The MGC returns? C6
Peter Bellamy came home from work to the usual joyous welcome from his three sons.
"Mother not in yet?" he asked, obediently raising his arms so that eight-year-old Tim could undo the ties of his front-and-back armour. He looked forward to relieving himself of the weight of it.
"She left a message to say she'd be late at the shop, dad." said thirteen-year-old Simon. "Apparently she's got a deadheading job to do."
Peter nodded. Deadheading meant the systematic removal of poor growth or weak flowers to allow the rest a chance to flourish, so that the energy of the plant was driven only down productive stems. And the show plants on display at the shop were only the very, very, best. Vinnie saw to that. You have to deadhead, she'd said, or the bad blooms act as parasites, sucking the life-force from the ones who deserve to live.
Peter nodded, remembering: he'd commanded the escort often enough, in the Patrician's court where Vetinari had neutrally pronounced the death sentence for some truly unforgiveable crimes, and he'd done the dawn walk to the gallows often enough afterwards, with the old priest reciting the words, and Mr Trooper waiting with a smile on his face to announce I am your hangman for today… some condemned men had gone with a spit and a curse, some with a joke, some in abject fear, and with all those bodily glands which were capable of exuding liquid in full flow.
Perhaps the role of the Watch, the Courts and the Prison Service is to deadhead the human race and take away its parasitic blooms. The ragged, scrawny, dying buds with the worms in or the infestation of blackfly.
He cooked a simple, basic, meal for himself and the boys, not minding the duty. Vinnie earned three times as much as he did, after all. This was a fact he accepted without rancour or envy. It was part of their marriage.
Her original degrees and diplomas hung over the dining room wall. A higher qualification in floristry and small business management, from the old Brazeneck Technical College in her native Pseudopolis (although he'd heard it had reinvented itself as a University since). And her first degree, a starred First, in Botanical Sciences, from the Università degli Studi della Basilicata di Brindisi.
He smiled: that was where he had met her. Like many other gutter kids in Ankh-Morpork, he'd joined a Regiment. He had survived being commanded by Lord Rust and had been promoted Sergeant, largely on the basis of being the senior soldier out of those still alive. As soon as he could, he had offered his services to other states, on the basis that no Army anywhere could be as badly led as that of Ankh-Morpork. This had led him to the City Guard in Brindisi. Where he'd met the girl. The student at the University with flowers in her hair. she'd hung a garland of flowers round the blade of his halberd, without fear, looking straight into his eyes, that day when the Doge had ordered the Guard out to disperse some student demonstration or other. She'd taught him about a reality that didn't involve blood and death. By then he was ready to learn.
After dinner he went to walk in the garden. Getting a mortgage in Ankh-Morpork had not been a problem for the shop-owner married to a ranking prison officer. Finding a house hadn't necessarily been a problem either. But in a city strapped for space, finding one with a large garden – that they could afford - had been a million-to-one chance. She'd got it, too: the old man had been passionate about his gardening and wanted the house to go not to the biggest bid, but to the one who'd look after the land best. And now, Vinnie used the space to grow flowers for the house and shop, as well as the rockery and the greenhouses.
The greenhouses, well, two of them were hothouses, really, for the tropical plants that brought in a steady, reliable, income. Three were open to anyone, and indeed she'd brought the boys up to play an enthusiastic part on tending and watering and nurturing. But the other two remained locked, only Vinnie had the keys, and the boys were cautioned not to try and enter. Peter had always supposed it was down to her interest in flesh-eating plants, on which she had written a Masters dissertation that had earned her a higher degree still. In between work and motherhood, she was preparing a PhD dissertation. He didn't intrude, but it was disconcerting to see his wife dress up in protective clothing and pick up a big stick before taking the feed bucket into the Special Hothouse. He was fairly sure horticulture was meant to be a sedate and fairly risk-free activity, wasn't it?
And here and there around the garden were closed frames, of glass and wood construction, that could be moved and repositioned so as to force growth in certain flower species. Most could be opened for watering, but several were locked down tight with a warning to the boys not to disturb these plants. As she said, people would pay over the odds for a fresh flower in March that in normal circumstances Nature did not mean to flourish until July.
The nagging worry formed in his head. This business of the Marriage Guidance Counsellor returning to the City after nearly five years. He couldn't remember anyone actually being arrested or hanged for those crimes. And he should know. Yes, if the convict was female, it was normally Mrs Jackson or Miss Ferguson (1) who escorted the condemned woman to the gallows, and signed her off the prison rolls after evidence of decease. But both the senior wardens on the womens' wing had pronounced themselves baffled. Rumour had it that an arrest had been made: then nothing. No delivery of a prisoner, no trial, no hanging. This disrupted expectations, and had made prison life a strangely off-key experience for a few days. Something was missing. Then it happened again, with the other wanted serial killer, presumed female, whom the Tanty Bugle had dubbed The Black Widow (2). She too disappeared suddenly, never to kill again. Yet.. no prisoner. No trial. No hanging.
Bellamy had also heard the vaguest possible rumour that, just sometimes, Vetinari would, for his own reasons, fake an execution, and then offer the "deceased" a new life and new identity. Might he not also do that if he thought the killer had skills that could usefully be harnessed in the service of the city? Or, given the widespread public sympathy for the Marriage Guidance Counsellor and her motives, the wily Vetinari might have elected for a more… discreet… disposal with no witnesses, rather than have thousands of women mob the gallows in an attempt to rescue somebody seen, by women, as a national heroine.
Mr Trooper, the hangman, wasn't saying: challenged about this by the egregious Bellyster, the civic executioner had just laughed in his face and said "'Pon my soul, sir! Do you think I would be so unprofessional as to hang a man so badly as to let him live? With broke neck or crushed throat after falling under his own weight? And for your talk of angels, Mr Bellyster, by all I hear of you, you need one the most!""
Bellamy was worried by the unexplained late nights that kept Vinnie at the shop. Oh, no more than once or twice a month, and she explained them as quiet time for book-keeping and accounting, or deadheading, but he was beginning to wonder if she was hiding something. He'd interrogated enough prisoners and searched enough cells. Another man? His soul froze for an instant. No: she was the sort to tell him outright, not skulk about prolonging a deception. And two evenings ago at the prison. She had come into the bedding store, just as he was directing Prisoner Gluestick to hold the sack open while Prisoner Morton filled it. He'd said The sooner we get this to the special prisoner on remand, the sooner we're done.
Then Gluestick had said "Begging pardon, sir, but Mrs Bellamy's here".
The two prisoners had left the part-filled sack propped up against a wall and stood back, while he had welcomed Vinnie and taken the sandwich pack off her. He'd taken his eyes off the scene for a moment to transfer the sandwich bago to his waist-pouch, methodically watching Gluestick and Morton to see they didn't pass or palm anything to each other - you had to be so vigilant. But not vigilant enough: he'd tuned , to see Vinnie with her hand deep in the bedding sack, thoughtfully working it with her gloved fingers. She had made no attempt to hide, but had said This must be awfully uncomfortable and scratchy, Peter, especially against the skin!
And Prisoner Gluestick had replied When you've done twelve on the treadmill, lady, you'll sleep on rocks and take them for finest silks!
And they'd all laughed. He'd thought nothing of it. And now they were looking at poison introduced into the bedding as cause of death… and the only person he'd seen tampering with the bedding, or seeming to, was his own wife…
and a very faint hint of almond in the air, which he'd subconsciously put down to something in his lunchpack. Indeed, he'd noticed later that she'd thoughtfully included a small frangipan tart, freshly-bought from a bakers' shop on the way to the Tanty.
Peter Bellamy shuddered.
What do I do?
Martin called "Aren't you coming in yet, dad? It's getting dark!"
Peter looked out across all he and his wife had achieved, especially the three worried looking sons, fretting that their father looked worried, and tried not to harbour a thought that it might be coming to its end.
"In a moment, son!" he called back.
I'll talk to her when she comes in he decided. No, it's most logical to suppose the original Marriage Guidance Counsellor has come back after a long period of silence. Sometimes serial killers do. Just because my wife might have - MIGHT- have killed a woman whose crimes made her a pariah, it does not mean that those occasions she was working late at the shop, which roughly coincide with several linked deaths in the City, point adversely at her.
Stepping past a closed and locked frame in the gathering dark, which sat at the edge of the rockery and, had he but known it, contained particularly fine examples of Überwaldean Edelschwarz, Peter Bellamy turned for the light and warmth of his home.
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Elsewhere in the city, a man sat in his study. Not a particularly nice man, who occasionally resorts to chastising his wife with a little bit of a slap, nothing hard or exceptional, and anyway, dammit. All men do, don't they?
He is a businessman. Which is to say, he deals in commodities which are roughly 50% legal and taxable. The rest, he prefers the city not to know about.
He also doesn't know his battered and desperate wife took four thousand dollars from his safe to pay for his inhumation. His deadheading.
But he contemplated the flowers on the desk with baffled suspicion. Who in the Hell had sent him flowers? Apparently the woman from the florists had brought them for him from a wellwisher. No sir, she's gone now.
He turned them over in his hands, incidentally distributing the deadly neurotoxic pollen of the Howondalandian Death Lily over his bare skin. He now has thirty seconds to live. As he turns the blooms to his face, the Death Lily, in the dry warmth of the house, suddenly coughs a cloud of pollen into his face. The first convulsion hits a second or two later. By the time death is complete, it is a merciful release.
His wife reflects on her instructions.
Within three minutes the pollen will bio-degrade into a harmless powder. It is only lethal when absolutely fresh. This is fine, as we only want to deadhead him, not some innocent domestic servant, or some poor soul from the Watch who's only doing their duty. Go into his study, find him deadheaded, then scream for the Watch. Pretend to be mourning over him, but discreetly try to clear what you can of the pollen with a clothes brush, especially from around the nose and mouth. When you're satisfied, bring me the balance of the fee.
The new Marriage Guidance Counsellor had struck again.
(1) Which Australian soap opera is being referenced here, folks? I'll give you a clue: it had a nice lady warder and an unspeakably horrible lady warder, who would have been thrown out of the SS for brutality.
(2) The Bugle also had a wide readership in the Tanty itself, possibly because, as was once pointed out to William de Worde, people like to see their own names in print.