The MGC returns? C3
Disclaimer: before I get hate mail from South Africans offended at my comparison of the national cuisine to, well, something else, may I say I've tried biltong and it is actually quite tasty and more-ish. Thank you.
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Alice and Joan, fuelled by a lot of hot coffee, spent several hours sorting through the case histories. These now covered the table, most of the bed, a handy couch, and part of the floor. Having all the known facts at their disposal only added to their perplexity.
"I can't see anything that links all these cases together, Joan!" Alice exclaimed. "The maddening thing is, whenever you think you've found a common feature, it only applies to four or five of the cases and not to the other three. And then you find a different common point that connects another different five, but not all eight, and which only overlaps three out of the first set of eight!"
She threw up her hands in frustrated near defeat. Joan sighed. "There's always going to be some uncertainty there, m'dear. Why else do you think they accused me of twenty-four, when I only scored eighteen? Which means six of them were done by somebody else, who by accident or design used an inhumation method that had enough common features with mine. Enough for the Watch and QCIC to suspect I did them, anyway."
She frowned in concentration. "I suspect this sort of investigation relies on putting together just enough pieces of the jigsaw to be able to see the general picture. And if some pieces slip in from a different jigsaw altogether, if they fit well enough, who's going to notice?"
Joan paused, and had a thought.
"Think of it as being like an archaeology dig, m'dear. Isn't it like what you do when you've got a handle, part of the spout and a bit of the rim, but not the whole teapot by any means? You have to make intelligent guesses as to how much is missing and how the wretched teapot might have looked, if all the bits were there."
Alice smiled.
"You're right, of course" she said. "It's just been a long day."
She bent her head over a page with hastily scribbled details on it. Joan was just about to suggest, out of deference to the time, that she left and took a cab home, when Alice sat very still looking at the page she was reading. Then she went back to the nearest file to consult something, And back to her page again.
Is this what an archaeologist looks like when she's bagged a trophy? Joan thought. She's quivering with excitement, like a hunting dragon that's caught a scent.
Joan waited, placidly, for Alice to speak. Eventually she said
"Look at this, Joan. The dates of the murders. The second one's a week or so out, but look! We're in March now. They begin in July last year. On the twenty-third. The next one is August the Twelfth, so it doesn't quite fit. But then we get September the twentieth. October the twenty-second. November the twenty-first. December the twenty-fourth. And so on down to February the twenty-first." (1)
Joan looked. It was true: seven of the eight murders had occurred within a day or two either side of the twenty-first of the month. She took a deep breath.
"Well, at least we've established that we're dealing with a woman here. That's one thing!"
Alice raised an eyebrow. Joan explained.
"Haven't you said it yourself, m'dear? That for a few days in every month, every woman is a potential Assassin? That you could go out and inhume somebody, preferably male, just for the sheer bloody-minded joy of it, and the contract fee's a bonus for buying chocolate with? I've been there too, y'know!"
Alice laughed, delightedly.
"And let's face it, you need to bring down a big fee to be able to afford Weinrich and Boettcher! "
She paused, and looked thoughtful. "I wonder if that's her motivation? We'll have to ask the Watch to put a gargoyle on Zephire Street, just overlooking the chocolate shop, and monitor who goes in and out."
Then Alice looked at the clock and said
"Oh hell. Is that the time?"
She slipped her feet into slippers, and said to Joan
"You're usually spared this, since you got Day Pupils. But the rules say I have to do a dorm check between eleven-thirty and midnight, just to count heads and make sure they're all there. You might need to do this yourself in the future, so why don't you come along? Oh, and soft shoes. Nothing that makes a noise, it's not fair to the ones who are asleep."
Joan and Alice made a discreet tour of inspection around the dorms, Joan in stockinged feet and Alice walking softly and cat-like.
"They tend to look really sweet and innocent when they're asleep, don't they?" Joan remarked. "Takes time to count 'em up, though."
"It'll get longer next year, when everyone steps up a form and we get a new batch of first-years." Alice said. "Right now, I just have to bear in mind that what with one thing or another, Tump House currently has a hundred and thirteen girls aged between eleven and fifteen. As long as the numbers tally, we're OK. You must know the usual sort of tricks they play? Some of them just don't stop and reflect on my having been to a boarding school myself. I've seen the dummy in the bed more times than I care to remember. But it's stopped now. Ever since I pinned a "See Me!" note to the dummy with a throwing knife. From the other end of the dorm. That sort of thing gets around! And I edificeer, of course. Far better than they can! When one of mine tried climbing out of the window one night to go and see this boy from Viper House, they found me and Mr diNivor waiting for them on the roof!"
"Detentions all round, then." Joan said, cheerfully. They were standing in the corridor in between dorms, looking out over the city.
"You just have to be one step ahead, that's all."
"First thing you learn in teaching, m'dear." Joan remarked. "It confuses and worries them if they think you can see out of the back of your head."
Joan stayed over, Alice generously allowing her the bed while she curled up on the sofa. She went to sleep, thinking "They all happen in the same few days towards the end of the month. That has to be significant!"
And then the nagging thought at the back of her mind, like a hunting shark in a sea full of lesser predators, emerged.
"Alice!" she called, urgently. "Neither of us noticed! Tomorrow is the twentieth! She's just about to kill again!"
"Let me know when she does" Alice replied, sleepily. "We can talk to the Watch. Get to see the crime scene. Pick up what Assassins will notice and Watchmen don't. But I'm good for nothing if I can't sleep!"
Nothing happened the next day, the twentieth.
Well, to be scrupulously honest, many things happened that day. The Assassins' Guild School went about its scheduled daily routine. At morning assembly, Lord Downey made a point of telling the school that rumour-monging would not be tolerated. Any pupil found spreading malicious and unfounded tales about members of staff would be disciplined.
Joan winced. An official denial. They'll believe it all the more now!
Her first class went smoothly, although she fancied the pupils were looking at her with more than the usual wary respect.
With a growing and uneasy feeling the storm was about to break, she walked down to the Guild kitchens to see Chef about re-ordering materials for the Domestic Science unit. She felt at home in the maze of kitchens, store-rooms, butteries, cold-rooms and pattiseries: the Guild Chef viewed her as a professional equal among the teachers, and they would sometimes stop for a chat, if two busy schedules allowed for it.
She heard a familiar voice as she passed the smoke-house, and stopped to watch. Two smoking racks were being loaded with long strips of dark-brown meat. A couple of white-coated commis chefs were meekly cutting meat, eollong it in salt, and loading the racks, under the stern eye of Johanna Smith-Rhodes.
"Remember, this is not to be cooked. " she said, crisply. "The purpose of henging the meat on the recks is to dry it end remove the liquid content. We are curing the meat, so thet it is preserved end it mey be cerried by my students es en eiserneportione, the iron ration. Whet we are preparing here is basic unflavoured biltong jerky, which will be good enough for the students."
Johanna smiled.
"Hi, Joan! Does this offend your cook's delicecies?"
"Not at all, m'dear. You're taking a class out on a Wilderness Weekend soon, I expect?"
"In three weeks. Enough time for the biltong to dry!"
Joan smiled.
"Y'know, this puts me in mind of bresaola, the Brindisian way of preparing a ham. Do you people in Howondaland ever flavour your meat before you cure it, or do you always go hair-shirt like this?"
"Well, a clessic Howondalandian biltong, one I could eat, is first rolled in selt end merineded in vinegar end spices for a week or so, before it is hung and dried for a fortnight. You mey be sure I hev taught Gereth end Davie here how to do it properly, if you cen cell it properly, out of the poor renge of meats you Morporkiens eat."
Johanna frowned, disapprovingly.
"I mean, Joan, you only hev beef end lemb end pork! I'm heving to mek do here with sirloin steak!"
"Yes, I can see that's going to be a damnable privation for you." Joan said, with poker-faced sincerity.
"Et home, we use ostrich. Kudu. Bokkoms. Snoek. Springboek."
Johanna's eyes misted over. Joan reflected that she'd seen similar looks on the faces of Dwarfs as they declared that the dwarf bread you get round here is OK, considering, but not a patch on the stuff you forge back home. A further slightly more wicked thought suggested to her that biltong was the human Howondalandian equivalent of dwarf bread: something you carried in your pack as an iron ration whilst hiking through inhospitable wilderness, and very diligently avoided eating, in the hope that something else was going to turn up. If it was amazing how far you could go with a loaf of dwarf bread in your pack, then Johanna's students were probably set to achieve prodigies with good Howondalandian biltong in theirs. Idly, she wondered if Howondalandian dwarfs squared the circle by making their biltong out of rat, and avoided eating it in the form of a jolly nourishing sandwich. And what sort of animal was a snoek, anyway? Or a kudu? (2)
"A stokkie of biltong may dry like rock end look like a brick, but it reconstitutes well when soaked in water." Johanna explained. "It also cerries light. I'm taking forty first-year girls out for three days, end I went them to hev no illusions ebout living in the wilds. So they get plain dried biltong with perheps a little smoking for flavour, if they ere lucky! You know we cennot take first-year pupils out in winter. Lord Downey insisted. We hev to make the most of spring end summer, so they get a gentle introduction to wilderness survivel. It does not mean they hev to eat like gourmets."
"Are you taking any Selachiis with you?" Joan asked, thoughtfully.
"But of course!" Johanna said, as behind her Davie the cook's shoulders started to shake with suppressed proletarian mirth. "End Rusts. End Eorles. End Venturis. Perhaps I cen ecquaint Miss Eorle with a mountain lion. I hear they persist in the hills Hubwise of here. Joan, it's good for their souls!"
"But not for their bellies"
"Biltong is perfectly nutritious. Thet, and whetever we cetch on the trail!"
Johanna smiled at the two young trainee chefs.
"Cerry on without me for a moment or two, please. Thenk you." She walked into the corridor with Joan.
"Do you need eny help right now?" she asked, concerned. "I know you end Ellice spent a long time lest night looking over those case files. I know it's not you, end it's a bleddy demned cheek somebody's stolen your name!"
"All the stuff's in Alice's rooms still." Joan said. "Pop up and have a discreet read. Maybe you can spot something we haven't. But Johanna, we're sure she's going to kill again soon! That's when I'm likely to need people I can trust. To help lead her into a trap and bring her in. Downey wants her alive, which goes against my better instincts."
"Just esk, Joan. I'll be there!"
"I know you will, m'dear. Thank you."
Johanna smiled, embarrassed.
"You were very good to me when I first arrived in this city end needed friends. I don't forget."
After a quiet moment and an exchange of smiles, Johanna said
"I'd better cerry on supervising those two boys. Oh, they're not trouble, Chef told them to behave, end I've promised them an extra dollar each for helping. But young boys…"
"Tell me about it. We teach them."
They laughed., and parted. Joan walked away, wondering Are there any Dwarfs in Howondaland? I've never thought to ask before. Funny where an idle thought leads you. Must ask Johanna. (3)
Joan spent a free period that afternoon in conference with Alice and Johanna, studying and re-studying the case files.
There must be something else here! she raged to herself, comparing the Scene of Crime iconographs taken by the very clever Watch forensic alchemist, Cheery Littlebottom. But these only covered the later deaths in great detail: the earlier photos had been taken by rank-and-file Watchmen who had not thought it worthwhile to call her out for what they'd then taken to be a one-off killing. Consequently, they lacked detail and precision, and in one case, had Corporal Nobbs gurning into the camera. Or maybe that was just his normal face, it was hard to tell.
But there was something there, some common element, if only she could identify it.
Meticulously, she started writing lists of what was common to all the murder scenes.
They say this is ninety percent of police craft, she thought. The long meticuluous plodding slog, looking and re-looking at all the small details. No wonder they're called "plods".
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It was at about six the next morning that the storm broke. Joan had gone home for a freshen-up and to pack an overnight bag, and had again stayed over at Alice's. This time, she got the couch and Alice the bed.
"They'll be spreading rumours about us next, m'dear." Joan said, before drifting off to sleep.
"You know I've always fancied you, Joan. I'm just too tired tonight. Now go to sleep." Alice replied, absolutely deadpan. Joan laughed appreciatively, and sleep overtook them both.
A thunderous knocking on the door awoke them.
"Miss Sanderson-Reeves? The Porters' Lodge advised me they thought you were staying at Miss Band's. I apologise for the intrusion, but this is Mr Brown from QCIC. You're needed. There's been another murder."
Joan opened the door to him, harbouring a thought the male Assassin was dissapointed to see they'd clearly been sleeping in seperate beds. Alice attracts her own rumours. Can't help that, and it's no skin off my nose.
"Then give us ten minutes to wash and get dressed and we'll be right with you. Both of us."
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(1) Yes, I know the Discworld has its own months. But frankly, the business of thinking in terms of Hubwise, Rimwards, Turnwise and Widdershins does my head in. So I'm sticking with Roundworld names for months, thank you. After all, Middle Earth had its own names for months, but Tolkein stuck with January, February, March to keep it simple. So if it's good enough for him...
(2) OK then. Snoek and Bokkums are types of fish. Kudu is a type of venison.
(3) In fact, there are. When significant gold and diamond deposits were first found in Howondaland, the Staadt realised it needed to import expertise to run its mines. Within a fortnight, the first shipload of Dwarf immigrants had arrived, as if steered by a magnetic attraction, if gold could be said to have its own magnetic field.(4) There are also the erroneously named Bushmen, a sort of very short presumed human being living in the Stone Age still, who live in shallow tunnels under the savannah. Dwarf anthropologists are very excited by them, as they are with the "pygmies" of the jungle.
(4) It does for Dwarves, believe me.