Names

"How did you know where to find me?"

"Significance of names, Jim."

"That's not an answer sir"

"Not now James. Please."

James had stopped asking then, Lewis was clearly tired and he knew that the smoke inhalation had affected the older man the same way it had him, if not more. He could see how his superior was holding his shoulder stiff, the strain of hauling a tall, if skinny, sergeant out of a burning building who for all intents and purposes, had been a dead weight. He shuddered at this last thought. He very nearly had become one.

.

Now, sat in the office before Lewis has turned up, he pondered on the inspectors enigmatic words. His computer whirred into life noisily and it sounded deafening to him in the empty office. He started the internet browser and before he knew what he was doing, he was on a name meaning site

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/Robert = Bright Fame

/Lewis = Fame, War.

Well that wasn't right. Lewis was quite possibly the most modest man he'd ever met. Everyone in the station did seem to know him though, back from his days working with Morse, Hathaway guessed. War, well he was a policeman. They were both fighting some epic eternal war against criminals in a way. But Lewis wasn't an aggressive man either. Unless he was severely provoked and never without good reason. As far as James was concerned, coming face to face with the man who had killed your wife was a good enough excuse to shout at said man. He'd have stopped Lewis from physically damaging Monkford, but Lewis wasn't like that. James decided he would have been. He'd have tried to put Monkford into the floor. It was probably why Lewis was an inspector and he wasn't.

.

/James = Supplanter

/Hathaway = someone who lives by a heath.

Lives by a heath? Well James supposed that Creavecour hall was a big expanse of green space. But it wasn't a heath. And he lived sort of near Wytham woods. But that wasn't a heath either, that was a wood, clue's in the name. And he lived in the city, which was not heathland, last time he looked. He searched again looking for any other meanings.

/Derived from "Heaethuwig", meaning 'Strife', 'Contention' and 'war'.

Well that made more sense. Interesting that both him and his inspector's names meant 'war'. Admittedly it was a war they could never win. Never had the phrase, "You may have won the battle, but you've yet to win the war" seemed more appropriate to James. Contention seemed to fit too. It had been a big part of his life. Contention between himself and his faith, contention between himself and his friends. Contention between him and his parents. Contention every which way he bloody looked. And Strife was more than apt, considering the last week.

Supplanter? He'd had to check up on what that meant, but he had been right. The third result on google had provided a suitable answer;

/a supplanter is one who takes the place or moves into the position of another.

He supposed he'd taken the place of the other 4 new sergeants that had been after the job at Kidlington.

He also supposed that he'd taken Morse's place as Lewis colleague. No, not taken a place, more filled a gap. If anything, Lewis had taken Morse's place and James himself had taken Sergeant Robbie Lewis' place. He'd seen pictures of Sergeant Lewis. He seemed happy in most of them. Always seemed to be smiling. So I haven't completely taken his place then. James had never been that happy sergeant. It wasn't that he was unhappy, just that at the moment, he didn't really have a lot to smile about.

The more he thought about it, the more he thought that 'supplanter' fitted Lewis better. The older man had supplanted his father's role that was for sure. Lewis had given him more fatherly advice than his 'Dad' ever had. Lewis had come to visit him in hospital, and it was Lewis, not his father that had patched him up after Zoe Kenneth had attempted to kill him. Admittedly this wasn't all his fathers fault. James had turned away when he was 20 and not bothered to look back, but he reasoned that if he wanted to, his dad could find him.

A small voice in the back of his mind told him that he'd only known Lewis after his two years of drinking. He had no idea whether Lewis had been like Dad when he was drunk. Some how he thought not.

He sighed as he decided that he needed a coffee. Lewis would be here soon, and he'd be happy to find that James had brought him one as well. It was the least he could do considering the older man had saved his life. A fact that he still hadn't worked out. He hadn't told anyone where he was going,he hadn't even known himself till he found her stood on his front doorstep. How had Lewis known where to find him? Zoe had barely been a suspect. As he stood up a thought made him pause. He bent back down to the computer, accessing the name site again.

Zoe = Life

Kenneth = From "Cinead", meaning "born of fire".

James finally understood. He figured he owed his inspector a pint.