Hi,
I haven't posted anything in a while but this came to me when we received our new timetables. :)
I don't own new tricks or anything in the story really. Hehehe :P
Reviews welcome as I have remembered my email password now so will get notifications through sooner!
I'm hopeless... Anyway, enjoy!
Em x
Tricky Trig
"What's Pythagoras got to do with this Brian?" Sandra shouted from her office after overhearing his theory on their currently 'stuck' case.
"The insurance claims invalid!" He stated with confidence as Sandra made her way over to the desk, bewildered.
"What do you mean 'invalid'? That's a big step Brian!"
The man at the heart of this investigation was a Henry Neth. A british builder who fell from a ladder whilst working but died. This meant that the wife had a hefty insurance claim and they had had a tip off that the whole thing had been planned but went drastically wrong. So being 11 years old, UCOS were left to work it out.
"Well." Brian began as he began to draw a sketchy right angled triangle on a piece of paper. "Do you remember this from school, Sandra?" He queried looking up from the page from a moment, waiting for an answer.
She shook her head. "Why do I have any reason to remember Pythagoras? I'm a police officer: not a maths teacher! Although sometimes I think it would be easier and more fun to be honest!" She was getting moody now.
"Pythag is a formula used to work out a hypotenuse of a line" Brian explained, to recap the ancient lessons of their childhood.
"A what?!" Gerry interrupted.
"Hypotenuse. The longest length of a right angle triangle and always opposite the right angle." Brian recited, as if knowing that the question would be asked.
"So?" Sandra bluntly questioned.
"Well. It's worked out by squaring the base and height of a triangle and adding them together, before square rooting them."
"Thanks for the maths class Brian. But what relevance does this bear on the case?" Sandra asked again. Brian was always so precise and lengthy about his explanations.
"From the scene report, we have the measurements of the ladder that Henry fell from. The ladder leant 11m high on the wall and was 5.1 metres from the wall itself. This is where Pythagoras comes in. From this we can find out the actual length of the ladder. Which was..." Brian trailed off as he punched the figures into his calculator .
"Equals 12.124 metres. The ladder was 12.124 metres long!" Brian's voice was triumphant but Sandra and Gerry were still in the dark on its importance.
"And this means?" Sandra asked.
As if on queue, Brian arose from his chair and retrieved an official looking file.
"And here, in the insurance contract, that Henry's insurance company insured accidents and faults on ladders 12 metres or less."
A smile crept across Sandra's face. There was suddenly a breakthrough on this impossible case.