CSI and witchcraft from 04-09-06

I’m standing on top of a multi-storey car park with half of the CSI: Miami team. It’s late afternoon, and the wind is blowing Horatio Kane’s hair about wildly. It feels as if this is just before shooting, so I guess he’s really David Caruso. He’s striding about looking concerned, peering into car windows. Across the building from us there's a late-night café-bar, all green wood and dark windows. Horatio (definitely H now) sends me and Sarah (from CSI) to go and cause a diversion in the bar – he wants us to start a fight with some guys we can see in the front window. As we set off I can hear him say “it’s important that the new CSIs know how to head butt defensively”.

We get partway there before doubt kicks in and we go back to ask if he’s sure. He tells us “make them feel big, and then make yourself bigger; it’s something you have it within you to do”. This time we get inside and go up to the bar. I’m about to order a couple of beers when I realise we have no money, so I run out to Horatio again and ask to borrow a fiver (I’m very conscious that this is the wrong currency). Horatio tosses me his wallet, I’m rather smug with Sarah about having the boss’ wallet. We promptly forget about our purpose and drink instead.

After a few drinks we start talking to the other barflies. There are several city types we’re getting into heavy discussion with, but they lose interest when I say I don’t know London at all well. It’s very late by now, and Sarah has turned into Clayton. We’re asked to leave by the barman and rather sulkily go away. I realise there was some beer left in our bottles and go back to retrieve them.

It’s light outside, at about 3am, so we need to get a taxi, as I’ve still got Horatio’s wallet and we’re due in at work in the morning. We call for them, but they just go past us down the dark red corridors we’re in instead of streets. Then I attract the attention of a weird double-decker taxi. The driver can’t estimate either the distance or the fare when we tell her where we want to go, but we hop in anyway. I follow Clayton up the stairs then grab wildly for a railing. The second level is just a plank swinging around above the cab. Clayton explains that it takes a bit of getting used to.

The driver whips us through traffic, with us waving about, narrowly missing vans and walls. I can tell we’re getting closer to our destination when we go off the main road down a grassy trail. The driver talks to us about witchcraft and how dangerous the place we’re going is. When we get there she stops by a hedgerow. We all get out and she passes us rolls of green tissue paper to shred so that she can lay it all out on the ground in a criss-crossed square by the foot of the hedge. We bicker about the tissue that Clayton adds as it’s really more blue than green. Nonetheless she seems satisfied eventually and tosses a match on it. It all ignites and burns fiercely. When the smoke clears we’re standing at the base of a cliff.