Case Closed

Greetings, readers!

It's been over a year since I last blogged. Interesting.

Last year I found myself in a university classroom in a tutorial on teaching literacy to primary school students. The tutor was great but the unit overall was terrible, and if you ever catch me in person I've got a whole rant about it that I'm happy to share if you remind me. In the tutorials, our excellent tutor taught us a range of activities for teaching literacy and also demonstrated many of them by getting the class to participate in the activities.

One of the activities is a writing activity where the teacher brings in a bunch of random objects and the students have to use the objects (all of them) as inspiration for a piece of writing. Our tutor brought in a range of random objects and gave us a short time to write about them. We didn't have to share our work and we only had about 10 minutes to write, anyway. But of course, I then zoned out for the rest of the session and completed my story, which I will now share here for you. If you're wondering why the first paragraphs features a number of random objects, including a specific brand of biscuits, it's because that was the exercise.

♥Nancy♬

Case Closed

A pen in a bottle. A pink plate covered in chocolate crumbs. A discarded biscuit box. A knife, gleaming red with blood. A dead body.

“It’s not much to go on.”

Rubber rustled as the detective, Kevin, took off his gloves. He brushed a lock of hair out of his eyes.

“And what’s with the pen? In the bottle?” said the detective’s partner, Sarah.

“We’ll get the lab to check it out. It’s probably nothing.”

“It’s just so odd. She seems like a kindly old lady. I mean, look at the biscuit box.”

The box was a grim sight. Perhaps it had once been a cheerful covering for Lebkuchen Hearts, Stars & Pretzels. Today, it was a lump of soggy cardboard, red and sticky with congealing blood, pierced by a knife.

“Come on,” said Sarah, “let’s go speak to the grandson.”

“They’re my favourite biscuits!” wailed the 20-year-old grandson. “Gran buys them every Thursday and we have tea together. But when I got here today… she was dead!”

“This has been a terrible trauma for you,” Sarah said. She put a comforting hand on the grandson’s shoulder. “Can you think of anyone who would have wanted to hurt your Gran?”

“Nooooooo!”

Kevin winced. It was too early in the day to deal with this high-pitched whine, especially on top of his customary Thursday-morning hangover.

“Everyone loved Gran,” said the grandson. He wiped his nose on the sleeve of his faded sweater. “Except Mrs Rupi, next door.”

“What?” said Kevin.

“Can you tell us a bit about Mrs Rupi?” said Sarah, who was much kinder and better with people, and much less hungover than Kevin.

“Gran bought some plates out from under her. Mrs Rupi wanted the pink plates from Mr Bumble’s retro store, but Gran bought them first. Did you see her pink plates? She loved them. There was one on… there was one on the floor where she was…” the grandson broke into wailing sobs again.

Kevin wrote Mrs Rupi, next door in his notebook.

“It’s not just a pen,” said the white-lab-coat-wearing forensic scientist, Lucy.  She was wearing a floral dress under her lab coat and shoes that were much higher than should have been worn in a laboratory environment. “And I think it’s in the bottle to keep it dry.”

“Yes, but what is it? If it’s not a pen?”

“It’s a covert recording device.”

“A bug?”

“Yes, a bug. It’s covered with Mrs Smyth’s fingerprints so I think it’s safe to say that it’s hers and she put it in the bottle.”

Sarah spoke up, “can you give us any idea of the timeline?”

Kevin asked, “what’s on the recording?”

“Yes to the timeline, absolutely,” said Lucy, “there’s blood on the pen and the bottle. She was stabbed, she got out the pen and put it safely in the bottle. And then she died.”

“Right, and the recording?”

Lucy waggled the mouse on her computer, revealing a desktop picture of herself surrounded by three hunky fellows drinking tropical cocktails. She navigated to the sound file. A deep voice boomed out of the speakers, in conversation with an old woman – clearly the victim.

“So, it’s Mrs Smyth now? An interesting choice. After you killed Mr Smyth in the Ukraine back in ’72.”

“Oh, go away. I’m done with all that. I don’t have anything for you. Fancy a biscuit?”

“I’m chasing intel about the Nepal mission of ’83.”

“My last case. Well, there’s nothing. I deleted all the files. I burned all the papers. I’m done with that life.”

“What did you find in Nepal, Sharon?”

“I won’t talk about it. Get out of my house!”

There was a loud crack and then a crackle in the audio.

“You bitch!”

The sounds of violence played out of the computer speakers. There was a guttural cry, furniture banging, and the clatter of the plate dropping to the floor. The male voice cursed, loudly, then footsteps ran away into the distance. A moment later, silence, as the pen was sealed into the bottle.

“Detective? Kevin?”

“Mm?” Kevin started awake and wiped a string of drool from the side of his mouth. He blinked against the bright fluoro lights of the precinct.

“You’re on the Sharon Smyth case?”

The speaker was the precinct receptionist, in a red sweater and sensible flats, with a voice like a mouse and hair to match.

“Mm,” grunted the detective.

“Meeting in the conference room.”

Kevin stood. He swayed on his feet.

“Sarah’s already there,” said the receptionist, unhelpfully.

Kevin went to join his partner.

Kevin slunk into the conference room and sat down next to Sarah.

“There’s drool on your tie,” she said, exactly as unhelpfully as the receptionist had been.

At the front of the room stood a man in a suit. He wore dark glasses and an earpiece. The chief, in uniform, stood next to him.

“We’re all here,” said the chief, “let’s begin.”

“I am Agent Matthews,” said the man in the suit, “from the City Intelligence Organisation. You are here because you are involved in the investigation of the murder of Sharon Smyth. Let me be clear: you are no longer involved in this investigation. It is now under the exclusive jurisdiction of the CIO.”

The chief took over, “on your desk, you will find a non-disclosure agreement. You will read it. You will sign it. You will return it to Agent Matthews before you leave this room.”

“Any questions?” said Agent Matthews, in a voice that implied there would be no questions, let alone answers.

Sarah, because of course it would be Sarah, called out, “what will happen to the grandson?”

“CIO counselling will be offered.”

Sarah settled back into her chair.

Detective Kevin signed his NDA with a pen from his pocket.

“Case closed,” he said. “Coming for a drink, Sarah?”

“Sure,” said Sarah, also signing her form.

They went to the pub.