairy tales were for children; they had hated him all his life, and suddenly with his rising to policeman, they were asking him pointed questions about his duties and his beat; names of other officers, had he seen anything strange? Then his shabby little rooms were broken in and riffled through. And broken in again.

Lestrade wasn't the smartest, but he figured his brothers had marked him for very stupid if he couldn't remember the tricks they'd played on him as a boy. There was also the fact that the thieves had been professional—jimmied the locks without a scratch. Was he supposed to believe someone that careful would just sling his few possessions all over the rooms? No—they had been looking for something, and he had moved the maps and a few other things to safety. But the thefts had continued...until one brother was dead at the neck and the other locked up in Princetown. Coincidence? Ridiculous.

It was sickening to think that his brothers, members of Quimper's gang, had tried so hard to get those maps because Browne might be using said maps to finally prove the Quimpers were behind one of the largest smuggling-rings in London.

If Davids' nick had created those maps for Quimper, then there would be something for Browne to find. Things had gone from barely moving to moving quickly—too quickly. The chance of mistake was great and he could only hope Browne's hatred of Quimper's style of 'gentleman's crimes' would be enough to keep his head cool.

Suddenly worried, he selected a blocky old book off the shelf—like most of his scanty reading material it had his notes in the margin. Two-color atlases flipped across his eyes as he found the correct page.

The Swinge. A strait between Aldernay and Berhou, faced a harbour that seemed to change its name every generation or so; it was a fast-moving and powerful current and ships were as dependent on its path as they were at risk by its raw force.

He paged further, seeking clues in the language (words of the sea could be from any language, and he mistrusted his assumptions), but he only found that the Swinge probably got its name from the Norse word for "swift" and that the tidal race of the Swinge was an aggravation to navigators the world over.

Nothing useful. If Quimper had planned it, he'd planned well. If he'd wrecked without planning it...Lestrade ought to be more satisfied at the seas' justice.

He drained his class, put up the maps and went to bed.

1A bastard's bastard

2Crooks who murdered their victims and threw the bodies into the river.