The fifth floor

The lift doors slid noiselessly shut and with only a faint whine of a motor somewhere activating the lift began to move.  Miss Flava looked around, impressed.  Back at the police headquarters the lifts were avoided by all but the bravest or most time-pressed policemen and shuddered and groaned like they were bit-players in a Hammer horror film when they were used.  This lift had mirrors, shiny brass-effect buttons, gleaming pieces of trim, carpet on the floor, and a discrete poster advertising the breakfast buffet on the lower-ground floor.
"I think she thinks we're together, you know," she said.  Playfair sniffed.
"Well we are.  She'd be pretty dim to think that we'd just chanced to come in at the same time and had rooms next door to one another."
"That's not what I meant," said Miss Flava.  "I think she thinks that we're here for a romantic weekend break."
"Oh," said Playfair.  Then, after a couple of seconds pause.  "No."
"I know," said Miss Flava, with perhaps a little too much emphasis.  "But she doesn't, and she's drawing conclusion based on us having adjacent rooms, arriving together, and wanting a connecting door."
"Silly woman," said Playfair after listening to this.  "That's the kind of conclusion officers on this force jump to, because they haven't considered all the facts.  We've got too much luggage for that kind of romantic break for one thing, and you carried most of it."  The lift pinged softly to indicate that they'd arrived at the fifth floor, and the doors slid open.  "I don't know what form of ID you showed her, but I used my warrant card, and why would we ask for a key to the connecting door instead of just requesting that it be kept open?"
"Does that make it sound more like we're colleagues on a business trip?"
"...actually, it makes it look like I'm your parole officer, unless you showed your warrant card too."  They'd got the luggage out into the corridor now, and the lift doors silently closed behind them.  Miss Flava stared at Playfair in disbelief.
"She'd better not be thinking that!" she said, her hands resting on her hips and her chin jutting out slightly.  "How could...!  How dare...!  Playfair!!"
"Well, what ID did you show her?"
"My driving licence of course!  Like a normal person would."
Playfair shrugged.  "Passport would have been better, it's unlikely you'd be allowed to keep that if you were on parole," he said.  "Though our parole officers don't seem to much care."
Miss Flava kicked a bag that she knew contained clothes.  She knew the case Playfair was referring to, where three prisoners on parole had flown out of the country and disappeared in South America because their parole officer had apparently thought that meeting them for a pint on Wednesday evenings was enough to carry out his job.
"You're carrying the bags then," she said, venting her frustration where she could.
"No need," said Playfair.  "It seems we've got rooms by the lifts.  How convenient is that?"
Miss Flava took a very small amount of comfort in seeing that Playfair's door was directly opposite the lift, while hers was offset a little, meaning that late night returnees and drunkards would be more likely to wake him than her.
"Fine," she said.  "Carry your own bags into your room then."  She swiped her access card in the door lock, and pushed the door open.  Then she paused and looked back at Playfair.
"What are we doing with Calamity?" she asked.

The rest of the house

"What are you expecting to find here?" asked Miss Flava.  She turned her head sideways to look at her boss, but he was concentrating on the corridor ahead.  It was mundane, carpeted in a light green, hard-wearing carpet, and the walls were painted cream where there weren't scrapes and scuffs from things having been carried along it.  At the end they'd come through was the door that Playfair claimed had just popped open of its own accord, and at the other end was a glass-paned door with a white frame.
"Nothing much," said Playfair.  "Judging from the forensics report Stormy was killed too many times to have died here and been taken elsewhere.  It's just about possible, I suppose, that he wasn't killed where he was found, but you'd have to ask yourself why someone would try and kill him again somewhere else."
"Yes," said Miss Flava, wondering not for the first time just how oddly her boss's mind worked.  "That would be a strange thing to think.  Which kind of explains why it's you thinking it, I suspect."
Playfair huffed a little.  "What I'm looking for here is something to tell us what kind of a man Stormy was.  Something so that when we start talking to people we've got things to talk to them about."
He turned the handle on the glass-panelled door, and Miss Flava found herself hoping for a moment that it was locked, but it turned and opened, admitting them to a living room.  It was spacious; there was a wide-screen television on the wall next to where they'd come in, and a leather suite set in a horseshoe shape around it.  Behind that was a table with a stack of papers, some pens, and a steel ruler on it, and behind that was a low bookcase.  As Miss Flava looked around, she found more and more things to look at, as though the room were actually two rooms, each used at different times and unaware of the other's existence.
"Hmm," said Playfair, sitting down on the couch.  "This is a bit close to that screen for comfort."
"For you, maybe," said Miss Flava.  "For all we know, Stormy is short-sighted."
"Was short-sighted," corrected Playfair.  "Well he enjoyed watching television anyway, look at this."  He leaned forward and indicated the slim boxes below the television that provided cable, satellite, and free-to-view television, along with PVR facilities.  "There's games consoles here, too," he said, pointing at another three boxes set a little way off.  "There must be a sea of cables hidden behind all this."
"You think he put them all in himself?"
"No," said Playfair almost immediately.  "It's all too tidy really; I think it was done by a professional so that it's hard to get them all out and mess them up again."
Miss Flava left Playfair to inspect the DVD cupboard and wandered over to the table and bookcase.  On the wall above the bookcase were glass-fronted pictures of men, and the occasional woman, in evening-wear.  Most of the women had the look of 'glamorous assistant' about them, but one or two looked as though they might be the star performer in their own right.  She was about to turn away when one of them caught her eye.
"Playfair!" she called, leaning in a little closer to look at the picture in more detail.  "Come and look at this."
"I hope it's better than these DVDs," said Playfair sounding grumpy.  "I don't think there's anything here that isn't a recording of some show that he's done.  The SOCO boys are going to be really disappointed."
"Look at this," said Miss Flava, tapping the picture with her finger.  "Does she look familiar to you?"
Playfair peered at her, his eyes narrowing slightly as he considered the picture.
"It's the woman with Ronald," he said.  "Bit more meat on her bones in that picture, but it suits her."
"Right," said Miss Flava.  "And look at what's written below it: Angelique Demaître, summer '84.  Looks like there might have been a reason for her thinking that there might be something between herself and Stormy."
"I hope not," said Playfair instantly.  "Otherwise everyone else on this wall becomes a suspect, and some of them look pretty dead."
"You can't tell if someone's died just by looking at a picture of them, Playfair."
"Some of them look dead in their pictures."
"Anyway, if you were her and you knew that you were up on the wall like this, wouldn't you think there was a chance?"
"No," said Playfair. "Not when it's with all these others.  Could just be professional courtesy."
Miss Flava considered pointing out that they both thought that the woman was already slightly delusional but decided not to when she remembered that Playfair seemed almost as disinterested in her as her brother-in-law had been.
"Anything in the papers?" asked Playfair, looking at the books on the bookcase with a look of disgust.  "The books all seem to be magic books."
"Makes sense," said Miss Flava.  "These all seem to be blueprints for something."
"Right," said Playfair.  "I think we can leave this room then.  Where next?"

A little off the top

"A guillotine!" said Miss Flava.  "I wasn't expecting that."
"What were you expecting?" asked Playfair, looking at her as though she were stupid.  "How you could have been expecting anything?"
"Oh leave it be, Playfair," said Miss Flava.  "You know what I meant."
"Sloppy speaking engenders slopping thinking," said Playfair.
"Oh, very Sapir-Whorf," muttered Miss Flava, making sure it wasn't loud enough for Playfair to catch.  "Let's go look at the guillotine then."
The guillotine was a spotlit blade mounted on two tall columns of wood with a thin bar stretched across the top of the two columns.  A rope stretched from the blade of the guillotine to a tying off point on the floor of the stage, around which it was wound in a figure-of-eight.  Beneath the blade was a black padded bench with a floral pillow a little after where the blade would fall.  A piece of shaped wood propped up against the bench looked as though it was intended to fit around the victim's neck, holding their head in place so that the blade could slice cleanly through without being blunted or turned by vertebrae.  On the floor next to the bench, behind it from where Playfair and Miss Flava had been stood in the wings, was a body.  Playfair saw it first, and sped up, while Miss Flava, seeing what her boss had spotted, stopped where she was and pulled her notebook out.
"Anyone we know?" she asked, holding her pen tightly over the pad.
"Not exactly," said Playfair, bent over the body.  "But I think we encountered his head just a little earlier."  He lifted up the chest of the body to reveal that it was headless.  The stump of the neck had little metal contact points and socket junctions instead of veins and bands of muscle.  Miss Flava put her pen away.
"He?" she asked.
"Very definitely male," said Playfair, looking further along the body, which was now clearly just a very lifelike mannequin.  "Either he's needed for some other part of the act, or the Great Stormy has some insecurities."
Miss Flava thought about that for a moment, and decided that she wouldn't like to have to guess.  "OK," she said. "So we have a guillotine on a stage, so it looks like we know what the rehearsal was going to be.  Head's in a cupboard, so perhaps it's not needed for the main trick?"
"We should probably ask Ronald and his dreadful sister," said Playfair. "They were supposed to be here helping with this rehearsal."
"Sister-in-law," said Miss Flava, patiently.  "Right, well, we can do that later unless you think this is important?"
"Everything is important," said Playfair.  "I've told you that, and I keep telling you that."
"Yes," said Miss Flava.  "But at the end it always turns out that some things were much more important than others, and what I really want to know if how to spot them."
"Start off by understanding that everything's important!"
"Shall we carry on looking around?"
They went off the stage the way they'd come, walking back through the prop-room in the corridor and through the sticking door.  They looked at the door that seemed to lead into the rest of the house; it was still locked.
"Do you think Ronald will have a key?"  Playfair was eyeing the door up.
"Possibly," said Miss Flava.  "Why don't you go and see if he's still here?"
"You go," said Playfair.  "You're better at negotiating than I am."
Miss Flava sighed and walked back out to the auditorium.  Calamity was still underneath the table, curled up now and making little doggy dreaming noises, the empty trays next her showing that she'd eaten all of the sandwiches.  Miss Flava shuddered a little, still worried that they might yet have a dead police dog on their hands.  She looked around, and realised that Ronald had managed to leave most of the stuff they'd thought he'd brought with him behind, taking apparently only his sister-in-law and their bags.  She went to the French doors to see if he was still in the carpark, but a thud back where she'd left Playfair had her running back to see what had happened.
Playfair was stood where she'd left him, but the locked door was now swinging open and the lock looked a little bent.
"It opened," said Playfair, smiling as though stunned.  "I was just standing here, and it... well, it opened."
Miss Flava didn't believe him for an instant, but gestured at the open door anyway.
"After you, Sir," she said.

Nosing around

Miss Flava and Playfair left Ronald tugging at his sister-in-law's leg and walked to the stage at the back of the room.  The curtains were drawn, and Calamity was still sitting beneath the trestle tables and had nearly finished a whole tray of sandwiches.  They looked at each other and decided silently that they'd leave her where she was for now.  Then they looked at the apron, which was about three feet high.
"Climb, or find stairs?" asked Miss Flava, sure that she could get up on the apron without trouble.
"Stairs," said Playfair after a moment's hesitation.  "Technically, moving the curtains counts as interfering with the scene of the crime."
"Do you think SOCO's been here yet?" asked Miss Flava as they both turned to the left, where the shadows suggested that there might be doors.
"Hah!  I don't think anybody but us has been here yet," said Playfair.  "Except maybe to ring the front doorbell and then write down in a little notebook that no-one appeared to be in at the dead man's residence."
"You're not giving the police in Little Haversham much credit, are you?" said Miss Flava.  They located two doors in the gloom at the side of the room, one appearing to lead out into the rest of the house, and being locked; the other was smaller, flimsier, and looked as though it might lead to the back of the stage.  Playfair gripped the handle firmly and opened the door with a shove.  It scraped along the floor for a few inches then moved freely, so he ended up slamming it back against the wall.  Calamity barked once, and then presumably went back to eating the sandwiches.
"They've not given me any reason to," said Playfair looking through the doorway.  "It's been three days at least, and they've not checked the house out.  That's given this upper-class twit a chance to get in with his simple sister and do god-knows-what in here.  We could be missing valuable clues because he's been tidying up or putting them in the sandwiches when his sister's not looking."
The doorway opened onto a small ante-chamber that was essentially a wide, short corridor with lots of shelves on both sides.  The shelves were lined with props for tricks, and some parts had been fitted with doors to turn them into cupboards.  Playfair opened the first and found several stacks of playing cards; the next was contained stacks of oversized playing cards.  A third cupboard contained a realistic severed head that seemed to eye Playfair back as he stared at it.
"Sister-in-law, not sister," said Miss Flava.  She was looking at the shelves on the other sides with their little machines, linkages, and boxes of nuts, bolts and washers.  "And... damn, does that mean we should have been treating the sandwiches as evidence?  You did say they looked like ham, and we've pretty much believed Ronnie when he said they were mackerel mayonnaise."
Playfair took the severed head out of the cupboard, a little carefully as it proved to be heavier than he was expecting.  Miss Flava turned to see why he hadn't answered, and took a step back, her hands coming up protectively in front of her.
"My God, Playfair, what is that?"
"Latex skin," said Playfair examining it, "over a metal frame I think.  There's a switch here...."
He pressed it and the head seemed to come to life, a soft interior glow making the flesh seem warmer and more human and the eyes blinking a couple of times.  The lips moved, and a hint of a pink tongue seemed to lick them.
"That's creepy!  Put it back, Playfair.  It's not evidence."
"We don't know what is and isn't evidence yet," said Playfair, but he pressed the switch again and put the head back in the cupboard anyway.  He closed the door on it.
"You might be right about the sandwiches," he said.  "But we've got a lot of them in Calamity now, so there's probably no call for worry."
Miss Flava considered that a potentially dead police dog was certainly cause for worry, but couldn't be bothered arguing with Playfair over it at the moment.  They carried on, walking through the corridor into the wings of the stage.  Towering curtains of black cloth now created entrances onto the stage that prevented the audience from seeing through to the wings or the prop room, and allowed the performers to move on and off stage as though vanishing from the world.  There was enough room for about four people to stand in the wings before it started getting crowded, and there was a small prompter's desk with a blue-shaded light-bulb tucked into the corner.
What they could see of the stage through the curtains was much more interesting though.

Rehearsal

"Look, Inspector," said Ronald, his accent thickening to the point where single vowels seemed to take entire second to pronounce, and wobbled around the inside of his mouth like they'd been partially stunned before being spat out.  "Look, it was a simplistic slip of the tongue, a lapsus lingue, if you like."
"I don't like," said Playfair.  "And what has a slip of the tongue got to do with lingerie?  Are you suggesting that I'm just some thick clod plod?"
"Oh no!"  Ronald waved his hands frantically, reminding Miss Flava of the last traffic warden she'd seen from a car when Playfair was driving.  "Oh not at all, Sergeant Inspector!  I just wanted–"
"Detective Inspector," said Playfair.  "I'm sure you just wanted, Mr. Ronald.  And I'm equally sure you just took, didn't you?"
"I don't know what you're saying!"  Ronald wailed, his eyes now bright with tears and his hands trembling.  He still held them out before him, silently imploring Playfair to take pity on him, and much of his previous arrogance now seemed well held in check.
"I really want to know why you're here," said Playfair.  "Metaphorically, metaphysically, and cinéma verité.  The man who owns this house is dead several times over and has been for days, so what the bloody hell are you doing here?  Why are you in here?  Why are you insulting my Detective Sergeant?  Why are getting in the way of my police dog?  And why don't you care, in the slightest, about your sister-in-law?"
"It's a rehearsal," said Ronald, his voice high-pitched and wobbly.  His accent had receded a little and he was much easier to understand now.  "Melissa and I are Tricksters, we work with Iain to get his shows right and make sure the illusions work.  Melissa is the set-dresser and I'm an Illusionist.  I work out how to make the tricks work in ways that the audience won't be able to spot.  We have a rehearsal today, and Iain wasn't here when we arrived.  That's nothing new, so we let ourselves in and started setting up anyway.  We were expecting him back around lunchtime."
"What do you mean, that's not unusual?" said Miss Flava, not looking up from her notebook.  She was writing quickly, using shorthand.
"Iain often spends the night elsewhere," said Ronald a little hesitantly.  "He has a lot of fans."
"Hah," said Playfair, a smile playing around his eyes.  "And he always gets back at lunchtime, does he?"
"Well no," said Ronald.  "He gets back when he gets back, and usually he'll be back quite early for a rehearsal.  There's always a lot to go through, and Iain's quite demanding on the technical side of his tricks."
"So why lunchtime this time?" asked Miss Flava.
"There was no breakfast laid on," said Ronald.  "Iain normally has someone in preparing breakfast, or sometimes gets an outside caterer for the day, but when we arrived this morning the house was quiet and there was only a little food in the fridge.  We thought that he knew he'd be late."
"Hah!" said Playfair again, but this time with a little bit of an edge to it.  "Indeed he was."
Miss Flava frowned, and pointed at the drying and curling sandwiches.  "So where did they come from then?"
"Melissa usually makes a couple of trays of sandwiches to bring with her," said Ronald.  "She's just sad really, she fancies Iain and is trying to get him to notice her.  She brings these trays of horrible sandwiches hoping that he'll have forgotten to get food, and then she'll be able to impress him.  She was delighted when we couldn't find any sign of breakfast this morning."
"Did you eat any of the sandwiches?" asked Playfair.
"No," said Ronald, looking pained.  He rubbed his stomach absently with one thin, bony hand.  "I don't much care for cucumber and chutney, egg and mackerel mayonnaise or pureed broccoli and riced chicken sandwiches.  Melissa ate a couple.  The cucumber ones I think.  Is this important?"
Miss Flava, who hadn't written anything down about the sandwiches, shook her head, but Playfair nodded at the same time.
"You never know what details are important," he said, "Until you need them.  After all, it might turn out that the thought of these miserable sandwiches deepened the Great CumuloNimbus's depression to the point where he decided to kill himself rather than face any more of them."
"Really?  Iain was depressed?  He never said anything!"  Ronald's mouth dropped open, and his hands started shaking even more.
Miss Flava sighed and noted the sandwich fillings down with bad grace.  "We don't know if Stormy the magician was depressed or not, yet," she said.  "Do you have any reason to believe he might have been?"
"No! Of course not!  He was very successful!" said Ronald, almost hiccoughing with each exclamation.  "Look around you, you can see how successful he was!"
"Thank-you, I will," said Playfair immediately, and Miss Flava had to hide her smile quickly.  It wasn't quite permission to search the house, but Playfair would rework it until it certainly sounded like permission had been granted.
"Where do you live?" she asked.  There was a crunch from somewhere nearby, and they all turned to look, a little guiltily, at where Melissa was still lying on the floor.  Thankfully Calamity was nowhere to be seen, so they all looked around the room, trying to locate the crunch.  The crunch sounded again, and they found Calamity sitting under one of the trestle tables in front of the apron, eating sandwiches from one of the trays.  The sandwich crunched in Calamity's jaws.  Playfair looked at Ronald.
"Probably the pureed broccoli and riced chicken," he said gloomily.  "I've needed dental work when I've not been able to avoid the sandwiches."
"Where do you live?" repeated Miss Flava, already dreading the next drive with Calamity.  "We'll need to come and talk to you some more about all of this, but for now you and Melissa will need to leave while we determine if this house should be treated as part of the crime scene."
"Oh.  Oh right," said Ronald, and gave her his address, also located in Little Haversham.
"Hmm," said Playfair, examining the sandwiches, but not, Miss Flava noted, doing anything to stop Calamity from eating them.  "This looks like ham in this one."
"Egg and mackerel mayonnaise," said Ronald.  "Trust me on this, Inspector."

Dim Tart

"Dead?"  Melissa gasped dramatically, and one wrist was flung upwards to land against her forehead like some nineteen-forties movie starlet's idea of shock.  Sadly Melissa misjudged it badly and her bony wrist rapped against her forehead like a hob-nailed boot striking the boot-scraper, and her eyes rolled up in her head and she collapsed on the floor in a heap for real.  Miss Flava looked at her pityingly, Playfair barely spared her a glance, and Ronald Verges acted as though she wasn't there.  Only Calamity paid her any attention, sneaking out from behind Playfair's legs with her head lowered as though hoping that if she couldn't see Miss Flava then Miss Flava couldn't see her, until she reached Melissa.  Then her long pink tongue lolled out of her mouth, and she started licking the woman's eyes.
"Why do dogs like the taste of eyeballs?" asked Miss Flava, watching Ronald Verges.  He still didn't look down at the fallen woman.
"I don't know," said Playfair, with a hint of exasperation.  He sighed heavily.  "Easier to chew, maybe?"
"Surely they'd just pop?"  Still no reaction from Ronald Verges.
"Hah, yes.  Maybe that's what they like about them.  Grapes for dogs!"
"The Great CumuloNimbus is dead, Sergeant?" asked Ronald, his foot tapping slightly as her spoke.  He held his arms tightly across his body, and his face was drawn, his mouth pinched.
"Detective Inspector, actually," said Playfair.  "I have a card here somewhere...."  He produced nearly a dozen cards of various shapes and sizes from an inside pocket and dropped them on the floor.  They clattered, causing Miss Flava to raise an eyebrow.
"No, don't help me," said Playfair turning round and bending down and somehow managing to stand on Ronald's tapping foot in the process.  "I've got them all!"
There was a noise like a steam-kettle starting to boil in the next room, and Miss Flava noted that it was coming from Ronald as he tried not to let Playfair know that he was standing on his foot.  His pale face was going a putrid pink, and his teeth were gritted to the point where they were nearly grinding together.
"There, got them all," said Playfair standing up and finally shifting his weight off Ronald's foot.  He put them away in his pocket again.  "Now Mr. Ronald, you were saying that the great CumuloNimbus is dead."
"No!  No, you were saying that, Inspector.  I was only repeating it."
"How do you know that the Great CumuloNimbus is dead then?"
"I just said, Inspector, you told me."
"Hearsay, then.  You're spreading malicious rumours about the demise of a local celebrity without checking if they're true or not first?  Is there a reason for this.  I mean, a particular reason, other than the obvious?"
"Wha–"  Ronald stared at Playfair with his mouth open.  Then he realised what he was doing and it snapped closed again like a striking venus fly-trap.  Miss Flava pulled Calamity away from Melissa, noticing with a little bit of concern that Melissa's nose now appeared a little nibbled.
"No, I'm not spreading rumours," said Ronald, getting his thoughts together.  His accent, already rather Home Counties, became plummier still.  "One doesn't do that kind of thing.  You told me, mere moments ago, my dear chap, that the Great CumuloNimbus was dead, and I'm now trying to find out why you are telling me that.  One that."
"Because he is," said Playfair.  "And you are in his house, which is suspicious, with a woman, who looks suspicious, doing suspicious things in a suspicious manner.  And this, you see, makes me suspicious."
"That's a lot of suspicion," said Miss Flava, sounding helpful.
"Oh do shut up, you dim tart," said Ronald.  It sounded reflexive, as though this was a standard come back for the women in his life.  The silence in the room was thick enough to cut with a bread-knife, and when he realised why, his still-ruddy face finally started to pale.  "I was talking to my sister-in-law," he said.  He pointed at the unconscious woman on the floor, lying in a pool of dog-drool.  "She's a daft tart and a dim bint."
"I really hope you know more Arabic than that one word," said Playfair, producing a notebook from a pocket Miss Flava was sure he'd shown to be empty at least twice today.  "Or that's language likely to cause disorder.  And possibly a hate crime."
"A hate crime?" said Ronald, over-enunciating his aitche.
"Well, I hate you," said Playfair.  "And causing me to do that is definitely a crime."

Ronald and Melissa

The walk from the carpark to the house was short and leafy.  Miss Flava lifted some of the leaves up – glossy, broad deep green leaves that reminded her of those of a rubber plant, only smaller – and checked.  The plant was growing over a red-brick wall that defined the passage.  Ahead of her, Playfair was unconcerned about the route, and seemed intent on getting to the house.  Behind her (she checked when she didn't hear the click of claws on the paving stones) Calamity had decided to wee on the wall and the plant.  Given that Calamity's bladder apparently held enough to flood small rooms (and Miss Flava was sure that Playfair had been teaching her tricks about holding it in as well) she was relieved that the dog was relieving herself outside.
She came to the end of the passage and turned a corner.  The wall stopped and a short lawn spread out before her, leading to white-painted, glass-panelled French-doors.  A very shallow flight of steps led up to the doors, where Playfair was rapping impatiently on the glass.  As the doors opened, Calamity came galloping up behind her, brushed past her at full speed, and charged towards Playfair.  Miss Flava said nothing, knowing that her boss would somehow be expecting this.
"Who are y–" said a man in an angry voice.  He cut off as Playfair stepped neatly aside and Calamity leapt at him, her paws landing heavily on the shoulders of his suit and bowling him over.  He fell backwards, letting go of the door, which Playfair caught and held.
"That's my dog," he said in his best outdoors voice.  "Please stop molesting her.  Now!"
The man on the floor, who was being frantically licked by Calamity, stopped trying to push her off him and submitted to her cleaning.  A thin woman in an uncomfortable-looking blue and mauve dress hurried over from a table against the far wall of the room.  She was still holding a china cup of tea, and its matching saucer.
"Oh, dear!  What...?  What...?  Ronald?  Are you under that dog?"
"Don't start!" snarled the man on the floor, turning his head to the side to try and escape Calamity's tongue.
"Well, I'm only asking!"
Playfair gestured, and Miss Flava walked in.  The room appeared to be a function room of some kind: it was large, with a wooden floor that seemed highly polished.  Seats were stacked against both end walls, and a few large, simple tables were pushed up against the front of a small stage.  The stage curtains were drawn across, so that only the apron could be seen.  When she looked up, she could see lighting gantries across the ceiling, and tracing them across with her eyes she found a black-painted ladder in the shadows of one corner, obviously the way up there.  Underneath the tables were large packing cases and trunks, and on top of the tables were a tea-urn, some china cups and saucers, a plastic half-litre carton of milk with a blue top, and a couple of foil trays of rather dry-looking sandwiches with the cling-film pulled half-back.
"No-one seems to have come to your party," said Playfair, who'd come in silently behind her.  "Calamity, dear, please leave the man alone.  He's stopped attacking you now."
"Are you Calamity?" said the thin woman, turning to Miss Flava with a terrifying smile.  Her teeth were varying shades of yellow and brown and looked badly decayed.
"No," said Miss Flava coldly.  "That's Calamity."  She pointed at the dog, who had started to get off the man on the floor and then found something interesting to sniff.  "Calamity!"  The dog lifted her head, saw the expression on Miss Flava's face and quickly retreated behind Playfair.
"Oh, I'm so sorry," said the woman.  "I assumed, with that name, that Calamity must be human.  Calamity Jane, I'm sure?"
If you're so sure, thought Miss Flava, why are you making it a question?  But she held her temper in check.  "Yes, Calamity Jane."
"My favourite Crimean nurse," said Playfair, as he always did when someone asked about Calamity's name.  The thin woman nodded and smiled, not seeing anything wrong with this statement, which made Miss Flava hate her even more.
"Who are you?" she said pointedly, realising that the woman wasn't going to offer her name.
"She's Melissa," said the suited man, finally up off the floor.  "She's my sister-in-law.  I'm Ronald Verges."  He emphasized the last syllable of his surname.  "And who the hell are you two?  You'd better not be part of the act."
"What act?" said Playfair quickly.  Miss Flava pulled her warrant card out anyway.
"If you don't know that, you'd better be quick at explaining why you're here," said Ronald, his face hardening and his eyes tightening into a squint.
"I was rather thinking the same myself," said Playfair, sounding cheerful.  "You see, we're the police, and the Great CumuloNimbus is dead.  So: who let you in, and why the hell are you here?"

A very shiny car

"I would have thought that one was his car."  Miss Flava pointed at the shiny, vintage car.  "Given the size of the house, and the fact that he's clearly a very popular magician, I'd expect him to have a noticeable car if only to attract more attention when he's out.  The other car... well, I guess a wife or a daughter, I think."
"Hmph," said Playfair, letting Calamity out of their car.  She bounded joyfully back the way they'd come and disappeared up the drive.  "Squirrels, probably."
"What?"
"She's probably heard a squirrel," said Playfair.  "Gone to investigate.  They make a vile noise, you don't expect it from something so small."
"What's that got to do with the Great CumuloNimbus and his car?"
"Nothing.  And it's still not his car."
"What?  Playfair, will you stop being so damn annoying and tell me why you don't think it's his car?"
"Too clean."
Miss Flava looked at the car again, and saw that it was spotlessly clean and so shiny that if she walked over to it she was sure that she'd be able to see her face in it.  How on earth could a car be too clean?  She looked at Playfair, who was standing there with a smug smirk on his face – well, that was practically his only other expression apart from the furious one when he had to deal with the general public.  She looked back at the car again, trying to see what Playfair could apparently see.
The wind rustled the leaves in the trees, and a single yellowing leaf detached itself from somewhere and bounced lazily off the car, landing on the ground.  Miss Flava stared at it, knowing that she'd just seen the answer, but it had run off again to hide in the back of her mind.
Calamity barked behind her, but it sounded muffled.  She turned, and to her horror saw that Calamity had a mouth full of still-moving squirrel.
"Told you," said Playfair.  "I hope that's the only one she's going to catch though, we don't want any of them in the car on the way back."
"She's not getting in the car with a dead squirrel in her mouth!"  Miss Flava was horrified, both at the thought of the dead squirrel and of a half-dead one squirming around on the back seat next to Calamity.
"You going to try taking it off her?"  Again he smirked, looking even more smug, and for a moment she knew why he thought the car couldn't be the magician's.  Then Calamity dropped the squirrel and the thought fled again.
"She's let go of it," said Miss Flava, feeling a little weak.  The squirrel looked broken somehow.
"Yes," said Playfair, stepping on its neck.  There was a sad little cracking sound and its eyes seemed to glaze over, though that might have been her imagination.
"Was that real–?"
"Yes," said Playfair firmly.  "She broke its back and I'm not finding a vet that'll fix squirrels.  It'd be cheaper and easier to find a new squirrel."
"Never have children, Playfair," said Miss Flava, rallying a little.  "Not with those cost-benefit analyses."
"No cost-benefit analysis justifies a child," said Playfair.  "Not in the Western world.  Right, I think there's probably a side-door round here somewhere."
"What's wrong with the front door?"
"Can't be bothered walking."
He walked over to the shiny car, and then past it, disappearing into what looked like a solid hedge.  A couple of moments later he reappeared, looking at Miss Flava like she was stupid.
"Are you coming then?"
"How did you know?" said Miss Flava, walking across the car-park.  "That one had to be a guess."
"The car was probably parked near the door," said Playfair.  "If the door were round the front it'd have been on the other side of the car-park.  Everyone's lazy really."
"Oh!"  Finally the idea that she'd been chasing for the last five minutes settled into the front of her mind. "I see!  The car's too clean.  The magician's been dead for days, if it was his car there's be leaves and... and..."
"Pollen, dust, dirt from any rain," said Playfair.  "Certainly wouldn't be a shiny car left out under trees in an open car-park like that.  That car's been cleaned today, probably before it got here."
"Then whose car is it?"  Miss Flava asked the question anyway, more as a way of talking to herself.  "Do you think he hired a very rich cleaner?"
"Hah!" said Playfair.  "That's when I know I'm in the wrong job!"

The house on Beechwood Drive

As she drove, Miss Flava marvelled at the exactness of Henry's directions.  Everything, down to the location of traffic lights and roadworks was exactly as Henry had said, and even sparked recollections of things she'd said that Miss Flava had forgotten.  Though that was mostly because of the sheer amount of information that Henry had provided.
Playfair was being quiet in the passenger seat, which was because Miss Flava had pointedly said nothing about the car being about twenty-feet further down the road than she'd left it, having a length of torn tow-rope hanging from the front bumper that matched the one hanging from Calamity's collar, and the hand-brake being off when she'd been careful to put it on when she left the car.  Even when they passed an elderly woman pushing a wheeled shopping basket in front of her he only glared at her until she cringed back, and didn't start on his usual rant about inconsiderate people with wheeled accoutrements.
"This is it," said Miss Flava, turning in at a gap in a high green hedge.  The hedge was neatly trimmed into a rectangle that did a good job of acting like a wall, reaching well above the roof of the car.  There was a small fence in front of the hedge, though it was hard to notice with the hedge extending over the top of it.  The fence was wooden posts but wire rails, and Playfair looked at them thoughtfully.  Miss Flava looked at him, with growing impatience.
"Aren't you going to get out and open the gate?" she finally said, and Playfair looked up at the wooden gate blocking their way into the Beechwood house's drive.
"Don't they have automatic openers for these things?" he said, not moving.
"Probably, if you own the place, or are visiting," said Miss Flava.
"Well, tell them we're visiting then," said Playfair.
Miss Flava was about to sigh in frustration and get out and open the gate herself, but then she spotted that the intercom was, for some inexplicable reason, on the passenger side.  "You'll have to do that, Sir," she said, managing not to grit her teeth.  She pointed.
"Oh, right.  Yes, that is interesting," said Playfair.  He wound the window down, and Calamity promptly sat up on the back seat and tried to get past him to stick her head out.  He twisted in his seat to push her back, and then leaned out of the window to push the button on the intercom.  It buzzed.
"Are you expecting an answer?"
Playfair looked at her, and then had to push Calamity back down on the seat as she spotted a chance to get past him and to the open window.
"Maybe," he said.  "Who knows, his elderly parents might have escaped from the basement where he was keeping them now he's dead.  Or, he might have a housekeeper we don't know about.  Or a friend, of some persuasion.  And failing that, if there's anyone in the house who shouldn't be, they're now nervous and more likely to do something stupid."
"You just don't want to open the gate," said Miss Flava, but then the intercom crackled and the gate swung slowly inwards.  She stared at it.
"Go!  Go!" said Playfair, gesturing imperiously with a finger.  "The gate is open!"
"You knew, didn't you?" said Miss Flava accusingly.  "You spotted something and decided that there must be someone in the house.  You couldn't possibly have known otherwise.  You just couldn't."
"It does look that way, doesn't it?" said Playfair, smiling mostly to himself.  "I'd say go right here."
The drive forked, the left-hand branch looking like it would go to the front of the house, and the right-hand branch appearing to lead round behind it.  Trees lined the drive, but kept a strict eight inches back from the drive's edge, and cast long shadows in the afternoon sunshine.  At the fork the house came briefly into view, and Miss Flava was slightly startled to see how big it was.  There was the main body of the house, built from red-brick and three storeys high, and then there was a wing that looked much more modern, with steel and glass construction reaching up to a fourth-storey.  It looked, from here, like an overgrown conservatory.  On the other side there was another red-brick wing, but not much could be seen of that, and it looked like it might be mostly only two storeys.  She took the right-hand fork, and the house disappeared from view again.  The tires crunched steadily over gravel, and after twenty seconds the path widened out into what was basically a small car-park.  There were two cars already there; one a small two-person run-about with the high roof and almost-lacking back-seat that reminded Miss Flava of the bubble cars briefly popular in the seventies.  The other was a classic car that looked like it had had its hey-day in the fifties, but was polished so that it shone even in the dim, tree-shadowed gloom of this car-park and was spotlessly clean.  Miss Flava parked several car widths away from it, and turned to Playfair.
"Don't let Calamity anywhere near that car," she said.  "That looks like it would be an expensive problem, even if this guy is dead."
"Oh, I don't think it's his car," said Playfair.

Traffic wardens

Miss Flava went back inside the police station to ask for the address, turning the engine off and taking the keys with her.  She was tempted to take DI Playfair with her as well, just to make sure that he didn't try hotwiring the car while she was gone, but finally she decided to try trusting him.  Which left her with a sense of foreboding all the while she was walking away from the car and back into the police station.  Henry looked up as she came back in.
"By yourself?" she asked, sounding polite and disinterested.
"Playfair didn't bother to find out where Beechwood Drive was before we left," said Miss Flava.  "Can you tell me?"
"Neither did you," said Henry quietly.  "Well.  Beechwood Drive is about five minutes drive away, it's in the posher part of Little Haversham.  They film period dramas round about there from time to time, but I don't think we've issued any permits this week, so you shouldn't be seeing anyone wandering around in what looks like their nightie...."  Her instructions were careful and detailed, so much so that Miss Flava was wondering if Henry spent her time memorising road atlases by the time she'd finished.
"By the way," she said, "on the way here we passed a really badly parked car.  Well, I say parked, it was more abandoned than anything else."
"Oh, I'm sure the traffic wardens will be on that in no time then," said Henry, turning the pages of a manilla folder casually, as though trying to suggest that Miss Flava was interrupting valuable police business.
"What traffic wardens?"  Miss Flava's voice was like an icicle in mid-summer, unexpected, sharp, and frosty.
"Little Haversham traffic wardens."  Henry had looked up when Miss Flava spoke, and was looking surprised.
"You don't have any," said Miss Flava.  "I checked before we came here.  You have vacancies for two, after the last two eloped together."
To her surprise, Henry's face suddenly screwed up.  "Tom and Paul," she said, her voice getting higher.  Her shoulders trembled.  "They were... they were my housemates."
"They were both male?"  Miss Flava tried not to sound too interested.
"Yes!  Yes, they were, and they were in love and they wanted to do something romantic.  So they eloped to Gretna Green to get married, only when they got there Tom's ex was there getting married as well, and then, and then Tom tried to stop the wedding because he said he still loved his ex, and then Paul got all upset, and now they're still up in Gretna Green and sulking and won't talk to each other, and whenever that happens they need me to mediate, only I can't take any time off at the moment, and now I think I'll never get any time off because the magician died and no-one knows why."
"Breathe," said Miss Flava, watching Henry get redder and redder and hearing her getting squeakier and squeakier.  "No really, breathe.  Before you pass out."
"Eeeep!" said Henry, finally complying.  She panted a little as she finally started to get some breath back.
"That's a lot to take in," said Miss Flava carefully.  "But I'm sure that now that DI Playfair is here there'll be some kind of resolution fairly quickly.  One way or another he does solve crimes very well, even if he alienates everybody else in the process.  So you'll be able to get up to Gretna Green in no time and bring Paul and Tom back to their senses, the altar, and then Little Haversham.  I'm sure of it."
Henry sniffed, and looked at her through reddened eyes.  Miss Flava wondered for a moment if she'd considered auditioning for vampire movies.
"Are you sure?  DI Playfair seems like he's just going to make things worse."
"He seems like that, yes.  All the damn time.  But somehow, even when the rest of us don't have a clue what he's doing or why, he's finding out who did the crime and getting ready to pounce."
"Is he like Columbo then?"
"I've never seen him in a raincoat," said Miss Flava thoughtfully.  "But no, he wouldn't waste his time pursuing the criminal and tricking him into confessing.  He'd just set Calamity on them and claim that it was her own doing."
"Calamity?"
As if on cue Calamity raced into the police station with a tow-rope tied to her collar.  The other end appeared to have torn off from something else.
"Oh good lord!"  Henry regained her composure quickly and produced a large plastic net from under the counter.  "Don't worry!  I trained with the dog unit for a week, I'm sure I can catch that dog."
Miss Flava eyed the net, and then whistled piercingly.  It seemed to resound throughout the police station, and Alf appeared from the interview room in a cloud of tobacco smoke, just as Calamity bounded back from the canteen clutching an egg-and-cress sandwich in her mouth.  She lay down at Miss Flava's feet and started eating the sandwich.
"Calamity," said Miss Flava, pointing.
"My sandwich!" yelled a moustachioed policeman from the canteen doorway.
"Not any more," said Henry, slightly perplexed that Calamity seemed to have got more of the sandwich around her muzzle than actually in her mouth.
"It's alright," said Miss Flava.  "She doesn't really like egg."

Conversations

"You're being obstreperous," said Miss Flava to Playfair as they walked past the front desk.  Manning the front desk was a young woman in a very smart uniform, standing rigidly upright and organising files while she waited to be of assistance.
"Henry?" said Playfair, stopping in mid-stride and causing Miss Flava to stumble as she tried not to collide with him.
"And who might you be, Sir?" asked the woman behind the counter.
"DI Playfair," said Playfair.  "You're Henry?"
"Short for Henrietta, Sir, it was my Aunt's name."
"You should be careful she doesn't decide to take it back then," said Playfair.  "Come along, Miss Flava, we have a house to look at, possibly before it burns down!"
"You stopped!" Miss Flava stared after him as he walked out of the station and turned towards the car-park round the back.  "That man...." she said, partly to herself, but partly also to Henry, who didn't even crack a smile.
By the time she reached the car Playfair was stood expectantly by the driver's door, and so she raised an eyebrow and sighed loudly.
"Oh come on," he said, holding his hand out.  "It can't be far, and there's no traffic on the roads, and no-one will ever know."
"Yes they will, because you'll find a way of stripping all the teeth off the gearbox," said Miss Flava.  "Or you'll drive into something, probably livestock, or someone will drive into you.  These accidents are why you're not allowed to drive the car any more, boss."
"I am your boss, aren't I?"  Playfair still had his hand out.
"Which you won't be if anyone finds out I let you drive."
They stared at each other, eyes locked and a silent battle of the wills playing out.  Miss Flava blinked first, but Playfair let his hand drop fractionally later, and walked round to the passenger side of the car.
"I can think better when you're driving," he said, as though nothing had happened.  "Fewer people seem to do stupid things in front of you."
Calamity barked her enthusiasm at seeing them again as Miss Flava unlocked the doors, and she attempted to bound over into the front seats and get out of the car.  Playfair pushed her back, and Miss Flava had to wait till he'd finished wrestling her on to the back seat before she could get in.
"Should we take her for a walk first?"
"No," said Playfair.  "I'll need her up at this house to sniff around.  She'll get her exercise then."
"Don't let her widdle on things," said Miss Flava, starting the engine.  "Forensics didn't stop complaining about you for weeks last time."
"Last time?"
"You gave Calamity one of the bones from the scene of the crime to play with.  It took three of them half-an-hour to get it back off her!"
"Yes, but it wasn't one of the human bones, it was just some old bone that had gotten mixed in with the rest.  It didn't matter."
"Maybe, but no-one else knew that, Playfair.  And since you won't explain how you knew, there's still no-one else who knows how you knew."
"It's obvious, really, you know.  If any of you would just sit down and think about it properly for half-an-hour you'd know too.  Really."
Miss Flava pulled out of the car-park and turned left.  "Which way is this house then?"
"I don't know," said Playfair.  "I didn't ask.  Beechwood Drive, I think."
"Yes, I remember that, but where is Beechwood Drive?  I can't go there if I don't know where it is!"
"Oh," said Playfair.  "It looks like you're lost then!"

Little Haversham Police Station

Little Haversham Police Station had a car park that was three times larger than it needed to be for the number of cars in it so Miss Flava pulled easily into a space that was one of a bank of six.  She turned the engine off, and looked at her boss, who had unbuckled his seat-belt but so far not got out.  Since he often managed to get the passenger door open before she'd finished parking, she was wondering what the matter was.
"The barrier should have been down," said Playfair.  The barrier to the car-park had been up, allowing anyone to come in and park.  Or, as Playfair was now considering, come into and plant bombs underneath police cars.
"I think that's more of a London worry," said Miss Flava.  "Out here I don't think they have to worry too much about terrorists.  Lost livestock, pensioners, and a lack of traffic wardens seem to be Little Haversham's main concerns this year."
"If you start sloppy you stay sloppy," said Playfair.  "And that applies to many areas of life."
Miss Flava got out of the car rather than ask him what he meant by that, and he slowly followed suit.  The car-park was black tarmac with painted white lines, and a space near the door had the letters CC painted in front of it.  There were six cars already there, not counting her own, and they all lined up neatly as close to the door without infringing on the labelled space as they could get.  Four were patrol cars, and the other two were unwashed and looked as though they hadn't been driven in a while.  Three sides of the car-park were lined with trees, with the fourth side being the side of the police-station and the short drive they'd come up.  Birds sang and whistled in the trees, and there was a rustle and a scamper that might have been squirrels.  Miss Flava found herself feeling oddly relaxed.
Playfair strode across the car-park and examined the door in the side of the building.
"Locked," he said, with some satisfaction.  "Though I think I can probably get it open if you've got a credit card...?"
"No, Playfair," said Miss Flava.  "Let's go round to the front desk and introduce ourselves.  You're not here for an inspection, we're here to solve a murder."
Playfair looked a little disappointed, but fell into step alongside Miss Flava as they walked round the building to the front door.  His gaze constantly swept the path, the side of the building, and the fence that separated the drive from the road, but didn't find anything else to comment on.  The front doors opened with a squeak, and Playfair rang the bell on the counter several times with the flat of his hand.  The officer who'd been stood at the front desk had to wait, with his mouth open, until the ringing died away.
"I'm right here, Sir," he said, his voice indicating disapproval.  "There was no need to ring the bell, was there?"
Miss Flava cringed inwardly.  Telling Playfair off might have worked, but asking him to agree with the telling off was an invitation to an argument.
"I was testing it to see if it worked," said Playfair.  "I know what you provincial lot are like, you put a dummy bell on the counter and then all go off down the pub for lunch, and lunch ends slightly after your shift."
"I wasn't at the pub though," said the officer, with what Miss Flava felt was commendable patience.
"And the bell worked, so there's two surprises in two minutes," said Playfair.
"What can I help you with?"
"Detective Inspector Playfair," said Playfair, producing his Oyster card from his pocket and looking at it as though it had deliberately become the wrong card.
"Now him I can't help you with," said the officer.  "You'll have to sort that out yourself."
"No," said Miss Flava while Playfair sorted the contents of his pockets onto the counter.  'He is DI Playfair, and I'm Miss Flava."  Her warrant card appeared like magic, while Playfair had only managed to find string and, by the looks of things, sealing wax.
"Oh," said the man behind the counter, his face visibly falling.  "Bugger."

Knowing what to ask

"Did you see all those tortoise shells?" said Miss Flava as they drove away.  Calamity, sat on the back seat, barked now and then, mud still sticking to her nose.
"Yes," said Playfair.  "But Bartle barely noticed them.  What did you say he was?"
"A Reverend," said Miss Flava.  "You've got the case notes already, you only just read them!  You're... in fact, you're sitting on them now!"
"Oh really?"  Playfair didn't sound interested, but he did pull the notes out from underneath himself, tearing them only a little in the process.  He made a show of going through the pages once again while Miss Flava peered at the road names and traffic signs and tried to work out where she was.  For a small village, Little Haversham seemed to have a lot of very short streets.
"Can you believe where that idiot has parked!" she snarled as she braked hard coming round a corner to find a midnight blue, sleek, sporty-looking car several inches out from the kerb and dangerously close to the corner.  "See, Playfair, this is what traffic wardens are for!  Stopping people doing idiotic things like this!"
"That's not enough to justify their existence," said Playfair flatly.  "The Nazis did good deeds now and then as well, you know."
"You're never comparing traffic wardens to the Nazis!"  Miss Flava braked again just so she could stare at her boss in wonderment.  "What the hell have traffic wardens ever done to you?"
"It says here that Bartle is a Reverend," said Playfair innocently, "but it doesn't tell me what church he's part of.  Did no-one think that was important?"
Miss Flava gently eased her foot back on to the accelerator and the car moved forward again.  At the cross-junction at the top of the street she finally spotted the road she was looking for: Potsdam Drive, about fifty yards the wrong way down a one-way street.  Looking for traffic, and finding that they were the only car on the road, she indicated and drove down the one-way street regardless.
"He's attached to St. Samuels," she said.  "That's the church we saw, in whose grounds the body was found.  I think it's a C of E church."
"Hmph." Playfair shuffled the papers again.  "Just because he's using a C of E church doesn't mean he's Anglican.  A lot of those happy-clappy places use churches that have been sold off, and you sometimes have to look pretty closely to find out just what you're walking into.  I want him checked out properly, get me some background on him."
"We could just ask him, of course," said Miss Flava.  "We're in Little Haversham, I've no idea if they've heard of the internet this far outside of London."
"Fine, write it down as a question for later, then," said Playfair.  "By the way, you're going the wrong way on a one-way street."
"Not any more," said Miss Flava, making her turning onto Potsdam Drive.  Astonishingly, given how short all the other streets had been, this stretched into the distance.  She kept her speed low so that she could see hidden entrances; there were lots of trees and high hedges on the sides of the road.
"Also," said Playfair, and Miss Flava mentally sighed a little.  Her boss had clearly found things wrong in the investigation of the case so far, and not only would she hear about it now, she'd have to step in when he started on the luckless souls who'd not met his standards.  "Also, it says here that the body was found in the woods next to the church, not on the church grounds."
"The woods actually belong to the church," said Miss Flava.  "Though woods is perhaps a bit generous, it's more of a large copse."
"The corpse was found in the copse," said Playfair, gazing off into the distance again.  "I wonder if that's just coincidence.  You should have turned there, by the way."
Miss Flava restrained a snarl, having just spotted the sign announcing Little Haversham Police Station half-hidden behind a hedge, and too late to turn in.  She braked, and started a three-point turn.  This was not how she'd hoped to arrive.

Reverend Bartle II

"Er, isn't that one of those martial arts?"  Reverend Bartle looked rather confused by Playfair's sudden change of tack, and Miss Flava sympathised.  She looked over at Calamity who'd by now dug up nearly half of the tomato plants.  At a guess, she'd say that a good half-a-morning's work had been reduced to so much scattered soil and half-dead plants.  The green, meaty smell of tomato plants drifted towards her, and she wrinkled her nose a little.  She'd never much liked tomatoes, preferring to hide them under salad leaves or pull them out of her egg-salad sandwiches and drop them in the bin.  From which Calamity would invariably retrieve them, if they were in the office, and then eat them.
"No.  That would make it respectable."  Inspector Playfair was definite.  "It's the art of re-arranging furniture for large sums of money.  And I use the word art, rather than science, to indicate in particular that it is funded solely by people who think that the effect something has is more important than the cause responsible for it and who can't see when a painting is, in fact, just the result of the artist having a seizure in front of a canvas while holding paint.  Rather than heal the poor bugger who's just chewed through eight tubes of paint they pay ridiculous sums of money for his canvas and hope he doesn't think of getting treatment himself."
"Er.  Right," said Bartle.  "So Feng Shui is redecorating with furniture is it?  Is that something you do at IKEA?"
"I hope not.  You're not a follower, or a fan of Feng Shui then?"
"Sorry, Inspector, I'm rather not.  I don't do much interior design, my partner looks after all that kind of thing.  I'm more of a cook and a gardener."
There was a pause while they both looked at Calamity who had now dug up all of the tomato plants and was frantically digging in the rockery, unearthing rocks, more soil, and the occasional tortoise shell.
"It looks like we might have to buy tomatoes this year," said Bartle with a hint of reproval.  Playfair ignored him.
"What's your opinion of the dead then?  You're a priest, right, you must have to do the odd funeral.  Do you play with the bodies a bit first?"
"What?!"  Bartle reddened and his eyes opened wider, he puffed his chest out and looked more than a little ridiculous in his dress.  "What are you suggesting, officer?"
"I think he's suggesting that you tampered with the evidence," said Miss Flava, who was turning over the tortoise shells with a foot.  They all seemed to be free of dead tortoise, fresh or decomposed, and there was no sign of the shells being broken into.
"What?" Bartle turned to face her now, still red in the face and his voice was increasing in pitch.
"How did you know it was a screwdriver sticking into his neck?" said Playfair, his voice suddenly soft and coercive.  "If all you could see want the handle, and the man was hanging, so necessarily higher up than you because he's got to be off the ground, and the ground's all soft with blood, so you wouldn't get too close; if all this is true, how did you know he had a screwdriver in his neck?"
Bartle stared at Miss Flava, then at Playfair, and finally at Calamity, who was now in a hole almost the same size as her and still digging.
"They told me," he said weakly.  "The policemen, when they came to ask me about things.  They told me there was a screwdriver in the side of his neck.  They wanted to see what tools I have, so I showed them.  I keep them all in the greenhouse anyway, and screwdrivers aren't really gardening tools, are they?  Where is you dog going, Inspector?"
"Down," said Playfair.  "Don't worry, she wont' dig so deep that she can't get out again.  So, you claim that you know about this screwdriver because someone else told you.  Why are you telling me about it like you saw it at the time then?"
"I didn't know this was an interview!  You just came over and let your damn dog loose to ruin my garden and started asking weird questions!"  Bartle was tripping over his words now and looked extremely agitated; his hands were trembling and he kept smoothing down the front of his dress, unconsciously rubbing mud into it over and over again.
"Calamity!  Car!"  Playfair's voice was stentorian, and Calamity lifted her head, regarded him for a second, then bounded out of her hole and galloped back to the car.  Miss Flava nudged the fifth tortoise shell into line with the others with her foot, and then strolled over to the car as well to open the door and let Calamity back in.
"I'll have more questions for you," said Playfair.  "But I'll need to decide what they are first.  Enjoy your gardening."
Bartle stared after them in astonishment, watching as Playfair made a stab at getting the driver's seat and was neatly cut-off by a very rapid Miss Flava.  He grimaced, but went back round the to the passenger side and got in there while Miss Flava made sure she was in the driver's seat before he'd even opened his door.  The dog, the enormous Rottweiler that had completely ruined his gardening, barked a couple of times, and then the engine started up and the car drove away, leaving him with no tomatoes, a huge hole in the rockery, and a ridiculous number of tortoise shells.  He was pretty certain that neither he nor the previous priest had ever even owned a tortoise.

Reverend Bartle

"Why are you wearing a dress?"  It would be unfair to describe Detective Inspector Playfair as snarling as then one would run out of words to describe his increasing levels of aggression too quickly.  The priest looked up, a little startled, and smoothed the front of his Jane Asher exclusive down.
"Do you like it?" he said.  "It's for the summer play.  We're doing Streetcar."
"Never heard of it," said Playfair automatically.  Miss Flava, stood next to him, and who thought that the priest seemed far too comfortable in the dress, equally automatically disbelieved Playfair.  She'd come to the conclusion that her boss worked very hard to give everyone the impression that he was like a wasp-stung bulldog on a short chain: ferociously aggressive and dangerously short-sighted, while in fact the brain of a classics scholar worked like a well-oiled machine in the background to discover the real facts of any given case.  All she had left to prove was the brain of the classics scholar was in fact his own, and she'd be free to admire him and his incredible depths of cynicism.
"Oh?  That's a shame, it's a fantastic play.  I do confess, I've been having to work on my Deep South accent a little for it though."  The priest giggled, and Miss Flava looked away, feeling a little uncomfortable.
"Right, Stanley," said Playfair.  "We're here looking for a Reverend Bartle.  Derek Bartle.  What have you done with him?"
"Oh, hah, that's me, I've done nothing with him!  Well, maybe hidden him in a dress.  Who are you?"
Playfair produced a bus pass, then his wallet, then a hip flask, and finally his warrant card.  "DI Playfair," he said.  "This here is the lovely Miss Flava, she's my gorgeous assistant and makes people disappear while I keep the audience entertained."
Miss Flava glared at Playfair and produced her own warrant card on the first try, since she kept it ready in an inside pocket.  The priest peered at both cards, and then at their respective owners.
"Yes, well that seems in order," he said.  "Perhaps I ought to change then, if this is official business?"
"It is, and don't bother," said Playfair.  "You're wearing more than some people I've interviewed in the past, and that's a relief.  Oh, Calamity!"
"What's the ma–" started the Reverend Bartle, but his words were lost as Calamity leapt on his back and pushed his face into the gardenias.  She leapt up at Playfair a couple of times, pawing the air and landing each time with her paws unerringly on Bartle's head.  After the first occasion he stopped trying to lift his head until the weight of the dog was off his back.  Miss Flava hurried forward to pull Calamity off, still wondering how the dog managed to do just what Playfair wanted despite that no-one ever saw him training her.
"Thank-you," said Playfair to Miss Flava as she hauled Calamity away from the priest and his now-awry gardenias.  "I'm sorry about Calamity," he said to Bartle.  "She does depend on the kindness of strangers."
"Urghh." said Bartle wiping compost from his eyes and mouth.  "That was... why is she called Calamity?"
"Calamity Jane, my favourite Crimean nurse," said Playfair.  "Why do you sign letters as Melpomene?"
"What?"  Bartle looked confused.
Playfair stared off into the distance instead of answering, looking at the length of the garden, the scattering gardening tools: tiny forks, trowels, lengths of dowel, string and unpotted plants waiting for embedding into the spring earth.  Beyond the garden was a cottage of sorts with heavy stone walls, huge doors and tiny, leaded windows, and behind them was a solid, Saxon church that looked as though it could withstand a siege.  The church had a campanile, at the top of which Playfair could see at least three bells, and after that trees obscured the view of what was very probably the graveyard.
"Someone killed a man here," he said at last.  "You found the body, and someone sent a letter to the local paper claiming the kill and calling themselves Melpomene."
"I didn't send the letter!  I just found the poor soul, hanging from a tree with a screwdriver sticking out of the side of his neck.  The ground all around him was soggy with blood!  It was dreadful!"  The man had whitened a little, but seemed to be otherwise retaining his composure.  "Why are you here?  We have a police-force of our own, and they've been and talked to me already.  And they were much nicer about it too!"
"That's why I'm here," said Playfair.  "They didn't get anywhere with their tea and cupcakes approach."
"So you come with your monstrous dog and your veiled threats?  I shall write to your superior officers about this!"
Miss Flava silently handed Bartle a business card.
"His immediate superior is the first name on the list," she said after a moment.  "Each name after that is one rank higher.  The address for all of them is on the back.  I can supply you with a form letter to copy from if you'd like, his superiors prefer to be able to identify the complaint quickly these days."
"You... you mean he gets a lot of these complaints?  Why's he still a policeman?"
"He gets a lot of results," said Miss Flava.  "Actual results, and not just convictions that are overturned as unsound or wrong, months or years later."
"I'm still complaining."
"Then here's the form letter."
Bartle stared at first her, then at Calamity who was now frantically digging up tomato plants, and then at Playfair.
"Do you use bonemeal for your plants?" asked Playfair.  Bartle nodded.  "That's why she's digging."
"How can I help you then," said Bartle finally, sounding depressed.  "You won't go away until I do, will you?"
"How much do you know about Feng Shui?" asked Playfair.

Pouffe

The door to Playfair's office opened slowly as Constable Wright leaned heavily on it, needing his whole weight to push it open.  The limiter on the top of the door, the triangular armature that on normal doors slowed down the closing to prevent them from slamming, was configured to slow down the opening of the door because Inspector Playfair tended to race through the office and slam anything (and anyone) in his way until it got out of his way.  When the door was this hard to open he had to go through it at what other people considered a normal rate.
Miss Girard watched, a little puzzled, but understanding now why she'd thought this door was locked when she'd been exploring the police station the previous week.  Beyond the door was a medium-sized room with three desks and two more doors.  Deadneck and Janet were sitting at desks, both typing and the third desk had a little nameplate for someone called 'Calamity' and a large bowl of water.  Neither of the other doors were open; one was labelled 'Playfair' and the other 'Flava'.  Both Deadneck and Janet were staring at her wide-eyed and pale.  Janet lifted a pale hand to her lips and looked as though she might throw up.
"Miss Girard," said Constable Wright waving a hand in her direction. "This is Janet," he pointed at the ill-looking woman, "and this is Deadneck.  They're Inspector Playfair's secretaries; they look after any paperwork that survives him, handle his expenses, phone-calls, and try to intercept people like you before they can get to him.  His office is through there," and he pointed at the door labelled 'Playfair.'
"Deadneck?" said Miss Girard as politely as astonishment would allow.
"Yes," said Constable Wright, and Deadneck raised a hand a little way, almost shyly, to indicate that she was the person with that name.  Janet burped, her mouth still hidden behind her hand, her eyes still wide with dread.
"I'm here to–" said Miss Girard and stopped abruptly as Janet turned a deep green colour.
"Commit Feng Shui!" she gasped, and ran for the door, pulling it open with an herculean effort.
"Is she alright?" asked Miss Girard peering after her through the rapidly closing doorway.
"Probably," said Constable Wright, who hadn't a clue.  "Might be bird flu."
"Bird flu?"
"Miss Flava says the secretaries are like canaries.  Dunno what she means myself."
"Twit twit, tweet," said Deadneck without looking up from her typewriter.  Miss Girard suddenly realised that there was no computer equipment in the office; the most modern looking thing was an electric fan.
"The layout's all wrong," she said, looking around, letting her professional expertise come to the fore.  "Look, it's obvious that so much of the energy in this room will be obstructed with the desks like this, they should be better spaced out and back against the walls so that people can look into the room from where they're sat.  That plant should be over in this corner, nearer to the light so that it can lend it growth, and life-giving green as the light comes in.  We need curtains, not blinds, and a token to shield the room from the eye of the Dragon of Disturbance."
"Calamity?" asked Constable Wright, screwing his face up as he tried to follow what she was saying.
"Isn't Calamity another secretary?  She has a desk here."
"Calamity's a dog, miss," said Constable Wright smiling now that he knew the answers.  "A Rottweiler."
"Dogs don't need desks!"
"Are you going to be the one to tell her, then?"
Miss Girard fell silent as she considered how one went about telling a Rottweiler called Calamity that they weren't allowed a desk any more and decided that it was outside the realm of her experience.
"I'll leave you to get on with it, then, Miss," said Constable Wright.  "Deadneck here'll keep an eye on you.  Don't get too... floral, though."

Playfair arriving

Miss Flava parallel parked, tucking the police car in between a white Prius and a blue Golf.  There was no actual need to parallel park, there were several open spaces that could be driven straight into in the shopping centre car-park across the road, but she was determined to quietly prove to Detective Inspector Playfair that she was a competent driver.
"You said that there were no traffic wardens here?" was Playfair's dour comment as she turned the engine off.  "Because if there are they'll be watching.  They're like cuckoos you know."
"Cuckoos?  Do you mean hawks, Sir?"  Miss Flava looked across at her boss to find him staring out through the windscreen at an elderly lady with a big shopping bag and a poodle.  She'd stopped under the weight of Playfair's glare and was looking nervous.  Her poodle yipped, straining at its leash.
"Cuckoos," said Playfair, not looking away from the old woman.  "The ones that lay their eggs in other birds nests.  Vipers, the lot of them.  And I think I've found one."
"Vipers?  Playfair, I think you're mixing your metaphors rather badly, you don't find vipers in birds nests, and certainly not hatching out of cuckoo's eggs.  And stop staring!  That's an old woman, there are no traffic wardens in Haversham!  There are two vacancies for traffic wardens and that's it!"
The poodle yipped again and pulled harder, trying to get away.  In the back seat Calamity stirred, her ears pricking up, wondering what they're just heard.
"She looks like a traffic warden," said Playfair.  "She's got that deer-in-the-bull-bars look, see.  He pointed, and the old lady quivered, dropping her shopping bag.  There was a soft crunch.
"Deer in the headlights, I hope," said Miss Flava marvelling at her boss's ability to desecrate the English language.  "Although the way you drive, perhaps you're more accurate."
"What?" Playfair looked away from the old woman to glare now at Miss Flava, who was used to it.  Out of his blistering gaze the old lady sagged like a puppet whose strings had just been caught, letting go of her dog's lead.  The poodle barked again, and now Calamity sat up, her ears pricked and her eyes raking the view through the windscreen for the source of the noise.
"Down girl!" bellowed Playfair as Calamity prepared to spring.  Miss Flava leaned towards the side-window instinctively, but Calamity obediently sat, as did the old lady.  Her poodle yipped again and ran off, narrowly missing knocking a cyclist off his bike.
"Here," said Miss Flava, seizing the letter from the back seat just ahead of Calamity sitting back down on it.  "Read this, so you at least know why we're here, and I'll keep an eye out for balloons."
"Cuckoos," said Playfair unfolding the paper.  "Although in summer, perhaps caddis flies would be better."
"Cuckoos, then," said Miss Flava.  "And Feng Shui consultants."

Five minutes later, after some grumbling and the occasional expletive directed at passers-by that Playfair thought were unnecessarily obstructing his sunlight, he laid the paper down on his knee and stared through the windscreen again.
"A murderous muse?" he said.  "That's a bit odd, even for a place with no traffic wardens."
"What and what?"  Miss Flava had read the paper and spoken with Right Reverend Derek Battle and had no idea what Playfair meant by either part of his statement.
"Well," said Playfair sounding thoughtful.  His fingers drummed on his knee.  "Traffic wardens are a lot weird in and of themselves, they kind of focus weirdness and unpleasant sensations in one place.  A place that has no traffic wardens has to spread all that weirdness around a bit, so everything ends up being a bit odd, doesn't it?"
"Does it?"  Miss Flava was still hunting for the source of Playfair antagonism to traffic wardens.
"Yes," said Playfair.  "It's like a place with no mathematicians.  Everyone else seems to get a bit cleverer to compensate."
"What are you trying to say, Playfair?"
"Shoot all the mathematicians and force people to be traffic wardens for a year.  National Service, or something like it.  Build some back-braces for people."
"You can't go shooting mathematicians!"  Miss Flava was aghast.  "But... but you're distracting me, Playfair, damn you.  What was that about a murderous muse?"
"Melpomene," said Playfair, waving the paper.  "According to this statement a man was murdered by the muse Melpomene.  And considering she's the personification of a two-thousand year-old Greek ideal, that's very interesting."

Playfair en route

Inspector Playfair fidgeted in the passenger seat.  He preferred to drive, and would have demanded that Miss Flava surrender the driver's seat to him, except that the car-pool officer had a list of documents from all the levels of the chain of command stating firmly that Playfair was not allowed to drive any car that the car-pool provided.  Playfair had started off thunderous, and rapidly progressed to murderous as he realised that he had no court of appeal.  Miss Flava had remained perfectly calm the entire time, knowing that anything she said would either antagonize her boss further or be used by him as leverage to get into the driver's seat.  She was quietly impressed that he'd only made one attempt to usurp her, at a motorway service station where they'd failed to find potable coffee.
"We'd be there already by now, you know," he said, his voice taut with unspoken criticism and recrimination.
"That's because you have only two speeds," said Miss Flava, "and don't understand what the gear stick or clutch is for."
"I get where I'm supposed to be going before the damn criminals have hobbled off on their stolen crutches and in their stolen wheelchairs!"
"We don't know anything about the criminals where we're going," said Miss Flava patiently.  "We're going out to Little Haversham mostly because no-one wants you around the office for the next six weeks.  I did warn you this would happen, sir."
Playfair stared out of the window, his gaze unblinking.  Miss Flava glanced across; in profile her boss had very Roman features and would look for all the world like a bust if you dipped his head in flour.  She reckoned his gaze was just below the danger point, and decided to just carry on driving.  She changed gear and slowed down a little.
"Who is this woman anyway?" said Playfair.  "And why does she have to be in place for six weeks?"
"She's called Miriam," said Miss Flava who had read the woman's CV after filching it from the HR director's office.  "She's a consultant."
"Consulting on what?"
Miss Flava was silent a moment, thinking.  "She's a spacial awareness and refactorant consultant," she said eventually.  "She applies long-established techniques in a 360-degree and multi-dimensional environment to facilitate process flow and establish meaningful state transitions."
"...she's a bloody Feng Shui consultant, isn't she?" said Playfair about eight seconds later.  Mentally, Miss Flava sighed; she'd thought she'd finally found a way of phrasing it that Playfair couldn't see through.
"Well, yes," she said, slowing down again, anticipating Playfair's explosion.  Even so the car wobbled slightly as she reacted to the volume of his first shout.
"Preposterous!"  Spittle hit the windscreen.  "How dare they waste money on this kind of rubbish!  If we want an idiot to wander around and ask the plants how they're feeling and tell us that the chair is cold in the corner where we've put it... well, we've got traffic wardens already!  Put them to some bloody use for once and get them to do it!  The rubbish they come out with when they're waving those damn ticket machines at you, they should be perfectly capable of spouting Feng Shui gibberish at senior management.  Bunch of panty-wearing kiddle-fiddling liberal communist tax-dodgers!"
Miss Flava navigated two bends in the road onto a straight stretch before daring to reply.
"I think the traffic wardens are all fully deployed at the moment," she said.  "Although I believe Little Haversham currently has no traffic wardens and two open positions.  The Feng Shui consultant does, I believe, come highly recommended."
Her CV had revealed that the Chief Constable's wife had hired her to rearrange the furniture in their summer home, after which they'd held a small party that had got the Chief Constable a small political concession.  Now it seemed that he was testing her to find out if she was any good, or just lucky.
"Recommended by what?" snarled Playfair.  More spittle hit the windscreen and Miss Flava unthinkingly turned the windscreen wipers on.  "By the number of STDs hitching a lift on her?  Why have you put the wipers on, woman?  It's not raining!"
Miss Flava, used to her bosses off-colour language and inability to handle normal communication turned the wipers back off and decided not to volunteer any more information about the Feng Shui consultant.
"Have you read the evidence, yet, boss?" she asked, knowing that Playfair would have, and wouldn't admit to having done so.
"No," said Playfair automatically, looking away from her.  "What evidence?"
"The letter that was sent," said Miss Flava.  "It'll be on the backseat."
"Calamity's on the backseat."
Calamity was their Rottweiler, also police issue but apparently devoted to Playfair, much to the dog-handling divisions consternation.  Her full name was Calamity Jane, which Playfair claimed was the name of his favourite nurse in the Crimean War, a statement which puzzled almost everyone who heard it.
"Then it'll be under Calamity," said Miss Flava patiently.  "Just pull it out."
"Hah!  No, Calamity's asleep," said Playfair.  They both knew that when Calamity woke up she would constantly go from the back of the car to the front, standing on the hand-brake and shifting gears all by herself.  When Playfair was driving, this usually improved the experience, but Miss Flava hated it.
"Well, read it when we arrive," said Miss Flava.  "I think you need to know what we're going into."
"A criminal's mind," said Playfair, sounding suspiciously satisfied.

On dogs and driving

DI Playfair was driving. Miss Flava was sat in the passenger seat, and the Rottweiler, Calamity, was alternately on the back seat and in Miss Flava's lap, trying to find somewhere she thought was comfortable. Crossing from the back seats to the front and back again meant that she was regularly shifting the gear-stick and stepping on the hand-brake, but this made little noticeable difference to Playfair's control of the car. His foot pressed the accelerator to the floor constantly, and the car's actual speed was regulated by the foot-brake and the clutch. The engine roared like an ancient dragon with haemmorroids, blue-black smoke rose from both the exhaust pipe and the bonnet, and the gears clanked like a medieval knight in a full suit of armour. Miss Flava had mentioned this to Playfair once, and he had glared at her and announced that all the cars in the police pool were like that.

He had also named the Rottweiler. Her trainer, when introducing her to the department had suggested that they pick a short, one- or two-syllable name for her, and Rosie had been popular until Playfair came in, looked at her, and named her Calamity. To everyone's astonishment she had taken to him instantly, and responded to her new name immediately. When Miss Flava had asked him why Calamity, he had said, "Name of my favourite Crimean nurse. Calamity Jane."

"That was Florence Nightingale," Miss Flava had said. "Calamity Jane was a wild-west frontierswoman who fought native Americans."

"Rubbish," Playfair had said, snorting. "Florence Nightingale is a character from the Magic Roundabout, like Ancient Mu-mu the Cow and Bob Dylan."

The conversation had gone no further.

"Is this liaising with the community?" said Playfair, shouting over the roar of the engine. He never took his eyes off the road, which he was glaring at as though hoping it was going to do something he could arrest it for.

"What?" said Miss Flava, stretching her legs out after Calamity's latest visit to her lap.

"Is this liaising with the community? Talking to this antiques shop owner. Only you said they didn't want me to liaise with the community anymore."

"Oh, I see," said Miss Flava. "No, I don't think anyone thinks this is a real crime, which is why we've got it. And it won't be liaising with the community at all unless you listen to the owner."

Playfair hmmphed, and tried not to smile. "I listen to people," he said. "I listened to Nnnk-Thss tell me the plot to the Usual Suspects. Have we got any leads on why there are more heads than bodies yet?"

"You only listen when you've run out of other ideas," said Miss Flava. "Your approach to policing is just a variant on shouting 'It was you what done it, ain't it!' at everybody until someone breaks down and confesses everything. Then you leave it for three weeks, and astonish everyone in the department by revealing that you know how the crime was committed. You sit there, with an unbearable smugness that would leave Sherlock Holmes green with envy, and point evidence out that everyone saw and no-one thought was evidence, and leave us all thinking that you have to be the greatest sleuth in history. Then you shout at us all for sitting there in awe of you until someone breaks down."

"It's therapy," said Playfair gruffly, his chin sunk into his chest so that his collar could hide his mouth while he eyeballed the road. "It's cathartic for you."

"Therapy?" Miss Flava paused, caught off balance. "You view yourself as a psycho-analyst?"

"See, made you think there, didn't I?"

"Let's all dance on the grave of Freud," swore Miss Flava. "You're part of the psycho-antagonist school of thought, aren't you? You provoke reactions from people and then analyse them."

"And work out what's wrong with you all," said Playfair. "I don't think most of you are cut out to be detectives."

"I don't think most of the department know they're signed up as patients in an experimental psychology experiment! Playfair, you're the most twisted, devious, manipulative corkscrew of a thinker I've ever met! How-"

"Bodies and heads," said Playfair sharply.

"Oh," said Miss Flava again. "Oh. Well, it turns out that all the bodies do have heads, they'd just been cut off and sewn inside the abdominal cavity. The 41 other heads are still unknowns. Mr. Nnnk-Thss thinks they're talking to him though. In snake."

"Does that mean we have a statement from him that mostly reads 'Hisssssssss'?"

"Yes, and one that talks about someone called Henry Trotter and what sounds like a giant anaconda."

"That'll be Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets then," sighed Playfair.

"You know him?"

"It's another film."

Playfair finally took his foot off the accelerator, swung the steering wheel and wrenched the handbrake up. The car slewed across two lanes of oncoming traffic, the tires squealing like a eunuch at an orgy, mounted the pavement still turning, and ground to a halt just shy of a lamp-post. Calamity picked herself up from out of the foot-well and started barking excitedly. Miss Flava swore under her breath, and Playfair grinned like a boy who's just hotwired his first Porsche.

"Let's go and arrest this shopkeeper then!" he shouted.