Disclaimer:All of the characters are the property of Dick Wolf. I thank him, the writers, the directors and all the great actors who brought them "to life" for our benefit. Any "liberties" I have taken with them stems from my fond admiration (and a few personal quirks I will seek "help" for).
AN: This story is not set within the accepted "canon" for the characters as it is only officially portrayed by the TV series. So I get to "fool around" with them in ways in which they've never been seen, stretching that to the limit and suspending the "reality" that is "fiction" to start with…now there's a contradiction in terms!!!
(And yeah Goren I know the proper word for that is oxymoron…I told you to buy a proper leaf vac to use in the garden…now we have to get a new vacuum cleaner as you ruined this one)
Hmm…so let's find out just how familiar you are with British customs and language then Bobby…
BONFIRE NIGHT
As he turned the street corner into St. Martin's Lane, Robert Goren quickly pressed his fine Irish linen and Nottingham lace handkerchief to his nose. The scent of fresh lavender and rose petals going some way to compensate for the stench that assaulted his nostrils from all sides. And little wonder when he looked along its dark, narrow confines and cobbles.
To his right, in a crude pen, about half a dozen pigs, one of which a filthy man grabbed by its rear trotters, swung onto a blood stained bench and quickly cut its throat. Goren almost squealed as loud as the pig when an arc of hot, dark blood sprayed halfway across the street. He ducked quickly to one side only narrowly avoiding a steaming pile of horse manure.
That would be hell to get out from under the silver buckles of his shoes. It had been difficult enough to get them in a size thirteen and they all came with a stacked heel he didn't really need for height. But, dodging the horseshit, he bumped into one of a group of women standing outside "Ye Olde Dog and Duck Inne".
" 'Ere wotch it me old cock" said the woman turning with breath that reeked of gin.
"Excuse me ma'am" he puzzled tipping his tricorn hat.
"Cor 'e's a biggun Mary" said her friend wiping her nose on her sleeve.
Goren glanced quickly down at his codpiece wondering if perhaps it had slipped, but all seemed to be well. At least visually.
"I'm looking for the morgue" he said, "I was told it was in this street?"
"Oooh you don't want ta be going there ducks" said the first woman "Full of dead people innit? Tell you wot. Yous looks a fine gent. 'Ow about yous comes dahn the alley wiv me. I'll yank yer for a farthing"
Goren leaned sideways to peer into the alley. He assumed the word "yank" must be reference to his nationality. Until he saw what another young woman was doing to a sailor just inside the entrance. His knowledge of British slang words was obviously deficient in certain areas, but he made a mental note for the future. You never knew when such terminology might come in useful.
Before he could respond, the door of the public house opened to the smell of warm beer, wet sawdust and greasy gravy. A large man threw another onto the cobbles and told him to "go away". Or at least used a phrase that obviously applied both sides of the Atlantic.
"Push awf you doxies" he gestured to the women. "This 'ere is the noo Constable of Westminster Parish. Mr Goren. "'E'll do you for selling your poxy parts on the street"
The women began to move off, passing between them a gallon jug of gin the hostelry advertised at a penny each.
"You'll be wanting the morgue Constable" the bartender scratched a head on which several lice crawled. "Dahn there on the roight"
"Thank you" Goren raised his hat managing not to drag off the shoulder length curly wig.
As he passed an opening onto a small square there seemed to be a variety of open-air entertainments in progess. Bear baiting, cock fighting and a man in a striped costume playing a lute and singing a song whose only lyrics appeared to be "Hey nonny no". Whatever that meant. But the biggest crowd, including a lot of filthy children dressed in rags, were gathered round the stocks. To throw rotten vegetables at some minor criminal being locked into them.
Goren assumed the distinct odour in London Towne might be due to an excessive amount of rotting vegetation. Until, from a window above, some one yelled, "Look aht below" and emptied a large wooden bucket containing urine and faeces onto the cobbles.
He was lucky the resulting ricochet hit neither his doublet nor his hose. Though the same could not be said for what looked to be some skinned and paunched rabbits hanging outside the window below. They had an unpleasant green tinge of decay even before their basting in an unorthodox "sauce".
Goren was glad of that because he thought he looked rather good in the hose, though it had been something of a struggle to get any to fit him. And a worse and more uncomfortable struggle, to get them on. They were at least silk and under the doublet and short cloak, he'd had to resort to some string to try and keep them from slipping down and exposing him to ridicule.
Or exposing a great deal more, since the only way to get the smooth, tight fit fashion demanded was to remove his shorts. Hence the additional need for the codpiece, which was several sizes too small, very hot and beginning to itch. He needed to solve this case quickly or he'd develop an uncomfortable rash that could curtail his plans for the rest of the weekend.
He hurried by two men mixing what looked to be buckets of red paint. One was saying to the other "I 'erd it's reached the 'oly Roman Empire already Jim. Only a matter of toime before plague gets to Merrye Olde Englande. You mark my words. We'll be pineting crawses on doors afore the year is aht". Finally, Constable Goren saw the sign above the door said "MORTUARY" though some Cockney wag had written underneath "Ye Body Shoppe". A term that had a familiar ring to it as he pushed open the heavy door.
It gave with a creak, onto a winding flight of worn stone steps illuminated by candles. Wrapping his cloak against the chill and away from the mildew covered walls, Goren went down. And stepped out into a small room very reminiscent of a dungeon. Lined with heavy tables on which several bodies lay covered in dirty bloodstained sheets, which might once have been white.
"'Ello" said a female voice from within the gloom. "Oim 'ere to 'elp you"
Her face was none too clean, several blond wisps of hair peeked out from under her close fitting headgear and she was holding a large basket almost overflowing with oranges.
"And you are?" enquired Goren removing the hat but needing a quick adjustment to the wig.
"Moi name is Nell Eames" said the woman with a glance at his codpiece. "Would you loike one sir?"
Goren hoped she was referring to the oranges. Because when he looked at the low, drawstring neck of her blouse they were not the only things in danger of overflowing. And him not the only one missing an item of underwear he was able to conclude, thanks to the thin fabric from which it was made.
"No thank you Miss" he said, putting his black walking cane down beside the tricorn on an empty bench and starting to peel off his gloves.
"Mistress" said Eames with another glance at the undersized codpiece. "That's wot you is supposed ta call me"
"No thank you to that as well" Goren muttered. "Which is the corpse I'm supposed to look at?"
"This 'un" she said slightly truculently as she pointed to the last bench. "Oil bring you annuver loight"
Goren wished he'd been looking elsewhere as she bent over to put the basket on the floor. He left Eames to deal with her version of "a wardrobe malfunction" and light more candles. He pulled back the grimy sheet and studied the body.
"Oh gawd blimey will you tike a look at that" said Eames as she held a candelabrum above the corpse.
"Hmm" said Goren, picking up a quill pen, dipping it in the ink and making a few notes. "Multiple lacerations and contusions to all part of the body. Judging by the absence of mammaries, male but…" he lifted the sheet "Genitalia also missing. Crude mutilation. Not the work of a skilled person using medical implements. Age approximately 35 years"
"Is that all?" asked his unlikely assistant somewhat impatiently.
Goren set aside the cumbersome writing implements and removed the entire sheet. He waved his hand over the gruesome sight almost casually and then folded his arms.
"Clearly the subject has also been disembowelled. The lower abdomen appears to be missing most of the intestines. Are they anywhere around?" he glanced about him.
"No Constable Goren" she replied.
"Probably burned" he went on thoughtfully. "I expect you noticed the body has been hacked into four parts and the head severed from the neck?"
"Don't look at me mister" yelped Nell Eames. "I were selling oranges when it 'appened. It weren't me. I'm a good girl I am"
"I'm not accusing you Miss…Ms…whatever" shrugged Goren. "This is a traitors death if I'm not mistaken"
He reached out and felt along the arms, which were as floppy as noodles, rotated one in its socket almost hitting Eames in the face with the bloody hand missing several fingernails and then felt the severely truncated neck.
"This man has been racked, there are burns indicative of white hot pokers and I believe a partial rupture of the fifth cervical vertebra" Goren said with a brief chew on one thumbnail at least he still had both of. "Torture to extract information? Or perhaps a confession? Hanged to death or at least unconsciousness and the guts drawn whilst he was probably alive. Beheading and the division of the body to allow the parts to be impaled above city gates or at other landmarks as warning to others"
"So it ain't moider?" asked Eames
"Excuse me? Oh murder? It ain't…I mean…it is not. This is judicial execution"
"Oi woz told to show you these fings too Constable. They woz on 'im when they brung 'im 'ere". Eames turned and pointed to another table with more than her finger. But it was rather cold in the basement.
"Hmm" Goren picked up a book and looked in the cover. "Property of St. Peter's School, Yorke. And what do we have here?"
He tilted his head to look at a small pile of some sort of powder or fibre. He took a pinch, rubbed it between his fingers, looked at the greasy black residue and sniffed them.
"Charcoal like substance with a smell of sulphur? Gunpowder ma'am. And this?" he flipped open with one finger a second book. "See how the cover claims it to be the Authorised Version of the Bible? That would be in English. This is Latin, which probably tells us this man was a Catholic. Perhaps secretly so"
"Cor you is a clever cove mister" said Nell Eames.
Goren reached for his hat, gloves and cane. "Remember, remember the Fifth of November, gunpowder, treason and plot"
"Eh?" asked Eames going to pick up the basket of oranges, as he quickly looked the other way.
"The victim is Guy Fawkes. One of the conspirators who on 5th November 1605 planted barrels of gunpowder under Parliament seeking to blow it up and the King, James the First, along with it. He'd pronounced against extreme Protestants and Catholics in the yo-yo religious adherence that marked the British Isles for almost 70 years by then"
Goren began to go up the stairs. "Then sometime later, to celebrate the foiling of what was seen as a Papist plot, the Brits began having bonfires on 5th November where they burn Fawkes in effigy. And let off fireworks in their yards and at big public displays. Kind of like 4th July? But more complicated in historical origin and doubtful many know the what and the why anymore. It's also where the word "guy" comes from. Originally used to refer to a man who was a rogue or criminal"
They stepped out on the street together. Goren turned left and strode off towards the corner.
"So can we go for a burger now Bobby?" Eames dumped the basket and began to peel one of the oranges, tossing the skin onto the cobbles as she hurried to catch him up.
"We only had coffee and muffins half an hour ago Alex" he sighed, "Surely we can manage one more before lunchtime?"
"I guess" she muttered. "Where to?"
Bobby was studying the signboard. "Aha. The games afoot Watson. Come along"
Eames groaned as they turned to "Victorian Crime Fiction". She could cheerfully shoot the people who thought a "Who Done It?" theme park aimed at detectives would be a good idea. Already this morning they'd been in the Ancient Rome pavilion, for Bobby to correctly identify the victim as Julius Caesar, one of his killers as some man called "Ettu Brute" and to the Athens Republic to conclude Socrates was a suicide.
The costumes might be fun, Bobby looked great in a toga and that codpiece certainly brightened up "Olde London Towne". But in Ancient Egypt he'd delivered a very long lecture on snakes of the venomous and constricting kind, before concluding which asp Cleopatra probably clasped to her bosom.
He was paying no attention to hers, despite that stunt in the dungeon and she was hungry. Not only that, two years ago when the "1PP Fun Day" came here, Bobby insisted on spending so long solving crimes in nineteenth century London she ended up with a bad chill and a cough thanks to all the smog.
Maybe when they got there they could get some roast chestnuts like last time? Or some cheap gin to keep out the cold? Perhaps she'd come up with some really original and witty riposte to something Bobby said? But "No shit Sherlock" would probably have to do…again. And Goren looked ridiculous in a deerstalker.
Up ahead, Bobby discretely gave the too small codpiece a shove and wriggled. He couldn't wait to be out of this costume and into a deerstalker. That really suited him. He frowned at a figure almost hopping towards them with a very uneven gait and with a large hunchback. He didn't recognise him at first as he went by drooling, "The bells, the bells, the bells made me deaf"
Bobby stopped dead in his tracks and Eames, sucking on a piece of orange, walked straight into the back of him. He winced at the nasty pinch he got from the codpiece, then turned and whistled through his fingers.
"Yo Stabler!!" he yelled. "French Fiction is the other way"
AN: British readers may recognise some minor historic and costume inconsistencies…but hey…this is Hollywood!! "Yonder loys da castle of moy league"(Tony Curtis)
AN: Other readers please note London hasn't changed at all in the last 400 years…except they now serve beer cold.