The Girl Who Tweeted Wolf - Hobson & Choi Case One

ONE - #HobsonVsWolf

Not only was there no name stencilled on the window of Hobson's office door, it didn't even have a window. Angelina was disappointed – what kind of crappy detective doesn't have an office name stencil window?

Instead, it was a solid beige fire door. The only thing marking it out from the beige corridor was the change in texture from beige plaster to beige wood. Same old London office in a boring building. Clearly all her effort to dress interesting had been silly. The black floaty layers and purple tights looked ridiculous against all the nothingness.

Too late to change though, she was already five minutes late. She knocked on the hollow, cheap-sounding door, with the firmness of an adult, rather than a nervous sixteen-year-old. Or so she hoped.

"Yeah, come in," said the hoarse yell from inside.

Angelina pushed the door open. Considering how long she'd spent staring at the tedious white thing, it floated away easily.

The office behind was more interesting than the corridor, thankfully. Bright blue, two desks, a few filing cabinets. But no discarded whiskey bottles, nor a mattress round back where the detective slept.

"Good morning, Choi," said a deep voice. The huge man behind the larger desk leapt up, revealing a pressed black suit and straight tie. Buttoned down to a fault, this guy could be a real veteran police detective, right up to the grey peppering his short dark hair.

And why was he calling her by surname?

"Good to meet you. I'm John Hobson, just Hobson is fine though." And, when she didn't immediately reply: "How are you? Good trip over?"

"Um, thanks, I'm fine, you too." She forgot to punctuate any of that, blushing as soon as it finished.

"Good. Good. Well, welcome to our new work experience internship programme. I hope I'll be able to show you something about the business in two weeks. As you can see, I've cleared a desk for you here. " He gestured at the smaller one in the room, with a wedge of papers recently shoved to one end.

"Looks nice," she glanced down and nodded. "Lots of room."

Another silence.

"So," he was already standing up and hooking his jacket off the back of the chair, "I have to get moving for a lunch meeting, but I do have a job for you to get on with."

Her ears pricked up, but expectations remained measured. She'd be filing all those papers away, wouldn't she? Or running out to buy milk?

"I've noticed this social Twitter internet media thing seems to be taking off," he said, gesturing widely at the computer on her desk, as if that explained everything, "could you create an account for me and get me some of those... followers?"

Angelina blinked. "I'm sorry?"

"Well, you know. I've just repainted my office, I want to be modern, and your lot seem to be familiar with this kind of thing."

"My lot? What do you mean my lot?"

"No no no no no," Hobson spun round, nearly whirling her across the room, "not Asians. Teenage girls."

"Oh. Right." Depressingly, she was relieved he'd even noticed she was Asian. "Well, sure. I'll see what I can do."

"Thanks, Choi." He shrugged his massive coat on, composure back in place. "Just a couple of hundred should do. Cheers, running late, back in an hour."

With that, he waved and dashed out the door. And then popped his head back round. "Oh, could you also run out and get some coffee? We're running low."