The Great CumuloNimbus

Playfair's chair clattered back to the floor on all four legs, and he leaned diagonally forward across the table towards the office.
"A magician?" he said, his voice raising slightly.  "As in, a stage magician?  Someone who does card tricks, or someone who does grand illusions? Grand Guignol, even?"
"Isn't that a type of sausage?"  When Playfair refused to answer, or even to remove his gaze from the officer's face, he continued after swallowing hard.  "He calls himself the Great CumuloNimbus and he does a lot of illusions and disappearances.  He made the town-hall disappear last year, and the year before that he made the Mountgarden's garden bloom in winter.  Just for the one night, mind you.  He's very good."
"Did he bring the town-hall back again?"  It was impossible to tell if Playfair was being sarcastic or not, and the officer decided not to chance it.
"Yes, it came right back, right after the show.  Just like it had never been away," he said.
"At least he keeps the place tidy then," said Playfair sitting back at last.  "How many of his shows have you seen?"
"Uh, well, I don't know," said the officer.  "I mean, he usually does one every Christmas, and there's often a summer one, unless he's travelling of course, but then he'll usually do a Spring one before he goes then... and of course, he's a local boy, so you try and show a bit of support, don't you?"
"Do you?" said Playfair.  "You certainly sound like a fan.  Are you bothered that he's dead, then?"
"Now look here," said the officer, his voice getting gruff.  "Anyone dying round here is a cause of bother.  You can come here with all the attitude you want, and think that we have pigs living round the back and no internet connections, but we still do the job, and we do it right."  He rose to his feet while he was talking.
"I'm sure Playfair didn't mean–" said Miss Flava trying to step tactfully in before Playfair could speak again, but the officer cut her off.
"I'm sure he did mean it."
"I still mean it," said Playfair.  "And I'm glad that you're bothered that he's dead, as it means you'll have looked all the harder into who might have killed him.  So what you need now is someone who didn't know the victim, who can stand back with a little bit of objectivism and help sift the wheat from the chaff.  Or the pigs from the sheep, or the shit from the sherbert, or whatever else you might sift out here beyond the barricades."
"...Ayn Rand?" asked Miss Flava.  The officer sat down, looking a little calmer, although also a little puzzled as people tended to be after one of Playfair's monologues.
"Yes," said Playfair.  "Very odd woman.  I recommend you study her."
Now it was Miss Flava's turn to get annoyed.  "What, so I can be a very odd woman too?"
"No.  So that you don't end up like her."  Ignoring the look of fury on Miss Flava's face he faced the officer again.  "Look,... er... whatever you name is, from the report I've read, and I know that it's incomplete, you have a murdered magician and so far no suspects.  That can't possibly be right; if nothing else he must have had parents, and most murders are family affairs.  You've done a lot of digging, you've turned up a lot of evidence–"
"Tortoise shells," muttered Miss Flava, still fuming, but Playfair ignored her.
"–and now it's time to find out what that evidence is telling us.  I've been sent to help out, and that's what I'm going to do.  Now, tell me all about Stormy the Magician."
"Who? And my name's Alf, Sir."  The Sir was delivered meaningfully, with a strong intimation that it could be taken away again just as quickly.
"The Great CumuloNimbus," said Playfair not quite patiently.  "CumuloNimbuses are stormclouds."
"I never knew that!" said Alf.

Interview room A

"Bugger what?" said Playfair, still emptying pockets.  He'd found one that appeared to contain just a large amount of lint, which he happily strewed over the counter.
"What?" said the officer behind the counter.
"It sounded like an instruction," said Playfair.  "And given that we're out in the blasted wastelands here, I wondered if you were expecting it to be followed."
"What?"
"Playfair, I think he believes that you're you," said Miss Flava, marvelling at the junk in her boss's pockets, and also noting that he'd not produced any other card than an Oyster card, despite producing about five different ones when interviewing the priest earlier.  "Can you stop emptying pockets and let's get on?"
"Dead bodies don't get any deader," said Playfair, but it was relatively gentle.  He stirred the large pile of junk on the counter  and fished the string and sealing wax out of it.  "I don't want the rest," he said.  "You have a bin, I suppose?  Or does it all get fed to the pigs?"
The officer behind the counter went pink, but picked up a plastic waste-bin lined with a translucent white plastic bag and swept everything Playfair had dropped on the counter into it.  He put it back down on the floor, then leaned on the counter, his fingers interlinked in front of him.
"This is about that man what they found in the church, isn't it?" he said.  "You'd probably better come into the interview room then.  Door over there, it's not locked."  He pointed, and Miss Flava looked, and nodded.  "I'll just have to get Henry out from the back-room to man the counter.  We don't like not having an officer visibly on duty."  If Playfair noticed the jibe he paid it no attention.
The interview room was rectangular and cold.  There was a table with two plastic chairs on one side and a third on the other.  A couple of sheets of white A4 copier paper lay scattered on the desk, and a cheap plastic pen was on the floor under the table.  Small windows, high-up, let in a begrudging amount of rather grey light and the room smelled of disinfectant.
"Now the murder happened in the church," said Playfair, sitting on the single chair and leaving Miss Flava to choose which of the other two chairs she disliked least.  She opted for the blue one, leaving the orange one free.  "That will cause them problems, spilled blood can deconsecrate churches if I remember right."
"I think it takes a fair amount of spilled blood," said Miss Flava.  "But I don't think he meant that the murder took place inside the church building, just on the church grounds."
"Then he should say so!"  Playfair leaned back, balancing the chair on two legs.  He wobbled.
"Who should say so?" The officer from behind the desk came in, closing the door behind him.  He pressed a switch on the wall next to the door.  "Just letting people know that the room's in use," he said.  "Probably don't need to lock you in, heh?"
"You should say so," said Playfair.  "You said that the murder happened inside the church, while the report I've read says that the body was found in some woods.  That would be what I like to call a discrepancy."
"The body was found in the woods," said the officer sitting on the free chair.  He seemed uncomfortable sitting on the same side as Miss Flava, and shuffled and scooted his chair round until he was at the end of the table, facing both of them.   "But it looked like he'd been murdered several times over, and then dumped in the woods.  For him to bleed out like that, we think he must have been murdered quite close by, and the only building nearby is the church."
"You see–" started Miss Flava, but Playfair leapt in and spoke right over her.
"I've not seen the coroner's report yet.  What do you mean, he was murdered several times over?"
"Well, strangled, stabbed, beaten and hanged," said the officer, looking apologetically at Miss Flava as he tried to acknowledge that she'd been speaking first.  "It seemed a bit excessive if you ask me."
"Perhaps he was well-hated?"  Playfair was being a little flippant, but the meaning was clear.
"Not that we've been able to find out.  His name was Iain MacLeod, and up until three days ago he was drawing a capacity crowd to the Mountgarden theatre every weeknight.  Seems like he was a pretty popular guy."
"He was an actor, then?"
"No.  He was a magician."