Home for Christmas

The car took the corner far too fast for the ice-spotted road and the brake-lights glowed cherry-red in the deepening twilight as the driver stamped on the brakes and hauled on the steering wheel.  The wheels skidded sideways across the slick tarmac and the car's nose spun round until it was pointing back the way it was facing.  At the edge of the road the tarmac became frozen earth and crispy, frosted grass and the tyres grabbed a little traction at last.  The driver felt the change and switched pedals from the brake to the accelerator.  There was a screech of rubber, the car fish-tailed back and forth a little as it regained the road, and then it was off once more.  It carried on still too fast for the wintery conditions and nearly missed the turning half-way along the road, the brake-lights flaring again and the car riding up on the pavement and bouncing back down on to the road.  The turning led onto a long, wide road with large houses, and cars parked on both sides of the road.  The car barrelled down the white line in the middle of the road and executed a bootlegger's turn to pass between a black Bentley and a silver BMW and hurtle onto the gravel driveway that led to one of the houses.  The car decelerated smoothly, so much so that its gentle collision with the sea-green Ford Fiesta parked on one side of the drive was suspicious.  The Fiesta's alarm went off and the new car backed up a few centimetres: enough that the cars weren't touching, but not far enough for anyone driving the Fiesta to be able to extricate their car.  The driver killed the engine, and for a moment there was the crisp winter air, the start of a snowfall, and the insistent, repetitive blare of the Fiesta's alarm.  Then curtains twitched, lights went on, and people came out of the house.  Inspector Playfair sighed and opened his car door.  He was home for Christmas.

*

"You hit my car!"  Denise was Playfair's sister, a broad-shouldered woman with a classical beauty.  Dark, softly curling hair framed her face and her eyes smouldered with a mediterranean passion normally, but right now the fires had been stoked and they were blazing.  "You always hit my bloody car!  Why don't you look where you're going?"
"I didn't hit your car," said Playfair looking over the small group that had come outside.  There were more people clustered at the doorway.  "You say I hit your car every year, Denise.  It's like a tradition."
"It's not a bloody tradition!"  She was quivering with rage, full lips curled back in snarl, and her hand was jerking as though she wanted to slap Playfair but was restraining herself.  "Every year there's a new ding after I come here.  Every year!"
"You should drive more carefully," said Playfair with a broad smile.  He ignored Denise as she balled her hand up and punched her other palm forcefully and looked at the man stood next to her.  He came up to shoulder-height on Denise and had the wiry build of a long-distance runner.  His face wasn't quite handsome: it was too thin for that, and the bones jutted a little too angularly.  "Who are you?"
The man stuck his hand out and Playfair looked at it until the man retracted it.  "Steve," he said.  "I married Denise in June.  You were invited to the wedding, I think?"
"And you never came," said Denise nastily.  She punched her palm again.  "I had a special place set for you, and a parking space nowhere near my car.  I did everything."
"I was busy," said Playfair.  "I sent flowers didn't I?"
"A flower.  One flower!  You sent one bloody flower to your own sister's wedding!"
"Was it a nice one?"  Playfair opened the back door of his car, and picked up a leather animal carry case from the back seat.
"Shouldn't you know?" asked Steve, stepping in before Denise could start swinging.  "You sent it, after all."
"I asked around the office for someone who knew about weddings and got them to send something," said Playfair closing the car-door.  "I think it was one of the SOCOs.  Been married six times, so I figured he'd know what was right."  He set the carry-case down on the ground and looked for the zips that allowed it to open.  "He said he'd written a card to go with it."
"Best of luck next time! That's what it said!" Denise's scream turned into a howl.  "Steve's parents spent the next three weeks asking about it.  We played scrabble one evening and all the words they played were accusations!"
"I think you were reading too much into that."  Steve laid a hand on Denise's arm and she shrugged him off viciously.  He took a step back.  On the ground Playfair opened the carry-case door and a small dog, a Chihuahua the colour of a Doberman Pinscher, stepped out and yawned.
"Oh, you have a dog!"
There were muffled screams from the doorway and the people there disappeared inside.  The door slammed, and the sounds of it locking were audible.
"That's not Calamity," said Denise, her voice suddenly calm.
"Calamity's on duty," said Playfair.  "This is Ray."
"You have a dog called Calamity?"  Steve bent down to pat Ray, who growled without looking at him.  Steve hesitated.
"Calamity Jane," said Playfair.  "She's named for my favourite Crimean nurse."
Steve looked puzzled.  "But she wasn–"
"What's Ray short for?" asked Denise.
"Razor," said Playfair.

*

The family – the extended family, Playfair thought – were gathered in the drawing room.  Ray was lying in front of the fireplace, his paws extended and his belly exposed to the heat of the flames.  His eyes were half-closed; anyone coming near him or the fire started him growling, warning them that he wasn't going to tolerate being disturbed.  Playfair's mother's cat, a white-and-brown cushion-sized bundle of fluff was sitting on the window-ledge with ill-concealed hatred for the interloper.  She (her name was Suzie) licked her paws now and then but her eyes never left the chihuahua in front of the fire.
Further back in the room a tall Christmas tree, neatly decorated on one side (Playfair's mother never decorated the back of the tree, reasoning that no-one was going to see it), stood guard over brightly wrapped presents, and in front of it the adults sat at the dining table.  The children had been dispatched to the living room to watch Disney cartoons and eat tinned peaches from plastic dishes.  A scrabble board was laid out on the table, and the Dungeons and Dragons books were neatly stacked nearby, waiting for the evening adventure.
"Divorcee," said Playfair's mother, setting down all her tiles.
"Not you too!" yelled Denise.  Colour rose in her cheeks and she stood up.  Steve stood up immediately too, putting his arm around her shoulders.
"It's just a game," he said.  He leaned into her, nuzzling her shoulder as he couldn't reach her neck.  "Have... have a mince pie."
"Had to arrest a couple of bakers for poisoning mince pies this year," said Playfair.  He was sat in an armchair contemplating the crossword.  "They were putting mercury in them."
Denise looked at the plate of mince pies and paled.  She sat back down.
"Not those dear," said Playfair's mother.  "Cook makes them herself from an old recipe.  I think it was your great-grandmother's.  I'm not sure how long we'll be able to keep making them though, some of the ingredients aren't really produced any more."
"Toyboy," said Playfair's father, setting his tiles down.  "And I think that's all the Y's used up now."
"There's still a blank out there, dear," said his wife.  Denise stayed silent, though her knuckles whitened as she clenched her fists.  Steve put his arm around her shoulders and the plate of mince pies in front of her.  They were lightly dusted with icing sugar and were still warm.  The aroma of brandy, dried fruit, and shortcrust pastry tickled her nose and coerced a smile from her.
"Are you finished with the paper yet, Playfair?" said Aunt Brenda.  "I want to see how Spurs have done in the run up to Christmas."
"He hasn't touched the crossword!"  Aunt Tabitha leaned over and poked the paper with a bony finger: she was wearing her TA uniform and looked cross because she had training on the 26th.  "I thought you said you were going to solve it."
"I solved it –" Playfair checked the clock on the mantlepiece – "eight minutes ago, Tabby.  I'll write the answers in tomorrow in case any of you want to give it a go."
"Pass it over then, there's a love," said Brenda holding her hand out.  "Tabby's just jealous because learning to read is on next year's syllabus."
"Innocent," said Denise laying tiles on the scrabble board.
"Proper noun," said her father.  "Name of a Pope."
There was laughter around the table.  "Cuckold," said Steve, putting his tiles down.  "I'm so sorry, Denise, it's the letters I had."  There was the soft crumpled sound of a mince pie hitting a man squarely between the eyes and Denise stood up again and stalked out of the room.
"New record," said Playfair, checking the clock.  "Normally she only starts sulking after the first dragon eats her character."
"We've got a new dragon this year," said Brenda looking up from the paper.  "It'll be a shame if she misses it."
"You children are always squabbling," said Playfair's mother.  "I'll go and talk to her. Sit down Steve, there's a good chap.  This is a woman thing."
"Right."  Steve looked bemused.  "Do we carry on without her?"
"No," said Playfair's father.  "Game's over: Lindsey won, I came second and Denise beat you by 133 points.  You want to practice, son."
"Oh," said Steve.

*

"Why does everyone call you Playfair?" asked Steve.  "That's your surname.  Surely you have a first name?"
Ray growled like a motorbike revving before doing a wheelie.

*

"Breakfast is served at 5:30," said Playfair's mother.  "Cook will have been up all night and probably drinking heavily, so make sure you're at the table on time.  We will open presents at 6:15 and then apologise to each other at 6:30."
Steve looked around at the others; the wreckage of the Dungeons and Dragons game spilled off the table and onto the carpet and there were far more empty winebottles than he could remember drinking from.  The clock on the mantlepiece said it was 2:30 already, and he was sure he was drunk.
"Ap..apo...apologise?" he managed.
"Oh god yes," said Denise.  She slipped off her chair and giggled into the carpet.  "Oh god yes."

Cthulhiana

The high street was quiet; there was a homeless woman, dressed in a damp dressing-gown, sitting cross-legged in front of a cardboard box outside the Post Office, and there were two dogs trotting happily along, each holding the other's lead in its mouth.  A single car had driven past them in the last five minutes, and the traffic lights appeared to have defaulted to a holding pattern of green, perhaps hoping that being obliging they might summon more traffic.  Miss Flava looked at Detective Inspector Playfair, who was looking in the window of a travel agency.
"I thought all of these had closed down," she said, nodding at the window where sun-faded posters showed white-sanded beaches and palm trees.  There were a number of hand-written index cards advertising trips to Jordan, Syria and Israel for fifteen nights and upwards.
"The internet's done for a lot of them," said Playfair.  "But don't underestimate how lazy people are.  There are still those who'd rather watch someone else use the internet for them than learn how to do it themselves."
Miss Flava hmmed to herself, thinking of several of the older officers back at the police station whose only activities seemed to be making tea and watching other people do things for them.
"Right," said Playfair, rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet.  "Let's get this over with then."
They looked both ways, even though the road was so empty that it deserved tumbleweed, and crossed over.  On the other side of the road, sandwiched between a Subway and Starbucks, was a small shop with a mullioned bay window and a black-painted door with a little, corroded, brass bell at one corner.  The sign painted above the window read "Tea and Tentacles".
"What does this place do again?"  Playfair's voice was gruff and he appeared to be fascinated by the scuff marks on the bootscraper outside the door.
"Cthulhiana," said Miss Flava after a moment; she had to consult her notepad to check what the word was.  "Louise said to tell you that it's like Victoriana, only with more tentacles."
"Japanese?"
"No!" Miss Flava couldn't decide if she was more shocked that her boss, who was definitely in his fifties, knew about that kind of cultural reference or that she found the idea of it somehow creepy.  It didn't fit with her self-image of independent, well-read and liberal.
"Ah, evil squid monsters that will arise when the stars are right then," said Playfair.  Miss Flava shook her head, knowing that he couldn't see her, and wondered if he'd sneaked a look at her pad back in the car.  What he'd just said was word for word what Louise had told her over the phone.  "Well, let's get inside and see these knick-knacks, gew-gaws and whatjamacallits for ourselves then."
"Goo-gor?" asked Miss Flava, feeling rather out of her depth.
"You probably pronounce it jew-jaw," said Playfair without a trace of humour but still managing to condescend like a deity.
"I don't pronounce it at all," she said primly, the effect rather ruined by the bell ringing as Playfair pushed the door open and drowning out her last words.
The interior of the shop was patchily lit, with small LED spotlights in the ceiling picking out display cases and shelves, leaving shadows to pool along the walls and occasionally in the middle of a display for no apparent reason.  There were bookcases along the back wall, some of which were located unobtrusively behind a small counter. On the counter was a cash-box and a large calculator, and behind it was a wooden stool on a cast-iron pedastel that looked as though it belonged in a Charles Dickens novel.  There were a grand total of five display cases set in the middle of the room, each containing two glass shelves and holding an oddity of items.  One case seemed to be mostly jewelry, another was knives, and a third seemed to hold maps, or possibly odd drawings.  Against another wall was a collection of scarves with eye-watering patterns blotched on to them by what looked like unskilled batik.  In the corner nearest the door was a stuffed cat with demonic red eyes and possibly a touch of mange.
"Can I help you gentlemen?"
Miss Flava stiffened with outrage as the owner of the voice, an elderly woman shuffling along with the help of a stick, came into view from out of one of the patches of shadow.
"Police," she said, holding out her warrant card.
"Bless you dear, I can't see a thing," said the woman.  "Not since the Mi-Go took my eyes away with them.  They're going to bring me back some new ones you know.  Improved ones, that can see into many more places."
"OK," said Miss Flava, her voice neutral.  She risked a glance at Playfair, quite expecting him to be inflating his lungs ready to lecture the woman on the improbability of her eyes being worked on independently of the rest of her body, but he seemed more interested in the contents of one of the display cabinets.
"Playfair?" she said, wondering if he'd been listening.
"This statuette," he said, pointing.
"Bless you dear, I can't see a thing," said the woman as though it were an automatic response.
"It's about a foot tall," said Playfair, leaning back as though the statuette were hard to see too close up.  "Has about sixteen arms, head is a bit like an exploded tulip, and appears to be standing on a pile of children's corpses."
"Oh that one," said the woman.  "£170 dear, and I won't take any less."
"Doesn't it look familiar to you?"  He was looking at Miss Flava, who's eyebrows elevated so rapidly they pulled her crow's feet taut behind them.
"I'm pretty certain I'd remember anyone with thirteen arms," she said.
"Sixteen, dear," said the old woman.
"Not the arms," said Playfair.  "The face.  Look at that and tell me that isn't Tommy Richards."
Miss Flava leaned forward, her skepticism written all over her face.  A moment later it had vanished.
"That's better than the police photo-fit managed," she said.  "If it weren't for the arms I'd swear it was him."
"Well, and the head's a bit on the squished side," said Playfair.  "But still.  Who's the sculptor?"  His voice was now directed at the old woman.
"Cassandra Styles," said the woman.  "I've got all the paperwork here somewhere, though if I'm going to get that out you're going to buy it."
"Not necessary," said Playfair with a ghost of a smile.  "It's evidence in a presumptive murder investigation.  Miss Flava, take it into protective custody please."
"What?" said Miss Flava and the old woman simultaneously.
"Now, please," said Playfair.  "I want to talk to Cassandra and find out what else she's been sculpting."

Interview: Melanie

The next name on the list was Melanie Joseph and Playfair tsked when he saw it.

“Do you think Kevin’s tried it one with this one too?” he asked.  Miss Flava, who was looking up and could see Melanie approaching, smiled and said,

“I doubt it.  I think he’d be worried that she’d say yes.”

“What on earth makes you say th–“ said Playfair, his voice disappearing as he looked up and was confronted by a tiny old lady, wrinkled as an ancient apple, with Cardinal red hair and bright grey eyes.  She thrust her hand out at him, and he sat back slightly, looking at it as though it was poisonous.

“I don’t bite,” said Melanie, continuing to offer her hand.  Playfair took it a little reluctantly and shook it.  It was warm and dry, her palms were smooth, but her fingers never moved from their slightly contracted, almost claw like shape.  “I used to, when I was younger, but even then it wasn’t in public.”  Her voice was papery as though she had something slightly wrong with her throat, but she spoke quickly and precisely as though she’d already thought about what she was going to say.  She offered her hand next to Miss Flava, who shook it immediately, and with more warmth.  “May I sit down, or is this going to be quick?”

“Sit, please,” said Playfair waving a hand.  “I’ll try and keep it quick, but that does depend on you to some extent.”

“You met Kevin already,” said Melanie as she sat.  “He said so as he was coming out.  Going to the gym probably.  Nice lad, but a one-track mind.”

“We’re not here to talk about Kevin.  Can you tell us who you are, and what your reason for being here is, please?”

“I’m Melanie Joseph, and that’s a Ms. thankyou.  I had a husband once.  In fact I had four of them, one after another, and they never got any easier to manage.  I gave up after the last one died, and it’s been a relief ever since.  I’m here because I’m an old lady and this is a clinic.  It’s a nice place to stay and be looked after, and the view is stunning.”

“It’s surely not a cheap place to stay,” said Playfair, and Miss Flava nodded, remembering the brochure.  “I doubt you could afford this on a state pension.”

“That’s very intrusive of you,” said Melanie.  “And I’m sure that it’s not relevant to your investigation.”

“Hard to say,” said Playfair, shrugging his shoulders.  “It could be that you’ve committed the crime here to cover up the fact that you haven’t got the funds to stay here any longer.  Or you might have been the intended target and are still in danger.  You don’t have to tell us, but it would certainly help us make more intelligent decisions if you do.”

Miss Flava carefully didn’t look at her boss to avoid letting Ms. Joseph see how impressed she was by his off-the-cuff description of why she should tell them how she was funded.  She wondered if it was really ethical to let Ms. Joseph think that she might be the next victim of a murderer, but Ms. Joseph seemed clever enough not to let Playfair get to her that easily.

“Hah.  Oh, very good Inspector, or whatever rank you are!  What a nice way to threaten a little old lady!”

“The scales of Justice need a little polishing from time to time,” said Playfair carefully.  “To keep them shiny and bright.”

“With those words it’s a wonder your polish doesn’t eat holes in them!  Very well Inspector, I am independently wealthy, and I have a financial advisor who can explain to you what that means in more detail if you’d really like to know.  My husbands all worked, bless them, and I took an interest in what they did, both mentally and financially.  And though they’re now beyond my reach, they’re still looking after me.”

“Did they all die of natural causes?”

There was a moment of silence and Miss Flava braced herself for the outburst that was sure to follow.  This wouldn’t be the first time she’d have had to pause an investigation while she took down a complaint about or against Playfair.  She turned a page in her notebook and readied her pencil.

“Wuhahahaha!”  Melanie doubled up with laughter, turning into a small ball with the enthusiasm of it.  When she unfurled a little, Miss Flava could see that her face had gone as red as her hair, and tears were leaking silverly from the corners of her eyes.  “Oh Inspector, I like you.  Not enough to marry you, mind, but if I were twenty years younger I’d think about it.  Hahaha, natural causes!  You go dig them up, if you want Inspector.  I’ll wait!  I’ll wait!  I’ve waited thirty years since the last one died, it would make me laugh some more to see their old bones out in the daylight again, accusing me.  Oh my, natural causes!”

When the laughter had died down Playfair, who was now smiling broadly, continued his questioning.  Had she heard anything unusual in the last day, or seen anything odd.  Did she know Bob, the Day shift manager?  Were there any specific therapies she’d used at the clinic, and who had administered them?

Melanie smiled as well and answered quickly: Nothing odd had happened that she’d seen, and although she knew Bob she hadn’t seen much of him in the last few days.  She’d been here nearly two months now, so she knew that was a little unusual, but she hadn’t thought much of it.  She had a list of age-related therapies that she was taking, and she didn’t know off-hand which she’d had yesterday, but she’d authorise the clinic to release the details if Inspector Playfair thought it might be useful.

Inspector Playfair nodded and said that he was sure it would be.

And with that, her interview was over and she departed again, moving slightly stiffly but swiftly nonetheless, and left Miss Flava tapping her pencil against her notebook thoughtfully.

“She seems a lot younger than she claims to be,” she said.  “Whatever therapies she’s taking must be working.”

“She’s a sly devil,” said Playfair.  “She hasn’t told us what she’s doing here you know.”

“She’s here for therapy,” said Miss Flava, surprised.  “She told us that.”

“No, she’s here having therapy,” said Playfair.  “But she could get age-related therapies in lots of places.  Why here?  What makes this place special?  I’m sure it’s not the weight-loss effects of altitude for her, and you’d think that high altitude and thin air would be bad for you if you’re old and might not have such good lung capacity any more.  No, she’s up to something and she’s very cleverly hiding it from us so that we don’t even know what it is that’s being hidden.”

“Do you think that you might overthink things sometimes?” asked Miss Flava, but there was no barb in her words.  She’d seen Playfair make these intuitive leaps before with devastating success.  “And you can’t possibly think she killed Bob.  She can’t be more than half his height, let alone twice his age!”

“There is that,” admitted Playfair after a moment.  “But just because she doesn’t look like a killer doesn’t mean she isn’t.  This could be a locked room mystery.”

“I hope not,” said Miss Flava, with deep sincerity.

Interview: Kevin(still)

“Why would you be doing altitude training if you’re not a runner?” asked Miss Flava.  She had the impression that Kevin wasn’t trying to be difficult, but had the kind of approach to the world that got bulldozed over by Playfair’s approach.

“Why are you doing altitude training at all?” growled Playfair.

“Like, because it’s good for me,” said Kevin.  His eyes once again searched their faces, trying to find sympathy from one of them.  “It helps my muscles stand out.  It thins out the sub-cutaneous fat.”

Playfair looked frankly astonished when Kevin managed to spit out the word sub-cutaneous without any trouble, and then frowned.  “You’re saying that the altitude is for fat-loss?” he asked.  Kevin nodded.  “Really?  You bought that gimmick?  Don’t you weigh yourself regularly?  Can’t you see how much weight you’re gaining or losing?”

“All fat,” said Kevin proudly.  “I haven’t had any of my lifts go down all week, and I feel fit as ever.  I got 475 on squats last time, I’m going for 490 today.”

“All fat,” said Playfair, and there was a hint of awe in his voice.  Miss Flava was sure she’d never heard that from him before.  “And it’s all to do with altitude is it?”  His eyes were gimlets pointing at Kevin’s face.

“Oh yes,” he said, smiling happily.  “All fat!”

“Right,” said Playfair.  “I don’t believe it, but you clearly do.  How often have you been to this clinic then?”

“This is the first time,” said Kevin after a moment’s thought.  “I came here two weeks ago to prepare for the competition.”

“How did you find out about this place?”

There was another pause, and Kevin stared down at his feet while he thought.  Then he looked up again.  “My trainer told me about it,” he said brightly, as though pleased to have been able to give the right answer.  “He recommended I should come here and do some altitude training and cut some extra fat so that I’d be striated for the competition.  We want to win this one so that I can get a ticket to the one in New York in Spring next year, and I can turn pro from there.”

“You mean you’re not a professional bodybuilder already?” Miss Flava hadn’t meant to interrupt Playfair’s questioning, but she was having a hard time that someone as muscular as Kevin wasn’t going to the gym as a full-time occupation.  Kevin shook his head and looked embarrassed.  “Good grief, I mean, look at you!  How can you not be professional with a body like that?”

Kevin grinned and winked at her, and she suddenly realised how she must sound to him.  Playfair snorted, which might have been laughter.

“How well do you know the staff here?” he asked.  Kevin kept looking at Miss Flava as he answered.

“Well, I know Nurse Wendy and Jacquie and Clara,” he said.  “But I don’t think I’ve met any of others.”

“Clara?”  Playfair’s voice was carefully neutral.  “Who is Clara?”

There was a pause, and then Kevin’s face twisted up a little and he squinted.  “Who’s Clara?” he asked.

“That’s what I asked you,” said Playfair.  “You said you knew Clara.”

“Uh.” Kevin shook his head.  “I don’t know any Clara.  I just know the nurses here, and Jacquie on reception.”

“Right,” said Playfair.  “You just misspoke.”

“Yeah, that’s right,” said Kevin.  “What you just said.”  He winked at Miss Flava again, who was trying to avoid eye contact with him.

“So Kevin,” said Playfair, trying to get Kevin to look at him but failing.  “Do you know the Day shift manager at all?  Bob?”

“Who?” said Kevin.  He ducked his head, and twisted in his seat, still trying to get Miss Flava’s attention.

“Do you know why we’re here, Kevin?” asked Playfair.  That question got a response, as Kevin suddenly sat still and appeared to be thinking.  Thirty seconds later he still hadn’t said anything, and Playfair waved a hand in front of his face.  Kevin blinked.

“Do you know why we’re here, Kevin?” asked Playfair again.

“…no.” he said very slowly.

“There’s been a murder,” said Playfair.

“It wasn’t me!”

“Yes, well.  We’re trying to find that out, aren’t we Kevin?  The man who was murdered was Bob, the Day Shift Manager.  How well did you know him?”

Kevin shrugged, and seemed about to say “Who?” but then he looked at Playfair’s face and thought better of it.

“Thank-you,” said Playfair, sitting back.  “You’ve been a great help.”

As Kevin walked away, presumably off to the gym, he looked at Miss Flava, who looked him straight back in the eye.

“Well, he’s special,” she said.  “Looks like he only pays attention to the women, and I bet you he’s tried it on with all of them.”

“Looks like he wants to try it on with you, too.”

“He can keep his hands to himself,” she replied, a touch of acid in her voice to match the sudden touch of colour in her cheeks.  “What do you think of his story?”

“Sounds plausible so far,” said Playfair.  “Who do we have who might be able to check out whether altitude training really has an effect on fat loss?”

“You and me, Playfair.”

“Damn.  OK, fine, I’ll make a note.  And I see he’s another one who knows about Clara up until we want to know about her.”

“Quite the mystery woman, Playfair.”

Interview: Kevin

“Who’s next?” asked Playfair.

“I’ll see if we’ve got that list yet,” said Miss Flava.  She stood up and walked out of the lounge into the institutional green corridors that the clinic favoured.  She felt a little like a rat in a maze in the corridors, as they were a uniform height and width, all painted the same colour, and there always seemed to be more of them wherever you looked.  She found herself inexplicably missing rooms that led into other rooms, and small ante-rooms that broke corridors up in the buildings she was used to.

Reception was two corridors away, and Miss Flava was surprised to see someone new sitting at the desk.  She looked up as Miss Flava approached, and she looked interested and alert.  Miss Flava smiled.

“Hello,” she said, offering her hand.  “I don’t think we’ve met.”

The receptionist shook her hand and smiled some more.  “I’m Jacquie,” she said.  “I’m on reception.  People don’t normally shake my hand.”

“I’m Miss Flava,” said Miss Flava producing her badge.  “Police.”

Jacquie smiled harder.  “Oh, I did hear that you’d come in,” she said.  “Nurse Wendy said something as she was hurrying off, but I didn’t catch all of it.  Has something been stolen?”

“There’s been a murder,” said Miss Flava.  “Or, at least, there’s been a body found, and we’re investigating to find out if it’s murder or not.”

Jacquie’s hand flew to her mouth, and then she put it down by her side again.  “I see,” she said, with just a faint tremor in her voice.  “Can you tell me who?”

“The day-shift manager is what we’ve been told,” said Miss Flava.  “We’re looking at the body now.  Inspector Playfair and myself are interviewing everyone who’s been in the clinic during the window of opportunity, and I was wondering if you could get me a list of names.  I did ask the Nurse who was here, so she may have left the print-out for you.”

“I doubt it,” said Jacquie, scanning the reception desk.  “She thinks all this kind of work is beneath her.  She resents having to fill in when I’m not here, and she does a piss-poor job of it too.  Oh, sorry!”

“I hear far worse all day,” said Miss Flava.

“Oh… oh, yes, you associate with all those criminal types, I suppose.  Well, let me get a list of everyone – since when?”

“Yesterday morning,” said Miss Flava, wondering if she should correct Jacquie’s impression of who she hung out with.  But since it was Playfair who was the source of most of the swearing and bad language that she heard day in and day out she decided not to.  Let Jaccquie find out for herself what he was like.

Jacquie tapped some keys on the keyboard, and a second later the familiar whine of a laser-printer came from underneath the desk.  She reached down and took a sheet of A4 paper from it with what looked like 10 names.  “That’s all the guests,” she said.  “Do you need the staff as well?”

“Yes please.”

“Right, that’ll take a little longer as I’ll have to check the rosters and the signing-in sheets,” said Jacquie.  “Shall I bring it to do when I’ve got it?”

“Yes, we’re in the lounge,” said Miss Flava.

As she walked back, she read through the names, but none of them meant anything to her.  She handed the list to Playfair who didn’t even bother to read them, but just shouted out the name of the list.

“Kevin Laferme!”

A man who had to be nearly six foot six stood up at the far end of the lounge.  He loomed when he walked, and he walked with exaggerated care.  He was wearing a wife-beater than showed off his hugely muscled arms and shoulders, and sweat-pants that were cut off just above the knee.  His calves looked to be the same size as Miss Flava’s arms.  His skin was mahogany brown, but there was something slightly unnatural about it, as though it had been painted on over a lighter skin tone.  His eyes were grey, and his head was shaved.  When he sat down, he inspected the chair he was sitting on first and then sat down with the same care as he walked.  The chair creaked.

“Kevin Laferme?”  Playfair produced a pen from a pocket and held it poised over the paper.

“Yep,” said Kevin.  His voice was quite high-pitched and chirpy, completely different from what Miss Flava had expected when she saw him.  “Call me Kev.”

“Right, Kev,” said Playfair, placing a tick against his name.  “What are you doing here then?”

“You asked me to come over,” said Kevin happily.  “I was going to go to the gym, but then you said you wanted to talk to me, so I came here instead.  I’ll go to the gym when this is over.  It’s leg day today, and I’ve got three hours to do.”

“Inspector Playfair meant, what are you doing at the clinic,” said Miss Flava.

“Oh, altitude training,” said Kevin.  His eyes darted from Miss Flava to Playfair and back again.

“Altitude training?  I thought you were a body-builder,” said Playfair.  “You look like a body-builder.”

“Thanks!  Yeah, altitude training’s all the rage these days, so I thought I’d give a try.”

“I thought altitude training was for runners,” said Playfair.  “To build up red blood cells so that when they return to lower altitudes they’ve got more oxygen carrying capacity and better aerobic performance, for a short while.”

“Yeah, right!”

“So how is body-building aerobic?”

“Right, it isn’t, right?”

“Right?”

“Yeah, right!”

Playfair’s head sank into his hands.

Interview: pianist

Miss Flava and Inspector Playfair were sat in the lounge.  Like the room off the reception, it had one wall entirely taken up with windows, providing another spectacular view from the mountain top, with green, flower-strewn meadows falling away and fluffy white clouds dotting the perfect-blue sky.  The furniture in here was less cluttered, more spread-out, and featured firm sofas clustered around low wooden coffee tables, and some stuffed, high-back armchairs gathered in a semi-circle around a fireplace.  There were logs in the fireplace that looked either new or fake, Miss Flava hadn’t yet decided which was more likely, and a mantlepiece held an ormolu clock and photographs of horses.  She and Playfair were sat in the armchairs on one side of the semi-circle, and the pianist was sat opposite them.  He looked nervous, and was playing with a thread hanging from the button-hole of his shirt-cuffs.

Back in the pool room the Scene-of-crime Officers were gathered around the body and strewing yellow tape everywhere.  They had shooed Playfair out the moment they saw him, but Miss Flava was given to understand that she could stay and watch, if she wanted, but she wasn’t to touch anything.  Playfair had shaken his head, and so she’d refused; if he’d thought that there was anything special going to found on the body she was sure he’d just have walked off and left her there.

She’d just finished explaining to the pianist what his rights were in the matter, and why they were talking to him.  He looked unhappy, but hadn’t attempted to leave or complain that they couldn’t do this, so she counted this as a small victory.

“Did you know the victim?” she asked, working down a short, but standard, list of questions that she liked to try and get through before Playfair went off at a tangent.  The pianist looked a little puzzled.

“Well yes,” he said.  “He’s Bob, he’s the day-shift manager.  He employed me.  Of course I knew him.”

“Thank-you,” said Miss Flava.  “I’m asking purely for the record.  Some of these questions will seem a little simple, or the answers will seem obvious, but I need to ask them and to hear your answer so that we don’t jump to any conclusions.”

“Lawyers,” said Playfair with a harrumph.  The pianist looked at him then, and looked away, back at Miss Flava.

“I suppose what you’re not saying,” he said, “is that if you decide I murdered Bob and you haven’t gone through your list of questions, then some lawyer might find a way to say that you didn’t follow procedure and so I can’t be tried.”

“Mostly,” said Playfair.

“Not exactly,” said Miss Flava.  “That’s not quite how trials work, no matter what you see on television.  But it is important that we understand exactly how things came to this position, so that we can find the murderer.”

“Or murderess,” said the pianist.

“Pardon?”

“Well, it could be a woman, couldn’t it?” he asked.  “It doesn’t have to be a man.  Or was Bob killed in some way that rules a woman out?”

“Is there any kind of murder that could rule a woman out?” asked Playfair.

“Well I don’t know,” said the pianist.  “Perhaps if Bob’s back was broken by a punch, or something, something that needed a lot of strength, perhaps.  Maybe he was stabbed with a pen, and it was forced through muscle, or bone, or something.”

“I’ll give you a tenner if you can beat Miss Flava here in arm-wrestling,” said Playfair.  “And why do you think that the murderer broke Bob’s back?”

“Uh, I don’t,” said the pianist, his face going pale.  “I was just suggesting ideas, um.  Well, you know.”

“Right,” said Miss Flava.  “Might I suggest that you stop giving Playfair ideas and just answer the questions?”

“Yes,” said the pianist.  He seemed to sag in on himself a little, but he answered the rest of Miss Flava’s questions quietly and to the point.

“Who else is staying in the clinic that you know of?” asked Miss Flava.

“Oh, well I don’t know names,” said the pianist.  “I just play the piano, and I’m not really supposed to mingle with the clients.  They’re all here for treatment, and I’m just staff.  But there’s some bodybuilders, because of the competition that’s going on, there’s a few of them, and then there’s the usual middle-aged women who want to look younger.  Oh, and there’s another man who doesn’t seem like he belongs here.  He keeps himself to himself though.”

“What do you mean, doesn’t seem like he belongs here?”  Miss Flava wrote quickly, her pencil scratching across the coarse paper of her notepad.

“Well, he’s ridiculously thin,” said the pianist.  “He’s like a stick with a ping-pong ball on top.”  Playfair barked a laugh, but didn’t follow it up with an interruption, so the pianist continued.  “He can’t be here to lose weight, but the clinic doesn’t do bulking up, or health cures or anything.  It’s focused around losing weight and being beautiful.”

“Could he be here for a beauty treatment?” asked Miss Flava.

“I suppose,” said the pianist, but he didn’t sound convinced.

“Who else works here?” asked Playfair.  “We’ve met you and Nurse Wendy so far, and we’ve seen Bob’s body.  The nurse mentioned a night shift manager.”

“Mike,” said the pianist.  “He should have arrived by now, I don’t know what’s keeping him.  Um, other than Mike and Bob there’s Wendy, there’s me, there’s the kitchen staff, I think there’s a few chefs and there’re some porters.  There’s the pool guy, he makes sure that the pool’s all working properly and there’s nothing wrong with it.  And then there’s Doctor Demson, he’s the presiding doctor for the clinic.  But he’s hardly ever here unless–“  He stopped, and looked from Miss Flava to Playfair.

“Unless?” said Miss Flava.

“Well… unless anything goes wrong.  Not that it ever does!”  He looked at his feet now, and refused to be drawn any further when Miss Flava pressed him.  Finally she gave up and looked at Playfair.

“How about Clara?” he said.

“Clara?”  The pianist didn’t look up.

“When we arrived you said that she was inside and would meet us.  We never met her.”

“Oh, you must have misheard me,” said the pianist.  “Clara’s dead, she has been for a while.  I can’t think what I could have said that you’d have misheard like that though.  Perhaps I was just asking you to go in?”

“That must be it,” said Playfair.  “Thank-you, you’ve been enlightening.”

The pianist looked up now, his cheeks still pale but with a bright red spot in the middle of each, as though he couldn’t decide if he should be embarrassed or frightened and was trying out both.

“You can go,” said Playfair, and the pianist stood up immediately.  He smoothed down his suit jacket, and paused, his mouth opening and though to say something, and then he seemed to think better of it and left the little semi-circle of chairs.

“Curious chap,” said Playfair thoughtfully.  “I wonder why he changed his mind about Clara?”

“Nurse Wendy told him to?” said Miss Flava.  She flicked back through the notes she’d made, rereading them and considering what she’d heard.

“Or perhaps Clara did,” said Playfair.  “But either way, someone doesn’t want us to think that we might be able to talk to Clara.  I wonder why?”

“I’m absolutely certain you’ll find out,” said Miss Flava.  “You hate people creating unnecessary mysteries.”

The filtration room

The filtration room was square and unadorned.  The walls were bare grey concrete, the ceiling was bare grey concrete, and a single filament light-bulb hung from it to illuminate the room.  There were a collection of metal pipes running in and out of the room via the floor and low down on the walls, and a couple of large metal boxes in the middle of the room.  They’d been painted the same green as the door, and they connected to the pipes.  Both of them were humming, and the drone was quite loud in here.  On both machines were a small sets of gauges, with little needles pointing at numbers, and both machines had large green and red push buttons.

“I was expecting digital,” said Playfair.  He sounded surprised.

“I guess you buy what you can afford,” said Miss Flava.  She stayed in the doorway while Playfair walked over to the machines and checked them.  He walked round the other side, and Miss Flava heard a sudden splash, and then a familiar cursing.

“Water leak?” she asked.

“Oil, by the looks of it,” said Playfair.  “You’d think that’s be a worry if this thing’s on all the time.”

“How about a thermostat?”

“Yes, and it’s covered in dust.”

“What setting?”

“Hard to read,” said Playfair, his voice quieter as though he were crouching down.  “I don’t actually want to disturb this one either, no point letting them know we’ve checking this already.  Huh.  It’s between 20 and 30.”

“We can get SOCO to stick a thermometer in the pool and check that way,” she said.  “Since we know it’s not been touched now.”

Playfair stood up and came back and they closed the door behind them and wheeled the floatation aid stand back in front of it.

“Now what?”

“I guess we wait for SOCO,” said Playfair, his tone of voice suggesting that wasn’t what he wanted to do at all.  “Can you find out where they are?”

Miss Flava pulled out her cell-phone and checked the reception.  She had three bars, which was much better than she’d expected all the way up here.  She frowned at it.

“That’s odd,” she said.  “Reception’s pretty good.  There must be a cell-phone mast nearby.”

“The clinic might have its own,” said Playfair.  “It’s expensive enough.”

“I would have thought they’d just have banned mobile phones as part of the package,” said Miss Flava.  “Seems cheaper and easier, somehow.”  She selected a number from her contacts lists, and dialled.

A body in black

Miss Flava hurried through the doors after him, knowing perfectly well that he was going to do exactly what he’d just accused the nurse of.

“Don’t touch that body, Playfair!” she called, her voice echoing oddly in the space.  “The forensic team need to see it, and it’s already been moved once.  Don’t you dare touch it!  I won’t back you up on it this time.”

Playfair halted a couple of feet from the corpse and looked back.  Miss Flava tried to slow down, and realised how wet the floor was.  She skidded forward slightly, struggling to maintain her balance, and would have succeeded if the floor hadn’t made the transition from smooth concrete to rough tile, with little lego-like protrusions to help bare feet grip just where she skidded to.

A hand caught her elbow and steadied her, and she caught her breath.  Playfair looked at her, and for a moment she thought she saw something almost human in his eyes.  Then he’d looked away and was looking at the body again.

“No,” she said firmly.  “I’m very grateful for you catching me, but that does not mean that you get to mess with the evidence.  We wait for the forensics guys to get here.”

“SOCO’ll take ages,” said Playfair, just a little plaintively.  “It seems ridiculous to have the best source of clues sitting there decomposing and to stand around admiring it.  It’s not like this is the Tate, you know.”

Miss Flava had spent the previous weekend going round the Tate in London with an overenthusiastic artist who was trying to date her.  She’d spent nearly eight hours on her feet looking at just about everything the gallery had to offer, and being told lots of historical (and occasionally inaccurate) information about it all.  They’d done paintings, installations and sculptures, and while some of them had genuinely impressed her, a lot of it, despite her boyfriend’s best efforts, had left her cold.  She completely agreed with Playfair that this could have been an installation in there.

“You’re thinking of Tracy Emin,” she said.  “That’s the kind of thing she’d exhibit.”

“I’m not,” said Playfair.  “I don’t know who she is.  How long do you think it will take SOCO to get up that hill out there?”

“Well they’re not that fit, as a group,” said Miss Flava thoughtfully.  “And they’ve got quite a lot of equipment to carry.”

“Heavy equipment,” added Playfair helpfully.

“Right.  So… a good half-an-hour I should think.  And they’ll be grumpy when they get here.  So if you think I’m telling you off for wanting to touch the body now, think about what they’ll have to say when they find out what you’ve done.”

Playfair looked away and stared around the room.  Miss Flava had seem him have shouting matches with forensics guys before now, and although he’d usually won them, he did sometimes get a run for his money.  She was curious actually as to why he was holding back; it wasn’t as though he ever listened to her unless she was saying what he already wanted to hear.

The swimming pool had natural light coming through horizontal slit windows up near the ceiling, and fluorescent lights arranged around the edges of the room.  The combined effect was to leave the centre of the pool slightly dimmer than anywhere else, but there was plenty of light to see the body by.  There was a dull hum, probably from a filtration unit – she recalled that the nurse had been going to say that they hadn’t wanted the body to contaminate the pool, so she guessed that they had no intention of draining the pool and refilling it even though a corpse had been found in there.  She shuddered, glad that she wasn’t a guest here.  There were wooden slatted benches pushed up against the wall on three sides of the room, presumably to allow people to sit out when they were tired of swimming, or possibly for an audience in case there were competitions going on.  Miss Flava fished in her pocket for her notebook and made a note to ask about competitions or exhibitions that might happen here.  There was a strong smell of chlorine in the air, enough that from time to time it caught in the back of her throat and made it tricky to breath in for a heartbeat.  She wondered if that was normal too, it seemed like a lot of chlorine for an indoor pool.

“No thermostat,” said Playfair.

“What?”  Miss Flava looked around, but she couldn’t see the distant walls clearly enough to see for any switches or dials.

“No thermostat,” said Playfair.  “Temperature must be regulated from somewhere else.”

“Probably the filtration room,” she said.  “You can hear the hum.”

“Right,” said Playfair.  “Where do reckon that is then?”

“Why?”

“We need to know what temperature the water’s at,” he said.  “The body was in it for some length of time, and that will affect it’s rate of cooling.  And also I want to see if it’s been changed recently.”

Miss Flava smiled.  “Up or down?”

“Either or both,” he said.  “It’ll still tell us something.”

They found the door fairly quickly, hidden behind a shelf of flotation aids that wheeled easily out of the way.  It was green, metal, had ventilation fans in it, and was, of course, locked.

“I’ll go and ask for the key, shall I?” said Miss Flava, knowing she was wasting her breath.

“No, I got this,” said Playfair producing what looked like nailfiles from a small leather pouch that came from an inside pocket of his jacket.

“It would seem more legal if I went and got the key,” said Miss Flava while he poked them into the lock.

“And they’d know that we were checking this,” said Playfair.  “This way I get to find out before they know I know.  That gives us an edge, and this is all about finding the right edge.  Something’s going on here, that much is obvious, and I don’t think it’s just a murder.”  There was a click and Playfair turned and beamed at her.  “Forty seconds,” he said.  “It’s an easy one, because it’s indoors and only really intended to keep nosy people out.”

“Like us?”

“Like us.  But forty’s still pretty good.”

“It could just be a murder and some slightly stupid members of staff, Playfair,” said Miss Flava, but she didn’t believe herself.  Nurse Wendy had made her suspicious too.

“Hah.”  Playfair opened the door and reached in and groped around the edges of the room until he found a light-switch, and pressed it down.

A moment alone

“I still think it would be better if Mike were here,” said Wendy.  “I spoke to him about twenty minutes ago, so I’m sure he’s nearly here by now.”

“I doubt it,” said Playfair, smiling again.  “It took Miss Flava and I fifteen minutes just to hike up from the car-park.  Unless Mike lives in the car-park, I’d say he’s still a way away from us.  And while we’re standing here talking, who knows what you’ve got the porters doing to the body?”

“The signs say the swimming pool is over there,” said Miss Flava, pointing.  There were little white signs with black lettering and arrows indicating directions by each closable door leading off reception.  Wendy looked furious.

“Let’s go then,” said Playfair.  “When Mike arrives we’ll be at the swimming pool.  Unless he takes a half-hour or so, in which case I imagine we’ll be back here again talking to you some more.”

Wendy scowled and glared at computer screen behind the desk.  Then she pointedly starting tapping on the keyboard and moving the mouse with sharp, jerky movements, not looking up again.  Playfair shrugged as though he had no idea what had caused her bad temper, and led the way through the archway towards the sign indicating the swimming pool.

The room off the reception was flooded with sunlight as the entire side-wall was windows held in slender steel frames.  The view, out across the town at the foot of the mountain, and then onto rolling green fields and hills, was spectacular and the kind of thing you expected to see on the cover of shortbread tins.  There were fluffy white clouds hovering in the azure sky, and dark shapes that might have been birds of prey.

The room was filled with furniture, to the point of clutter.  There were lots of small square tables, around which were invariable four hard-backed chairs.  The tables were too small for four people to comfortably eat at, and instead of cutlery, there were pencils at all four corners.  Beneath the windows were a couple of bright white sofas, overstuffed and low-seated so that sitting in them was like falling backwards into a cloud.  Miss Flava noted that they looked very hard to get up gracefully from, and probably very hard for a lady to sit gracefully on.  At the end of the room was a larger table set with the requisite four chairs, and an easel.  To the left of the easel was a wooden door with three directional signs attached to the wall, all indicating that beyond the door were the swimming pool, the changing facilities, and the Billiards room.

Playfair opened the door, yanking on the handle so hard that it literally flew open and Miss Flava felt the draught of air from it.  On the other side was a narrow, beige-carpeted corridor with institutional-green walls and tiny slit windows up near the ceiling to provide daylight.  Fluorescent tubes ran the length of the corridor in the dead-centre of the ceiling.  Near the other end one was flickering.

Miss Flava closed the door behind her out of a natural sense of tidiness, and as soon as the door clicked shut Playfair spoke.

“She’s lying,” he said.

“Well yes,” said Miss Flava, who’d noticed it as well.  “About just about everything if you ask me, but what caught your attention in particular?”

“Bob,” said Playfair, advancing down the corridor.  The narrowness of the corridor meant that he could block it by squaring his shoulders and walking down the middle of it, which he was doing.  “There’s no way she and Bob were close.  I’d say if he ever tried it on with her he went home with a fat lip.”

“Really?”  Miss Flava considered Wendy for a moment, and wondered if the woman was really capable of violence.  Most were, she admitted, but Wendy didn’t seem the type to hit people.  Sarcasm maybe, that seemed to be a given.  Or telling lies about them behind their backs.  “I was more interested in why they moved the body.  Do you think she really called the Board of Directors for advice?  It seems… I don’t know, above her station somehow.  I don’t see why she’d think to call them at all to be honest.”

“And is Clara dead or not?” asked Playfair.  He’d reached the end of the corridor now, where it branched both left and right.  The signage indicated that the pool and the changing facilities were to the left, and the Billiards room to the right.  “That seems like a very pertinent question.”

“Who’s Clara?” asked Miss Flava.  “Left, Playfair, we’re going to the swimming pool.”

Playfair reversed direction.  “I suppose the body shouldn’t wait,” he said.  “Clara, the owner of the place Clara.  Whom the pianist told us was expecting us, and that nurse told us was three years dead.  Either this body’s been here a lot longer than we knew about, and Clara died waiting for us to get here, or someone’s got the wrong end of a very sticky stick.”

The corridor widened suddenly, just in time to accommodate double doors with glass panels reinforced with steel mesh.  Playfair flung them open like a diva making her entrance on stage, and found himself confronted by another set, through which the swimming pool could be seen, and an archway to the right that led into a tiled area, presumably the start of the changing facilities.  He pushed open the second set of double doors and a whiff of chlorine made Miss Flava choke momentarily.  When her eyes cleared again the doors were swinging behind Playfair, who was striding over to a man in evening dress lying prone at the side of the pool.

The swimming pool

“Where was the body found?” asked Playfair.  He peered behind the desk again as though wondering if they’d laid it out back there.  The nurse glared at him.

“In the swimming pool,” she said.  “Face down.”

“Is it still there?”

“He has been pulled out,” said the nurse, her tone as icy as a north wind in Winter.  “He’s on the side of the pool now.”

“Sounds like tampering with evidence to me,” said Playfair with a little smile.  “Did you do this of your own accord, or did someone ask you to help them?”

“I never touched the body!”  The nurse flushed, a puce colour that made her head look a little like a plum.  “They wanted to get him out of the water so that it wouldn’t contamin– so that it wouldn’t speed decomposition… er, and the chlorine in the water.”  She tailed off a little at the end, sounding uncertain for the first time since Playfair and Miss Flava had arrived.

“The chlorine in the water?” prompted Miss Flava before Playfair could agitate the nurse any more.  She was trying to get everything written down in her notebook – Playfair, as usual, was making no notes at all and would later tell her that he remembered everything that was of any importance – and she knew that she still hadn’t found out the nurse’s name.

“Er yes, we were, that is, they were worried that it would affect the body after death… it might make it rot a bit quicker, I think.”

“And who are they exactly?”

“And who, in fact, are you?” asked Playfair, butting in again.  He drummed his fingers on the counter.  “You’re very quick to tell us about everyone else, but you’ve not told us who you are yet, have you?”

The nurse opened her mouth to retort, and then Miss Flava could see her take control of herself.  It was impressive, most people confronted by Playfair like this would be angered to the point of screaming confessions at him just to get him to shut up and go away, she’d seen it happen.  To see someone visibly pushing his attitude away like this and forcing herself to calm down and think about her answers showed a lot of willpower.

“Had you asked, at all,” said the nurse, “I would have told you that I was Wendy Roberts.  I might even have introduced myself to you and offered to shake your hand.  They in this instance are the kitchen porters, since they’ve got strong arms and strong stomachs, and we really had no idea how long Bob had been in the pool for when we found him.  He seems to be mostly wet rather than decomposed, so I guess it wasn’t that long.”

“The pathologist will determine that,” said Miss Flava.  “Thank-you, Wendy.”  She wrote the name down at the top of the page.  “Who instructed the porters?”

The hesitation was slight, and if Miss Flava hadn’t been previously so impressed with the way that the nurse had regained her calm she might never have noticed it.  But now, when Playfair had been put back down in his place, and the question was an easy one, the hesitation was curious.

“The board,” said Wendy.  “I couldn’t get hold of Mike on the phone at first, he was probably asleep, so I called Sequester Options to ask them for advice on what to do.  They said to get the body out of the pool and to call the police.”

“Why didn’t you call the police first?” asked Miss Flava, though she could guess the answer.  People never wanted to be responsible, so when you found a dead body you told someone else and hoped that they would call the police for you.  There was another fractional hesitation before Wendy answered, again.

“Bob and I were… close,” she said.  “I think I was in shock.”

“Then you still are,” said Playfair.  “Shock doesn’t just go away like that.  Have you had a sit down?”

Wendy, who was still sitting down, looked at him with an expression that suggested she thought he was abnormally slow.  “Cup of sweet tea?” he asked.

“I’m fine, thank-you,” she said.  “I did have to go and sit down for a bit, yes.  And I prefer coffee, if it’s all the same to you.”

“Fine, you’re sorted then,” said Playfair.  “Let’s see this swimming pool while we wait for Mike to get here.”

“I’d prefer that you wait for Mike,” said Wendy.

“I’m sure you would,” replied Playfair.

Reception

The heli-pad was set off to the side of the clinic, with what looked like about three-hundred feet of flat, grassy ground between the two.  The clinic looked like a small hotel; four stories of smart-white building; each floor had eight sets of french-windows opening out on to a balcony framed by a cast-iron railing.  Some of the doors were open, and a white net curtain was blowing from one of them.  At the ground-floor there was a portico jutting out from the main building, presumably to give the smokers somewhere to shelter when the weather turned bad, that extended about forty feet and had large white planters spaced around it.  The planters held roses that were attempting to climb up the columns supporting the portico, but they didn’t look very enthusiastic about it, and Miss Flava was off the opinion that by growing up here in the first place they were already high enough up.  The main doors were closed, but one was opening even as she watched, and a short, tubby man wearing a tuxedo was emerging.  She forced herself to straighten up, and heaved another breath that seemed somehow to not be enough.

“Good afternoon!” bellowed Playfair happily, not moving.  The tuxedo’d man came forward hesitantly, as though expecting Playfair to start moving towards him.  Playfair simply stood and waited until he’d hop-skipped his way over to them, and then stuck a hand out.  Miss Flava almost called out from the man in the tuxedo to stop, but it would have been too late anyway.  He put his hand into Playfair’s, and she could see the pain cross his face as Playfair squeezed like an anaconda and shook like an alligator seizing its lunch.  When he let go she could see the man in the tuxedo evaluating if his arm had dislocated or not.

“You must be the doorman,” said Playfair, seemingly oblivious to the fact that he’d just shook his hand.  “We’re here to see the owner.”

“I’m the pianist,” said the man bending and straightening his arm gingerly.  “The doorman’s on his break.  Most people just go to reception and sign in, you know.”  He looked at them both.  “And you have to carry your own luggage at the moment.  The porter’s d– definitely not feeling well.”

“He’s dead,” said Miss Flava making the pianist jump.  “We’re the police.  That’s Inspector Playfair, and I’m Miss Flava.  Someone here is hopefully expecting us.”

“Ah, yes, that would me,”said the pianist.  He stuck his hand out again, surely an automatic gesture, and Miss Flava had to hide a smile behind her own hand as Inspector Playfair seized it again and shook heartily.  “Ow.  Clara is expecting you too, I’m just here to make sure that.  Ow.  I’m just.  Ow.  I’m.  Oh, just go in.”  He rubbed his elbow vigorously and muttered ow under his breath again.  Playfair ignored him, and looked over at Miss Flava.

“Got your breath back?” he asked.  “This altitude will kill you if you’re not careful, or not adapted.”

“Yes, thank-you,” said Miss Flava, just a little stiffly.  “And don’t be ridiculous.  Heights don’t kill people, it’s hitting the ground that does that.”

“Heh,” said Playfair.  “I’d get that internet connection as soon as you can then, as altitude definitely does kill people.  Why do you think they have base stations on the high mountains?”

“…because they take days to climb,” said Miss Flava.  “Everyone knows that.  Come on Playfair, stop messing around and let’s go and find the body.”

Playfair let her take the lead and she pushed the main doors open and resisted the temptation to let it fall onto Playfair.  The man could be so smug as to be loathsome sometimes.

The clinic reception was muted; the walls were ash grey and the carpet was moss-green.  There was a large, curving reception desk taking up about a third of the room, behind which was sat a woman wearing a starched white nurse’s uniform.  There were pigeonholes, some of which contains manila envelopes and sheets of paper, behind her, and a couple of steel filing cabinets.  A closed door indicated that there was another room behind there as well.  To the left of the reception was an archway that lead through into a well-lit room with chairs and tables, and to the right were a row of hard-backed chairs and a small coffee-table covered with ancient magazines.  Miss Flava noted Just Seventeen and Cosmopolitan and wondered exactly what the average age of the clientele was.  This side of the room reminded her strongly of a doctor’s waiting room.

“Can I help you?” asked the woman behind the desk.  She wasn’t looking at either of them, seemingly more interested in something on the table in front of her.

“Yes,” said Playfair walking up to the desk.  He put both hands on it, directly in front of her, and leaned over the desk to see what she was looking at.  It was a 7” tablet computer showing a table of some kind, with the cells filled in with long, foreign-looking words.  The nurse turned it over and looked up at him.

“Diet?” she said.  She had brown eyes and auburn hair and looked to be in her mid-thirties.  Her badge, next to her watch, read SRN Hulme.

“No thanks,” said Playfair.

“Reservation?”

“Nope.”

“Then what do you want?”

“Police,” he said, fishing in his pocket for his badge.  After a couple of seconds groping he found it and presented it to her.  She sat back slightly, now alert and watchful.

“Right,” she said, and then said nothing more.  Playfair met her gaze and held it.

“We’re here about the murder,” said Miss Flava recognising that the immovable object had met the unstoppable force.  “We’re expecting to meet the owner.  Clara?”

“Clara’s been dead for three years,” said the nurse not dropping her gaze from Playfair’s.  “Presumably you don’t think she’s been murdered.  The current owner is Sequester Options, a private equity firm, and the current manager, Bob Flind, is your body.”

“Thank-you,” said Miss Flava.  She pulled out her notebook and quickly noted down what the nurse had said, while the nurse and Playfair continued to attempt to out-stare each other.  “Who’s in charge when Bob’s dead?”

“That would be Michael, Mike Humber,” said the nurse.  “He’s due in any minute now; we called him after we called you.”

CAWL clinic

CAWL clinic – Clara’s Altitude Weight Loss Clinic according to the promotional material lying in Miss Flava’s lap – was, unsurprisingly, located near the top of a mountain.  Miss Flava looked out of the passenger-side window as the car trundled up the road, its engine roaring with the effort.  The view was extremely picturesque, so much so that she felt slightly nauseated looking at it.  There were purple-tinged mountains in the distance, their tops wreathed around with wispy white cloud, and alpine meadows in the foreground.  Little white flowers, probably Edelweiss she thought, dotted the lush green grass, and here and there a bucolic-looking cow stood idly, cudding away and regarding her back with soft, brown eyes.  The only thing that was missing was cow-bells and Heidi.

She glanced back down at the brochures and turned a glossy page.  The pictures showed the interior of the clinic, which appeared to be dark woods and white sheets, steel sinks and heated towel-rails, balconies and acres of wooden floor.  Undoubtedly the place cost a small fortune to visit even for a day.  She looked out of the window again, and spotted the cow-bell around the neck of an aggressive-looking cow as they rounded the corner.  Oh good.  That only left Heidi to find, and she had the complete set of clichés.  She turned another page, wondering if there was any explanation as to who Clara was or why she’d chosen to build a clinic all the way up the side of a mountain.  Getting the laundry done must be a real pain, and they’d probably need daily deliveries of food if all the fresh vegetables mounded onto plates in these photographs was to be believed.  There were several more pages of textless photographs of the clinic, including one of a kitchen the size of a primary school teeming with white-coated chefs, presumably all chopping vegetables and cleaning lettuce.  Then finally a page with some densely-worded text and, in tiny print, costs of a stay.  Miss Flava squinted, then decided she was happier not knowing.

“It’s all very Mozart, isn’t it?” said Inspector Playfair.  He was driving, and whereas his normal approach was to hold his foot on the accelerator until he needed to hit the brake, he was a little unaccustomed to terrain where he had to hold his foot on the accelerator or let the car roll backwards.

“Thomas Mann,” said Miss Flava automatically.  Inspector Playfair looked at her quizzically.  “Mozart wrote The Magic Flute,” she said.  “Thomas Mann wrote The magic mountain.”

“Fine,” said Playfair looking back at the road, which was as steep and empty as ever.  “It’s all very Mannly then, isn’t it?”

Miss Flava stifled a sigh, knowing that Playfair had created the bad pun deliberately to annoy her because she’d corrected him.  “Yes,” she said.  “Though hopefully with less tuberculosis.”

“Weight-loss clinic, isn’t it?”

“Yes.  Apparently there was a study done about five years that showed that high altitudes reduced appetite and increased weight-loss in people subjected to them.  Miss Clara, whoever she may be, thought she’d capitalise on this and open a weight-loss clinic at the top of a mountain.”

“So she can just take the fees and do nothing, and people will lose weight anyway?  Clever girl,” said Playfair.  There was a hint of grudging approval in his voice.  Ahead, the road turned to the left, and as the car laboured round the corner they could see a flattish area of tarmac that was the car-park.

“Well, the brochure does list a variety of classes you can take to help lose weight,” said Miss Flava flicking back to the beginning of the brochure.  “They’re all very masculine sounding though: Fat Camp, Bootcamp, Military Exercise, Fitness Regimen.  Huh.  All the instructors appear to have military ranks though, so maybe that’s why.”

“No spas?  No manicures?  Nowhere for me to get my nails done?”  Playfair’s tone was neutral, and Miss Flava wondered for a brief second if he was joking, before wondering at herself for thinking that he might not have been.

“Not listed,” she said.  “You probably have to ask.”

The car came to a halt in the car-park, and Playfair put the hand-brake on just in case.  He opened his door and released his seatbelt in one economical movement, and got out, stretching as he did so.  Then he twisted from side to side, eliciting crunching sounds from his spine, and sighed.  “That’s been a long ride,” he said.  “They should make these mountains smaller.”

Miss Flava got out more slowly and more stiffly, and tried to stretch more demurely.  “I don’t think people build mountains, Playfair,” she said.

“They built this one.  This is the only man-made mountain in the world.  It started off as a spoil-heap, then it got added to by a number of urban planning projects that needed to go down to bedrock, and then finally some eccentric geezer decided to go the whole hog and turn it into a full-blown mountain.”

Miss Flava stared at her boss.  He shrugged.  “You can look it up if you like,” he said.  “Not sure if you’ll get a signal for a phone up here though, you might have to borrow an internet connection.”

“You can’t build a mountain,” she said, aware that she was repeating herself but otherwise lost for words.  “That’s ridiculous.  You’d never get planning permission!”

“You should be allowed to go down 180 feet to find bedrock,” said Playfair.  “But they did, and that’s why the Aperton flood plain won’t just flood but will become a lake if the River Ate ever breaks its banks.  Which way do you think the clinic is then? Up?”

“What?”  Miss Flava looked around, and realised that the car-park was isolated; there were no buildings in evidence around it.  There was a narrow path, nearly a defile, that led further up though, and from its steepness she realised why the car-park was here and not next to the clinic itself.  “Oh, I guess.  It looks like the exercise starts here.”

“Oh good,” said Playfair.  He was broad-shouldered and muscular, and Miss Flava suspected that he thought that getting fat was some kind of weakness.  She was rake-thin, and had been all her life, but she didn’t much fancy having to walk nearly vertically up a mountain just to reach a clinic.  “How do you think they get the deaders down?”

“The what?”

“Deaders.  When someone dies at the clinic, probably from an overdose of exercise or vegetables, how do you think they get the bodies down?  An ambulance wouldn’t get up as far as we did.”

Miss Flava didn’t know, but when they reached the top of the incline ten minutes later, and she was bent double trying to get her breath back and clear the coloured spots from before her eyes, a chirpy Playfair said, “Ah!  A heli-pad.  That’s how they do it.”

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.