JACK OF DIAMONDS

“Charlie? Charlie, where are you?” Nigel called out, coming up the stairs two at a time. His steps rang out in the narrow stairwell.

“Rose!” Sonia echoed.

“Don’t get your knickers in a knot, girl! I can hear you fine! All of goddamned Okehampton can hear you,” Rose called out from somewhere down the hall, the sound of a slamming door a punctuation.

“Rose! I can’t hear Nigel!” Charlie called out, walking into the room. “What is it mate? I damned told you, I got this bloody big bollock trying to push its way through my ass—”

“I’m sorry to hear that, Charlie. Sounds painful,” Sonia said, racing passed Nigel and coming to a standstill at Rose’s desk. She was smiling as she walked passed Charlie, saying, “I’ll bet you forgot I was here, didn’t you? Well, no mind. No harm no foul, as they say—”

“Who says that? I’d like to know who says that,” he muttered, easing himself into his chair. There was a stained pillow on the seat, and she wondered how many of the stains were tea stains. She didn't think it was very much.

“They do,” she said, looking at Nigel and shaking her head, as if she’d expected Charlie to know what she was referring to. Nigel sat in the chair across from Charlie and watched the man struggle.

"God, Charlie, you can get something for that, can't you Sonia—I mean Special Constable Nazar?"

"Special Constable? We found a—you know what I mean—under a tree that was struck by lightning God only knows when. That’s the kind of tree the locals would say is cursed, even haunted. Bedeviled, to be sure. I think it will be grand if you call me Sonia. I shall call you Nigel. And you shall always be Charlie to me,” she said, turning to look at him and smiling.

“And who are ‘They’? I’d like to know that!” Charlie said, out of the blue.

“Well, maybe later. Right now, Nigel and I need to contact Okehampton, because, you see, there’s been a murder, Charlie." As she said it, she lowered her voice, as if it was a secret only they would share. "I think that means Okehampton qualifies as the proverbial ‘They’, don’t you, Charlie?” she said, her voice suddenly perky.

“Ah, leave off there,” Charlie smiled, looking at Nigel. “What murder, Nigel?”

“Where’s Rose?” Sonia asked again, looking around the small room. “Come to think of it, where’s everyone else?”

“You mean a break in, don’t you, Nige?” Charlie corrected, shifting on his chair and wincing.

“A what?” she said, turning to look at Charlie briefly. “No. Right. Right,” she said again, turning and looking at Charlie as she tried to focus, a small knot between her eyes. “There’s been a murder, Charlie. As far as we know, we’re the first Constables on the scene—I mean, well, really, who else could be there but us, right Charlie? Not much we can do but document it. That’s why I was looking for Rose. She can take notes while we try to recall what we saw. Documentation. Always good to document things, Charlie. Remember that. We’ve decided we’re going to drive out to Okehampton—the two of us—ourselves—and appeal to them based on procedure. In person. This is our case, Charlie,” she added, turning and looking for Rose again.

“Where’d Rose go off to?”

“Water closet, most likely guess.”

“I have an automobile,” Sonia went on, “so I can get us to Okehampton before Okehampton can get here. If we travel together, we can look at the notes and get our stories straight.”

“He won’t like that, I bet you,” Charlie tried not to laugh; every shake of laughter was a reminder of his pain. He couldn’t stop himself. “Right Nigel? You don’t like that, do you, leaving the motorcycle behind to ride in an automobile with a beautiful woman? What’s a young man to do, eh?”

“Are you getting any of this down?” Sonia asked. “It has to be documented Charlie; I mean, it has to be properly documented if you’re going to take on Tammany Hall,” she called out over her shoulder, looking down the hall for Rose.

“Who?” Charlie asked Nigel.

“Tammany Hall? It’s an American reference,” she called out.

“American? We’re British, here. Rule Britannia, and all that.”

“People use Americanisms all the time,” Sonia said, coming back from having looked down the hall.

“No they don’t. I don’t. Did you hear me complaining about my third bollock, earlier? Did it sound to you like I was searching for an Americanism to use? No? I didn’t think so, either,” he said, squirming at his desk to get his pad and paper as she began dictating several of the known facts to him.

Nigel filled in the blank spots.

“Artemis Spencer?” Charlie asked, looking up from his notebook.

“You know him?” she asked; Nigel sat up, looking at Charlie.

“No, but I know who Agatha is, and they just went in to the hotel for what one can only assume would be a room.”

“A room? What on Earth for?”

“If you can’t figure that out, Special Constable, you’ll never be a detective, will you?” a strange voice called out from the hallway.

And then Rose came into the room.

“Chief Detective Investigator Bilge. From Exeter,” she said, sitting at her desk

“CDI? No,” Nigel said, sitting forward.

“You have issues with Exeter, do you, Constable Bannister?”

He was a tall man. A leonine head with a shock of grey-streaked hair, a thin, lined, angular face, he stood with his legs apart, rolling a cigarette, which he licked closed and quickly lighted as he looked at the two Constables. In a moment he was standing under a blue haze. He was wearing a red cardigan rather than a jacket, and Sonia found it odd, thinking it was almost as if he was trying to present himself as a kindlier man.

Sonia stepped forward.

“We haven’t even sent word out yet as to what we’ve discovered.”

“No you haven’t, not this. But just so you know, when word gets out that there’s been a burglary in one of the big houses out here, things seem to get a little tense out there, where the big boys play—and the big boys play in Exeter, not Okehampton, Special Constable. And now, what’s this I hear? You’ve stumbled upon a murder?”

“Yes.” It was Sonia.

“And? Do tell,” he added, looking from one to the other.

“And? Yes,” Nigel said, his voice soft, looking lost and staring up at Sonia.

“We feel,” Sonia said, stepping forward, “as we two are the first representatives of the local Constabulary—”

“But you’re from Okehampton, Mrs. Nazar,” he interrupted.

“From where I was transferred as of this morning, and reassigned here, Mr. Bilge. And without being asked for it, I might add. Surely that goes against some written rule?”

“And in the course of investigating a burglary, you’ve found a body?”

“Yes,” she conceded.

“Are they connected?”

“I would hesitate to think they could be connected,” Nigel said, looking at Sonia, who gave a half-hearted shrug. “As this is unexpected, and while you’ve been sent here to help with the investigation of a theft—”

“Still; you hesitate to think they could be connected? Why is that, I wonder?”

“Why? There’s been a lot of flooding in the area lately. The victim was washed down one of the bigger streams and deposited along the property line of one of the major houses. He could be from anywhere.”

“Did you send a forensics team out to examine the area?”

Nigel almost looked sheepish as he shook his head.

“We were about to do that,” he added. “As soon as we give a statement for the record.”

“And how did you determine it was murder then? Did you examine the body?”

“Special Constable Nazar was a nurse during the World War—”

“And that qualifies her in the field of forensic medicine?”

“I know a bloody bullet hole in the head when I see one,” Sonia said. “I’ve seen more dead bodies than I care to remember, thank you.”

“Say no more, Constable, say no more. I know exactly where you two are going with this. You want the murder case. You think because you found the body, you’re perfectly willing to let me investigate the theft, while you take on an impossible murder case. You have no experience in the field—neither one of you—but all the same, you think it’s your chance to prove to those pricks in London we’re not sitting on our asses out here, but that we do damned fine detective work.”

Sonia stared at him in silence before nodding her head. She’d thought about it, and she could see that things were not going to work out the way they’d planned. She understood now. And it was at the moment of understanding that she could see new possibilities opening up in front of them. If they caught the thief, they’d be thanked by all the large houses and they’d be so grateful, they’d happily endorse a transfer.

We already have a possible suspect.

“And you’re about to tell us that you will not have us working on this case,” she said simply. “What about the violin?”

“The violin?” he asked.

“Did no one tell you it was a violin?” Nigel asked.

“Did you start an investigation and seal off the scene?”

“I did. I answered the call last night at which time I started a preliminary investigation. Charlie was here. He’ll vouch for that.”

“Has a forensic analysis of the site been preformed?”

“We’re a small team here. Everything needed to conduct a forensic investigation comes to us from Okehampton, who in turn receive their requests, through Plymouth and Exeter, as you well know. Any evidence I may have been able to collect, will undoubtedly be destroyed by now, just due to the simple volume of running of a manor house that large. We have little to process, and what we have will be transported to Okehampton the moment I have time to drive out there,” Nigel said, standing up.

“Let's go, Sonia.”