The MGC returns? C5
Joan and Alice returned to the School, later in the morning, to resume their normal duties as teachers. They had compared noted with Cheery Littlebottom, who was to return to the prison and check the bedding store, so as to sample the stock for the presence of the deadly Prussian Blue meadowflower. If it were present in recently arrived batches, then it became more likely that the death was misadventure. If none were to be found in the stores, then the strong probability, in fact the expected outcome, was that a small amount had been deliberately introduced with the intention of murder. Cheery was also to ensure the bedding in the death cell was safely collected for further examination, as well as to act as murder evidence. And it won't end up in any animal feed. If the body-wagon that conveys prisoners between the Tanty, Watch cells , the Patrician's Palace and the Gibbet suddenly stops in the street because the horses drawing it have died suddenly… and ye Gods, we also have to rule out any plot to rescue criminals in transit, it would be so easy! As well as muddying our waters. For all we know, the Georgic woman may not have been the target at all, she could have been collateral damage in a plot to free a high-profile criminal. I'll get Cheery to run this past Bellamy.
Cheery, who had been graciously allowed to take a Guild Student's Reading List away with her so as to persuade Vimes to buy her department the books(1), also promised to provide Joan with a copy of the post-mortem result.
Joan returned to her class to relieve the supply teacher. She paused at the door to listen. Emmanuelle Lapoignard Les Deux-Épées didn't normally cover cookery, as she was firmly of the opinion that the natural environment of her sort of Assassin was the City. If the Assassin was meant to live off the land, then eh bien, the natural resources of the land included restaurants and easily harvested dinner invitations. She saw no difficulty with this. Wilderness Survival, to her, meant going undercover into proletarian areas and having to survive on takeaway food. As for the boring and unwelcoming green bits in between the cities that were not lit up at nights, all you needed was a comfortable fast coach and a luxury hamper combining the very best produce from several of the the upmarket food shops on the Maul. Pas de problème, mes élèves!
"This will not do, mes élèves! " Joan heard. "The simplest, the easiest, the most ridiculously easy, task in the cuisine is the preparation of a simple Quirmian omelette! How can you say you can cook the simple meal if you cannot do the simple omelette?I issue each of you with two eggs, a whisk and some basic seasonings, and it is the most simple task on this Disc!"
Joan relaxed. Emmanuelle was taking her cover duties seriously, then. And she was jolly right about omelettes! She walked in.
"A quiet morning, Madame Deux-Épées? Thank you so much for covering my class!"
Emmanuelle smiled.
"A pleasure, miss Sanderson-Reeves! And most of the class are getting the idea. Let me show you. Alors, miss Stalybridge-Hyde here has not quite got the hang of it."
The two teachers looked down at a roughly circular, dark brown object being presented by a downcast looking pupil. Joan sniffed.
"The object of the exercise is to prepare something you can eat. Although I concede that something you can repair the sole of your boot with might have its uses, this classroom does not have "Craftroom and Leatherworking Shop" up over the door, does it? Or I'd have noticed!"
Joan maintained her glare for a second or two, then softened and said
"Go and get two more eggs, and we'll do it properly this time!"
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Alice Band was at her ease, halfway up a wall. She leant back on the ropes and surveyed her students, who were spread out both above and below her.
"Put some effort into it, Mr Lavish, if you please!" she called down. She also noticed Lavish, even at thirteen, was a bit on the tubby side, one of the many family failings. You can't edificeer if you carry surplus weight, she thought. Perhaps bump him up a class or two, and send him out on the next Wilderness Survival course. Three or four days of being chased by Johanna on minimal rations should lose a few pounds and trim him down. If not, I'll have to talk to Baron Striefenkanen and tell him there's a problem. Put Lavish on special measures for a month or two. Reduced diet, house arrest except when escorted, and absolutely no tuck. He stuffs his face like you wouldn't believe. Sweets and chocolate. Nice in moderation, but fatal for the active Assassin. She reflected on the half-pound of Weinrich and Boettchers' best assortment, that a grateful parent had given her, and which was sitting untouched, by effort of will, in her desk drawer.
A fat Assassin is also bad for the image. Then again, Bunter of Pernypopax House managed it in the end. His first successful inhumations on graduating were the fellow pupils who'd made the fat boy's life Hell. Cherry, Wharton, Singh…. (2)It does help if your father is a leading industrial chemist, though.
She watched Lavish lumbering slowly up the wall, his breathing laboured.
Special Measures means getting Downey's personal approval, as it could be otherwise described as cruel and un-natural punishment. As if getting a frankly fat and unfit pupil up to the mark, quickly, could be called cruel! But I'll let Johanna have a crack at him first. She usually has a pretty direct way when she gets them up in the hills.
She nursed her class to the top of the wall, with a combination of encouragement and veiled threats. On the roof, they waited in silence for a panting Lavish to lumber up and over the parapet. She clicked her stopwatch off, noted the time, and said
"Mr Lavish, the accepted time for a student to climb this wall, carefully and without haste or over-confidence, is one minute and thirty-two seconds. You managed it in two minutes and fifty-three seconds. This is simply not good enough. I propose to speak to other members of the teaching staff, and to your housemaster Baron Striefenkanen, concerning measures that are open to us to improve your performance."
She turned to the rest of the class.
"As Mr Lavish here has dragged the class average for this wall down to one minute and fifty-nine seconds, we will all abseil down to ground level and do it all over again, until I am satisfied!"
There was the expected chorus of groans and dismay. Alice started chivvying the class back to the parapet and went down the line, ensuring their ropes were correct. She then took her place and called "GO!" watching them swing out into space. No hesitation; that was good. Even Lavish went, presumably because descents were always easier, in terms of exertion and effort. She leapt over the wall and followed, descending as quickly as safety allowed, only kicking out at the wall twice, relishing the dizzying speed of practice and experience, managing to be on the ground before any pupils. She then watched them in.
"Keep moving!" she called, as a steady cold drizzle began falling. She added the age-old lie of the PE teacher, for emphasis:-
"A little rain never hurt anybody!"(3)
She was, however, honest enough to cross her fingers as she said it.
Alice Band, in her way, was a happy woman who derived an intangible sense of satisfaction from her vocation.
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As Joan was wrapping up omelette-making, and Alice was considering bringing the edificeering lesson to a wrap, elsewhere in the City, the killer was going about her business. Like Alice, she was happy and well-adjusted in her day job, and had, indeed, made quite a few legitimate sales that day to satisfied customers.
At this moment, she was weighing up the woman sitting opposite her, with the sad, dark-rimmed teary eyes and the very obvious bruises. The one who had just whispered "Mavis Robinson mentioned to me that you might be able to help…" and left the rest of the statement in the air. She had switched the sign on the door to "CLOSED", locked up, and had made a pot of tea for two. Discreet probing had satisfied her that this was a legitimate candidate for her services. Although she recalled from her research that the original Marriage Guidance Counsellor had very nearly fallen prey to a Watch sting, involving an undercover Watchwoman with very realistic fake bruises. I'll have to be very careful of that from now on, now the story's out and they've christened me after the MGC. Still, there are only three human or human-seeming women in the Watch, and I know all their faces.
"I should be in a position to assist" she assured her latest customer. "Just tell me a few details about the gentleman in question and I'll organise a, er, delivery. You are clear on the other detail? Two thousand now, another two thousand on completion?"
The customer wordlessly deposited a bundle of notes on the table. The killer nodded in appreciation.
This can go to Simon's college endowment fund at the Royal Bank. I must be careful to bank it before the twenty-eighth, or it's going to lose a month's interest.
She listened, prompting with a little question occasionally, and smiled.
"There should be no problems, Mrs Rutherton. Completion, I think, within two days. Leave it to me!"
She saw her special customer out, and rest the door-sign to OPEN. Then she breathed heavily and tried to suppress the panic feeling inside her. Sooner or later I'll be caught. And what happens to Pete and the boys then? She fought down the fear. What she was doing was worthwhile. Socially necessary. She was convinced of it. Yesterday was a big risk. When Peter came home from work he looked strangely at me. He didn't accuse. He said nothing. But what does he suspect?
She had heard that hard work is a sovereign remedy for care: she took up a broom and started clearing up the shop and workroom floors. Tuesdays were good for special clients as she worked alone then. The downside was that Tracey, the shop junior, wasn't here to do the sweeping and tidying. And in this trade, there was a lot of it. Floors don't sweep themselves, she reminded herself, and set to it.
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Later in the day, Joan and Cheery met up at the Tanty to discuss the day and compare notes. Cheery confirmed that there had been absolutely no trace of the deadly flowers in the bedding store. Which suggested that the fatal batch had been contaminated at some point during its journey to the dead woman's cell. Which in turn pointed to murder.
"The bedding from the cell is in the evidence room at Pseudopolis Yard, bagged, tagged and secure."
"Good!" said Joan, "Now let's do the other thing. We could be at it for some time, I'm afraid!"
This involved sweet-talking Amorine Maccalariat. Having an idea of which buttons to press, Joan emphasised the urgency of the task, so as to prevent any further irregularities spoiling the smooth and tidy running of the prison. (Even though she and Cheery were both fairly certain there'd be no more).
She followed it through with sympathetic concern.
"It must be difficult, to be one of only a few women working in a place like this?"
"Oh, it's not so bad! The staff, and most certainly the inmates, treat me with the greatest of respect. I insist on it, and of course, there are the female officers who work in the Women's Prison. I was rather dubious about taking this position at first, but I'm bound to say I'm coming to quite like it. You say you need to look at the staff files, Sergeant, Miss Sanderson-Reeves? Come this way, please!"
Joan and Cheery spent a couple of hours reading staff files and profiles, looking for any hint that one of them might have been corrupted or compromised by outside influences. But there was nothing of obvious interest there, and they were just about wrapping up when Miss Maccalariat signalled that she wanted to close the office and leave for the day.
Joan straightened her back and sighed.
"I do like the flowers, miss Maccalariat. A nice touch in an office like this!"
"A reminder that there's a real world out there that doesn't have inch-thick steel bars on every window!" she agreed. "I couldn't do without them, to be honest. It's all thanks to Davinia. Lovely girl, married to one of the officers, runs her own floristry business down on Pelicool. She makes sure the offices and public areas get fresh flowers every week, to brighten and civilise the place. She even used to run a flower-arranging class for the lady prisoners… well, I say the ladies, but Gorgeous George used to attend as well, but everyone here knows George. He used to go to the dressmaking classes as well, the one Mrs Battye or one of her ladies give. Well, flower arranging for the lady prisoners was curtailed, I'm sorry to say, when it was realised they were using the vases to hide contraband. And one was used as a weapon in a fight between prisoners, which caused a lot of stitching work for Igor. Davinia allowed them to take the flowers home to brighten their cells afterwards, you see. We are hoping to resume flower-arranging for prisoners when we can get unbreakable vases in a totally clear material."
"So I see!" Joan said, wryly.
Miss Maccalariat said, with a smile,
"Punishment was minimal on that occasion. The Governor considered that for a woman, having her wounds stitched up by an Igor was punishment enough. But they lost the privilege of flower-arranging lessons! Shall we go?"
The three of them left the prison together, warders unlocking and locking gates as they left.
"Do you know, Miss Sanderson-Reeves, I have to compliment you on how well-behaved pupils at your school are. Assassins' School children are the best-behaved and most polite you see on the street! It must be a constant job for you to maintain those standards?"
"Well, a constant vigil, certainly But we find if you raise the bar high and tell 'em that's where you want to keep it, they tend to self-regulate and do the work themselves."
"They're a credit to you, an absolute credit! It's so good to meet other women who believe in maintaining standards!"
Joan smiled, aware of having made a useful ally.
Cheery exhaled, having spent a day in what to her were largely challenging and difficult environments. Joan looked at the dwarf with sympathy. First the Tanty, then us, then the Tanty again. She needs a break.
"Could this Assassin offer the Watch a complimentary cup of tea or coffee, m'dear? I promise you I won't put anything in it except coffee, milk and sugar!"
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Cheery sat in at the evening review with Alice of where they'd got to so far.
"It's a pity you didn't think to get the name of the officer's wife who runs the florists' shop." Alice said, thoughtfully.
"After all, we know the murder weapon was a naturally poisonous flower. And it's a rare one that doesn't grow within three hundred miles of here, and only then halfway up a mountain. So whoever chose it definitely knew their flowers!"
Cheery said, hesitantly,
"I asked around. The Prussic Blue is also known at home as…well, you've heard of Edelweiss? A nice inoffensive winter bloomer? This is Edelschwarz. Edel mit Haltung, Edel mit Schwung. (4) Edelweiss with attitude, basically. Most Überwaldeans know better than to try to cultivate it, and its flowers are too drab, almost black, to be of interest to growers in the Plains. Captain Carrot had a book in his room on common flowers and plants of Überwald, you see. Angua suggested he lent it to me."
"Somebody with a good knowledge of uncommon flowers, then." said Alice.
"And not the sort you'd usually put in a bouquet, then." agreed Joan. "But I agree we should identify this florist who's married to a prison officer. Pass the ruler over her, and see if she measures, or most likely doesn't, and needs to be eliminated from the inquiry. Damn and blast it, I should have asked Miss Maccalariat. What was the name? Deborah? No, Davinia, that was it!"
"Er…" said Cheery, diffidently. Alice and Joan looked at her.
"This might be something or nothing. But the staff files we looked at. We divided them into two stacks, remember, and one of mine was Mr Bellamy, the principal officer. I remember the family details. Three sons, ages between eight and thirteen. . Happy marriage for fourteen years. His wife was named as Mrs D. Bellamy. That slightly funny name again. Davinia. The file said she runs her own business, but didn't specify what. Sorry."
Alice and Joan looked at each other, then at Cheery, and then at each other again.
"Mrs Bellamy visited. And met her husband in the bedding store. Where she took him his lunch. And if she's a florist by trade…"
"Well, we know what we're doing tomorrow, then!" Joan said, firmly. "I've got a sudden urge for flowers. They do tend to brighten a place up, don't they, girls?"
Alice reached for the case files. "Do you remember we studied the scene-of-crime photographs looking for common elements? One of the things that was present in most of the photographs, that we just thought was coincidental because they're found almost everywhere and most homes tend to have them at one time or another? Flowers, Joan! Somewhere in the scene, there was a bunch of flowers !"
Joan took a deep excited breath.
"We may be getting somewhere or we may be getting nowhere. We need a strategy to make the best of it. Cheery, were the flowers kept from the earlier murders?"
The Dwarf's face fell and she muttered something spiky in Dwarvish.
"Don't worry m'dear. We can probably identify them from the photos, to see if we're barking up the wrong tree. And wre any cards or messages with the flowers kept? Well, that's something we can use!But if there's a next killing , we need to keep the flowers, yes? Jolly good!"
And then the three of them put their heads together to work out a strategy for investigating the elusive Mrs Bellamy without alarming her. A woman who they were beginning to suspect knew how to say it with flowers. And the message, tey now suspected, was invariably "Drop Dead!"
(1) Poisons, intermediate course: Recognition and Uses of the Dangerous Flora of the Sto Plains and Hubwise Central Continent. "The Assassin should not spurn the inhumation resources to be found nearest to hand, which a beneficial Mother Nature has placed all around us for our education and instruction, often indeed in the form of overlooked garden and hedgerow weeds."
(2) A homage to Frank Richards' novels of British boarding school life, which centred on the appalling fat boy Billy Bunter and his chums.
On the Discworld, the licenced Assassin William Bunter waited a few years, then invited his former classmates back to a "no hard feelings even though you bullied and beasted me for seven long years" get-together. At the same time, his father lodge contracts with the Guild so it wouldn't be murder. As Downey remarked afterwards, the fact that Wharton, Cherry, Nugent, Coker and Singh had sat down to eat with a fellow pupil, whom they had bullied and for whom they had made life a misery over seven long years, in the belief that all was forgotten and forgiven, in itself betrayed shocking levels of over-confidence. And on top of that, not taking into account that Bunter's speciality at school had been alchemy, nor that his father was a prominent and successful industrial chemist... Downey had sighed and been heard to remark that "Sometimes, just sometimes, we make an error in passing them, don't we!"
(3) Except in the lands immediately bordering the Great Nef, which as a result of a localised microclimate persisting after a millennia-over Mage War, suffered from seriously acid rain. The local flora had learnt to adapt, and the few surly inhabitants made a comfortable living from collecting and refining the rain, in ceramic tanks, for use in the burgeoning chemical industry.
(4) Could a Uberwaldean speaker, such as cklammer or fledge, check the use of language here? I was going for a concept like "deadly edelweiss", edel(black), or Edelweiss with attitude.