This chapter and the next one were originally one big one untill I decided to split them into two for literary purposes, i.e to to keep you guys hanging! };). This chapter will mostly be devoted to Munku's case whilst the next one (which I'll post up in a few days) will be about him and his family... and Misto ;).
Warning: this chapter contains swearing, sibling fights, fuzzies, arguably the best (or worst) pun I've every made and good ol' Munkus torture!
Enjoy!
"Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts" Sherlock Homes in A Sacandal in Bohemia
My heart was thumping in my ears with excitement as Pepper and I walked into the interview room to meet our witness. Pepper made the formal introductions.
Munkustrap this is Miss Etcetera Roberts, the lady who I mentioned before. Etcetera this is Detective Inspector Munkustrap; he's in charge of the investigation."
I smiled and offered my hand to the cream colored queen. She was dressed neatly in a winter blouse and black pants and had a pleasant face carefully touched with only a little make up. In fact the only thing that betrayed her self-assured manner was the tremble of her paw I felt through my fingers as we shook hands and the slight twitching of her ears to try and listen for anything behind her. This queen had seen something that frightened her, something that (if she told me) could help our investigation.
"How do you do Etcetera, I'm sorry that we took so long to get here, how are you?"
"I'm alright Munkustrap sir. I-I'm sorry I didn't come sooner, I just didn't think what I saw was important until, until."
I nodded at Pepper to start the recorder and led Etcetera back to the table. "How about we get seated first and then you can tell us everything from start to finish."
Etcetera nodded gratefully and sat down in in a chair at one end of the table while Pepper and I took the chairs on the other side.
"W-Where should I start?" she asked"
"Wherever you like" said Pepper.
"How about you start from when you left home last night" I encouraged
"Well last night was Saturday night, and me and my friends were all meeting up to go to some of the clubs." Explained Etcetera "I-I was running late and was walking really fast to get there on time. A-And when I walking along the street that Maclaby lived in, I-I bumped into this tom going in the opposite direction. I was kinda cross because he messed up my head fur and I snapped at him and walked off. I-I heard a bang a couple of streets later and I-I thought it was a-a firework." Her lips trembled and for the first time I saw real pain flash across her face. "A-And it wasn't till this morning, w-when I read the papers, t-that I realized what happened, and, and, oh everlasting!"
The young queen buried her face in her hands, her shoulders trembling and in obvious need of comfort. Pepper looked at me and I nodded. She pushed forward a box of tissues giving the distraught witness a quick pat on the wrist before drawing back to wait for the tears to stop. Anybody watching us at this moment would've called us utter scumbags for being so cold to this outward display of emotion but believe me, every ounce of our sympathies were lying with this queen. In fact there was nothing more that I wanted to do than to rush over and soothe her distress in a similar way to how I'd soothe one of my own children. But in the time it'd take to console her (quite possibly an hour more more) our killer would be slipping further and further from our grasp and placing more lives at risk. And so, to keep our window of opportunity open we had to maintain our distance and indirectly show the witness's our priorities, we weren't there for their emotional baggage, but for their baggage of information.
As soon as Etcetera'd tears looked like they were going to subside we started asking questions.
"Did this tom say anything when you bumped into him?" I probed gently. Etcetera shook her head uncertainly.
"Not really, h-he growled something that sounded like 'little-slut' when I called him an idiot, b-but nothing else, and I heard his footsteps starting up again a few seconds later"
"Why do you think he called you that?"
Etcetera blew her nose with a tissue "I-I don't know, I might've annoyed him with my idiot comment, or maybe he didn't like my outfit."
"Can you tell us what this tom looked like?"
The young queen shook her head "not really, It was really dark" She shut her eyes doing her best to remember "he had a long coat made of leather, and he wore a trilby over his head. I-I think he had ginger fur, yeah he had ginger fur I saw it poking untidily out from the top of his coat. And he carried a briefcase in his hand, it was only a small one but I could still hear stuff bumping around in it."
"Can you remember anything else about that incident?" asked Pepper "anything… unusual, or strange?" Etcetera thought and nodded.
"Y-you know how everyone walks on the left side of the footpath, same as driving*" both Pepper and I nodded "well this guy was walking the side of the path closest to the road, even though his 'left would've been the opposite, I noticed that because that's what made us bump into each other, he didn't step aside to let me pass. I didn't really think about it at the time. Do you understand my explanation?"
Pepper and I once more looked at each other, each of us knowing what we had to say next. I gave her another tiny nod and turned to look at Etcetera. I leant forward until my eyes were staring straight into hers.
"Etcetera" I asked "would you be willing to testify to everything you just told us?"
There was a few heavy seconds where Etcetera processed my request. Beneath the table my fingers crossed so hard that they started trembling.
"Yes, yes I would" said Etcetera.
Whilst Pepper hurried off to distribute the interview to the rest of the team I escorted Etcetera to the public car park. "So was anything I said helpful?" she asked as we entered the lift
"Everything is helpful" I shrugged "except for the stuff that doesn't. Did you're evening go well then?"
"Pardon?"
"You said that on that night you and your friends were heading out for the night"
"Oh yeah, it went really well, a good night out, you know."
"Did you head over to The Raging Pollicle at all?"
"Well duh it's the-"
I continued asking open ended questions about Etcetera's night out until the shadows that were forming under her eyes started to fade. The best thing that Etcetera could do for herself right now was to realize that Maclaby's killing wasn't her fault and move on. Of course I knew next to nothing about the 'hot' clubs around London except the ones where drug lords like Fat Al liked to do business but we managed to maintain a steady conversation until we reached the carpark. She even showed me a photo of herself and her friends posing as they set off for their night out together.
"That's me right there" she pointed out to me "those heels are a nightmare to walk in"
I peered at the photo closely. The six inch stilettos did look ankle achingly high, but she was wearing them well however with an air of practiced ease. The rest of her outfit did display a fair of amount of legs and cleavage, but I'd seen far worse in my work on the streets, indeed the first word I'd pick for describing her appearance wouldn't be slutty as our killer apparently did, but stylish as my brother would've.
Back at the office I found a message from my father saying that a meeting had been organized by the lord mayor between Scotland department of homicide and some of London's other top investigative officials to 'pool our resources' as it were.
"Oh great, just great" I gave a frustrated sigh "now we're going to have to give them a convincing report so the blasted MI5* doesn't snatch our case, MY case away."
"The entire department, sensing the urgency, seemed to redouble its efforts. The ballistics report came back confirming that the separate bullets were fired by the same illicit gun. A forensic artist was listening to the witness recording trying to create a portrait of the killer from the halting descriptions Etcetera had been given. The autopsy report was on its way. That left Cassandra and I to examine the evidence again and try to decipher who this ginger furred maniac was.
"I have no how it all fits" I announced after a good half hour "If they were both lawyers then we'd know it was some guy against the legal system. If they were both sporting stars we'd know he was some jock who was seeking revenge for his carrier failure. Apart from the fact that these two queens were successful, there's nothing in common!"
"They're both successful…they were both successful… they were both…successful WOMEN" Cassandra exclaimed "That's got to be it he's targeting queens who've broken through the glass ceiling." I looked at her doubtfully.
"Are you sure about that Cassy? I mean I'm not saying that there aren't any anti-feminists around, but most of them aren't crazy enough to go round killing queens for the sake of it, they're not even smart enough to wear gloves to cover their tracks usually."
"This one does, he's a smart and sadistic" she argued "he enjoys the power he gets over them by banging them with a gun, then banging them with his dick, then after messing the bodies up with a knife he goes away to laugh at us scratching our heads over his bangers-and-mash. In short, he's a complete psychopath." She finished triumphantly. I gave her a 'look'.
"Bangers and mash?"
"Just let me look through the records to see if anything like this's come up in the past" she pleaded. I considered her words, whilst it explained how the killings pretty well, I couldn't help thinking that was something more to it, something that we'd missed. But for now there wasn't time to start looking for it. But although I was convinced that there was something else, I had no idea what the something else might be. In the meantime I had a meeting to attend with the most influential people in the city and in the absence of hard-core evidence to convict out killer, we needed a hard core theory to convince them that we'd convict him soon. More
"Alright Cassy" I said "do what you have to do and report to me as soon as you've found anything. I'll be right back but you can call me on my mobile if you need anything." I stood up and headed out the door.
"Where are you going?" asked Cassy
"To organize my suit for tomorrow's meeting." I answered unhappily "If you're gonna to be socializing with the crème a la crème of the MPS you've gotta look like one." Cassandra's eyes gleamed with amusement and a quiet chuckle burst from her lips.
"Try not to have too much fun" she sniggered.
"I'll try not to" I promised her dryly and left before anyone could give me any dress recommendations.
Arriving at home the first thing I should have done would be to put my one, slightly rumpled suit in the wash, ask Misto or Jenny to iron and head straight back to Scotland yard to try and get as much work crammed in the one hour left before the official working day finished. But I didn't. Instead I went and found Jerrie and Teazer playing with the contents of a beanbag of the floor of the boy's room.
"Hey guys, daddy's…"
"Daddy!" They hollered joyfully jumping up at once and sprinting over. I knelt down to gather them up in my arms. I was getting covered in little white foam balls as I did so but didn't care a bit. Burying my head in their multicolored head fur I let out a breath that I'd been holding since first seeing the body of Felicity Hays, a calico just like them. The twins, sensing my fragility looped their skinny arms around and let me hold them for a good five seconds more than they'd usually tolerate.
"Are you okay Daddy?" asked Teazer once I'd finally let them wriggle free of my grasp.
"Yes of course, Daddy just had a bad day at work, he'll be fine" I reassured them. Satisfied they turned their attention back to emptying the contents of the beanbag onto the floor, and then rolling about in it till the baubles covered their fur. I watched them amused until I noticed whose beanbag it was.
"Teazer, why did you take your beanbag to Jerrie's room to destroy? Doesn't the carpet have enough static?"
"Cause Vicky won't let us play there" answered Teazer
"she says she's getting ready for her date" continued Jerrie
Red light signals went up in my mind flashing alarmingly
"Who's she going on a date with?" I asked, sounding almost casual
"Dunno, but she's got heels and make up and lipstick and urrrgh!" Jerrie shuddered with revulsion.
A siren was added to the red flashing lights.
"I'm never going to wear lipstick" announced Teazer.
"But you'll have to wear lipstick one day, when you're older" Jerrie pointed out "cause you're a girl"
"No I won't"
"Yes you will"
"Won't!"
"Will!"
"Won't!"
"Will!"
"Won't!"
"Will!"
"Won-ARRGH!"
"Jerrie, don't push your sister" I remarked airily as I headed to seek out my eldest daughter.
* People who live in Britian, Australia (hooray!), India and several other countries drive on the left hand side of the road and our walking habbits follow likewise.
* MI5 is a British intelligance organisation similar to the FBI in America.
Please don't start thinking that Cassandra in just fireing at random targets here, she's on the right track but we can't have her outshining our silver furred hero now can we?
R & R if you feel so disposed