.
.
!
.
The Purity of Heat and the Snow!
By Ross Lombardi
.
The very first story introducing “The Unholy Republica Britannica” universe.
The knife does not give two flying smelly craps who wields it.
The Shot from a pistol does not give two flying smelly craps who fired it.
Gravity does not give two flying smelly craps who pushed the body over the cliff.
Why?
Because the raw forces of nature are incapable of making such inane trite moral judgements
For example, when your nose smells freshly boiled ham, your mouth may automatically drool and your stomach may nag at you for food.
Detective Inspector Mark Stain’s stomach did not give two flying smelly craps that the meat scorched and roasted to perfection he could smell was that of a human.
It was the grand year of 1820 AD:
In the far North East of the Great British Republic,
In a little seaside town called Saltburn By Sea.
Mark had been on shift without a break (or food) for over 12 hours, and as he smelled the roasted human carcase on the floor, he noticed that he was drooling slightly.
He mildly wondered if the fact that this involuntary physiological reaction did not worry or make him scare himself, meant he was more ‘broken’ as a human being than he had thought.
Then he “mildly” wondered if the fact that last thought itself was “only mild wondered” was an even worse sign.
He quickly stopped the meandering thought process there.
He could see the infinite loop that was about to mentally unfold if it was left unchecked.
He knew he had a brilliant mind for solving murders, but he also knew that same mind needed reigning in on occasion, like a wonderful but dangerous stallion that could be ridden but never truly broken in!
He could have gone home.
He was halfway out the door when the call came in.
But despite the hunger and tiredness, his runaway mind demanded he looked at this body when heard about it.
Unions did have an awful lot of unchecked power!
(Not as much as the Catholic Church but they were a close second.)
Everyone knew he was technically “Off Duty” and that he would not be claiming any overtime.
But even the staunchest of pro-union socialist would not bat an eyelid on this one occasion.
This murder was “Something Special” and normal procedures simply did not any longer seem to matter at this point.
No one had seen anything like this!
It was winter.
There was snow on the ground.
And in the middle of the playground was a roasted body.
There were no charcoal marks,
Whatever had roasted it had done it without any form of obvious flame.
The body was defiantly attacked with a huge amount of heat but with no actual burning.
The deceased flesh had been cooked very much like a boiled ham.
But the snow around the body was still there.
There were no drag marks,
No very large cauldron large enough to hold a body had been dragged here then dragged away.
Such a thing full of water would have weighed well over a ton, at least!
Even if a large cauldron or container had been used to boil the victim then it would still have used fire to heat that container.
As stated previously, there was no indication of any open flames having been here.
The body must, therefore, have died somewhere else then dumped here.
The marks that were on the snow were many and varied,
Everything from children’s footprints to the little cute claw marks made by winter birds and animals looking for food.
This late at night with no adequate lighting would make it totally impossible to find either the victims or the murders footprints.
Maybe if digital camera technology had existed at this time then some sort of footprint evidence could have been found.
But this version of the world did not yet have digital camera technology.
Or even any form of bog-standard flash powder photographic cameras.
This version of the world was still in the 1820s.
To be more precise the 1820’s of North East England.
A world version where the “Harrowing of the North” had never happened in 1069 and the ‘Peasants Revolt’ in 1381 had a very different outcome.
There had never been a Queen Elizabeth the first!
Queen Victoria was not yet on the throne but also, she never would be!
Because this version of England was a Republic.
The Royals that did now exist ruled America and had made that their new land since the ‘Declaration of Royal Dependence’ in 1776.
The world was different from ours but was also very much the same.
The raw fundamentals of human nature still applied,
Sex, Money, Greed and Murder!
There is a religious philosophy called Gnostic or “Revelation” that once claimed that the spark of the holy and divine was deep inside every human being.
Mark felt knew that there was something to that philosophy, but to his mind what sat in the core of every human being was far from divine, but instead a rancid ball of puss.
He had seen enough of the petty evil that normal people did to each other to feel the no one was worth saving, ever.
They always had an excuse,
“I did it because my dad used to hit me”
“It was not my fault, I was drunk,”
“I cannot help how I am,” because, “My Mom did not hit me enough!”
Why has he stayed a police officer?
Because he was addicted to the puzzle solving.
This puzzle was a ‘Doozy’
Death by extreme sudden heat but with no flames.
Some very weird form of spontaneous combustion but instead a sort of spontoons external boiling or poaching?
His stomach growled another reminder that Mark had not eaten for a while.
He could make out the body was a clothed female,
At first glance in this darkness, he thought the body looked naked.
But she had been wearing some sort of single layer of light linen.
(Why just such light clothes in such freezing weather?)
Although made from natural fibres, (There was no other kind!) the Fabric had almost melted to the surface of the skin.
No, that observation was incorrect!
More accurately the skin has melted to the fibres of the clothes.
The fat just under the skin had bubbled out and seemed though the fibres and congealed outside of them.
The heat was so localised that the one uncooked lower arm and hand still held a Small Fresh red rose that was still in almost perfect condition.
A Female dressed in light linen in freezing weather in the snow-covered playground at night, holding a single fresh red rose.
The image itself was very “New Romantic” and would have made a nice watercolour for a Christmas card or postcard.
Had she brought the red rose with her as a sort of affectation?
Was she setting a pose of whoever she was meeting?
Had someone given it to her as some sort of romantic gift when they came to meet her?
Or was the red rose some sort of calling card left by the killer on the dead body?
How the hell was this woman? Perhaps girl? Killed?
The Rose was not much but it was a start.
They were grown in artificially heated hothouses.
They were fairly expensive, but people were selling them around the local pubs to young men eager to get a kiss this side of Christmas.
The flower was fresh enough to mean that it must have been purchased earlier that night.
Certainly, some woman in this weather wearing little more than the chemise would have been arrested for indecency in a public place.
Unless she stripped down later?
Even then it was very unlikely to have been purchased by the victim herself.
What sort of cursed spinster would draw attention to that sad fact by purchasing such a romantic token for herself?
What sort of respectable woman would even be out this late without some sort of escort unless she was a prostitute?
But a common prostitute was not going to get a fresh rose bought for them!
So, Mark felt he was looking for a Man.
Just because ‘He’ brought the victim the flower did not mean they were the murderer, but their interview would at least offer some more leads.
Or course they could also still be the Murderer.
She was frightened.
A heavy banging on the door this late at night was never a good sign.
A heavy banging on the door followed by,
“Police, open up!”
Was an even worse one.
She rushed to the door as quickly as she could, but she was not being quick enough!
Outside, alone in the Winter cold was Detective Inspector Mark Stain.
He also knew she was taking far too long to answer.
He already knew that she was hiding something.
The door did not just open a cautious crack.
Instead, it was gently opened right up, letting the full blast of the cold in and the precious expensive heat out in a pleasant wave.
She was smiling and seemed happy to see him
She was most definitely hiding something and was trying to hide it by overcompensating her apparent welcome.
“Yeh,” Thought Mark to himself, “She was definitely hiding something.”
Out loud He said
“Ivy Druey!”
It was a statement, not a question.
“Hello, officer how can I help you on this cold night, perhaps some hot chocolate on this very cold night for one of the Republics Finest?”
Mark simply stepped in and shut the door and quickly scanned the room.
Like all small Catholic Dwellings, there was the usual paraphernalia.
There was a Mary statue here and there dotted about and a small nativity scene.
The rest of the contents were very modest.
So, she was not involved in any of the local rum smugglings.
The amount of fear she was showing would not add up to mere smuggling either.
The place was acceptably clean and tidy, and the Catholic decorations were spotless.
This did not mean that Ivy Druey was a good Catholic, but it did mean it seemed vital to her to appear to be a good Catholic.
Another quick room scan while moving his head as little as possible and a quick calculation confirmed his suspicions, she was guilty of what the state considered a terrible crime.
Mark did not care,
He was no crusading policeman,
He was a puzzle addict whose brain needed its fix.
It was not a crime that was totally relevant to this case, but it was a crime that gave Mark leverage if needed when he questioned her.
“You alone here Ivy?”
They had never met before; Mark was acting presumptuous informality as an intimidation tactic.
He knew that she was not.
“I am merely a lone widow; I make ends meet doing odd jobs here and there.”
“Selling flowers?”
“Yes Officer,” Ivy replied,
“Sell any tonight to anyone who seemed a little off or a bit unusual?”
“Anyone that stood out at all?”
Mark saw her eyes quickly flicker right then left, she was recalling the evening then quickly editing what to say.
“Just the usual young men trying to get a cuddle or a stinky finger?” Pushed Mark.
This was not how a gentleman of the state was ever allowed to speak to a respectable widow, but it was a conscious choice by him to fugitively shake the tree and see what fell out.
Being a respectable widow is was the sort of comment she would feel comfortable repeating.
Mark had to give her credit where it was due, she hid the shock to her sensibilities very well and almost instantly.
He knew why she was being so compliant, if he was in her position, he would have rolled over backwards to accommodate as well.
Execution by being burnt alive was a truly horrible way to die!
“It’s been a long day Ivy,”
“A VERY long day!”
“Too long to piss about!”
“I know something stuck out”.
“I do not care about your secret room, or the Protestant Vicar you have hidden in there.”
“If you want to follow King Henry the Foolish to the grave, then that is your lookout.”
“Tell me what I want right now, or by morning you will be being burnt as a heretic in the courtyard of Jervaulx Abbey by dawn.”
“I will be there joining the local children with marshmallows on a stick in one hand and some potatoes to bury in your still-hot ashes in the other!”
“There was one young man that stood out,” She blurted out, already ashamed of herself for sacrificing some poor innocent stranger.
“Answer with no hesitation or I will suspect you are lying!”
“In what way did he stand out?”
“He seemed far gentler in his feature and manners.”
“He was a ‘nice’ boy!”
“A ‘Nice boy’? Do you mean a Nancy boy? Do you suspect he was not buying the Rose for a Woman?”
“I could not prove it, it was only a feeling” She kept blurting,
“He hid it well, he looked at all the pretty ladies and flirted with them all!”
She was partly trying to undo the terrible thing she was doing,
Despite this, ‘attempt ‘she felt that she knew full well, that she was replacing herself on the burning stake with some poor young boy whose only crime was loving other men.
She did not know Mark,
He just wanted the puzzle solved, and did not care about either arrest, professional credit or the social norms of his world.
Mark even made sure not to do “Too well”, the very last thing he wanted was to overperform himself onto a desk away from all the juicy puzzles.
People loved him in the force because he gave away “Solves” to those who wanted a promotion as if they were free water crackers at a party.
This meant he had a wealth of favours owed by loads of his superiors in the bank to use if he ever needed to cash them in!
The Rose had been a gift.
He knew that Ivy was partly right about the suspect being homosexual.
Homosexual men do not give secret romantic gifts to women in secluded midnight spots.
Homosexual women, however, do give secret romantic gifts to women in secluded midnight spots.
How do you get to “Be yourself” be able to do something as simple as buying a rose for yourself without getting odd stares?
Easy, simply do not look like a Woman when you buy one!
Again, the cross-dressing Lesbian might not herself be guilty but knowing this again gave leverage for Mark if he needed it when he questioned her.
And again, of course, this did not mean that she was not the murderer herself either!
Mark found the getting of the motive and the killer was irritating him.
He did not care about getting justice for the victim
But he desperately needed to know how the murder was done!
The puzzle was everything to him!
The arrests that sometimes happened afterwards seemed just a needless hassle to him.
The next stop was to visit the body at the morgue.
Father Dister Stain MD was Marks younger brother by six years.
Father Dister Stain MD, unlike his brother, believed in righteous smiting fury in serving the holy Vatican church.
He outranked his older brother in many ways, even though he was an investigative officer for the church while his brother Mark Stain was working for the state.
Father Dister Stain was an Inquisitor.
But there was not much heresy to investigate up in this quiet far North-East corner of the Republic of Britain.
So, he made himself useful by helping the state police with his medical knowledge and the odd autopsy
There was, (in reality) an awful lot of what the Church would consider Heresy in the area, but the heretics were much better at hiding themselves than Father Dister Stain was at investigation.
The state police ran across heresy quite often.
But policemen are a practical bunch.
You got promotion and financial incentives from the duty and excise men for arresting rum smugglers.
All you got for reporting Heresy was a lot of extra work and some crappy Inquisitor taking all the credit.
If you have a limited number of hours in a day, and you liked both being successful and buying things, which crimes would you choose to prioritise?
If you cared about inconvenient crimes like heresy so passionately you would not join the state police in the first place, you would instead join the Vatican Republican Guard.
At the same time, the lack of Heresy crimes reported looked very good on the national police stats.
The stats gave all the appearance that heresy crimes were very rare, and the numbers were totally under control.
Father Dister rolled his eyes and groaned when his bother Mark walked in.
They did have a genuine deep sibling love for each other but that did not mean they liked each other at all!
“What do we have?” Snapped Mark,
Father Dister instantly recognised his brother Mark’s obsessive work fervour.
The ‘Good’ father mused to himself, People lack faith and claim they never see any miracles.
They never seemed to notice all the quiet miracles constantly around them.
Like the miracle of his state police brother’s mind, that when revved up to full speed seemed to ignore all known biological laws of both sleep and nourishment that applied to normal people.
“There is no scalding or water in the lungs”
“So, the victim was not in any way submerged in boiling water”
“I knew that,” Replied Mark,
“There was clearly no way of getting anything like that down there without leaving some serious tracks”
“Well, the back is a lot less cooked than the front.” Continued Dister
“Some sort of new directional weapon?” Asked Mark.
“If such a thing was possible, then surely it would have been so much cheaper and easier just to use a common pistol or even just a dagger!” Said Dister,
Then he continued,
“And she has all her teeth!”
Mark silently nodded,
It was common as an eighteenth birthday present to have all your teeth removed at once.
It was a practical and generous solution to the lifetime of expense and pain of oral health care.
This left three options.
Either she was from a family too poor to afford such a procedure or so wealthy that they could afford the future dental cost.
Or maybe she was under eighteen?
Judging by what he had noticed about the quality of the linen she had been wearing, Mark, for now, was going with the “wealthy victim” theory.
“Egyptian linen?” Asked Mark.
Without any need for extrapolation Father Stain MD nodded and confirmed.
“Egyptian linen!”
Mark started to think out loud,
“Rich girl, unescorted and underdressed in freezing conditions found shot dead with some sort of directional heat after being given a red rose by what is presumably a romantic interest.” He surmised.
“She was a rich girl, not some destitute woman. Any rich girls reported missing by worried guardians?” Asked Dister
“No!” replied Mark, and of course, this meant that any guardians of this ward would now be a prime suspect when they were identified.
‘IF’ they were ever identified!
The Father continued, “I have only seen injuries similar to these in one other place.”
“Do tell!”
“High-pressure steam on workmen, when an accident happens on one of those water pumps, they use to drain mines.”
“Such machines are huge and are not in any way portable.”
“But those injuries are not just from one single direction like this one,”
Mark thought for a moment then asked
“Could the steam in those machines be directed in one direction if needed.”
“Yes, they do have release valves to stop explosions, but that would not be directed, you would need to be climbing on the wrong place when that valve automatically released.” Replied Dister
“So not a type of new gun, but a botched escape?!” Said Mark to himself out loud,
“She was near such a device when she died, and the body was taken to the playground much later?!”
Dister reminded Mark,
“You did say in your initial report that the tracks were all over the place.”
“Yes,” replied Mark
“Because of the distances involved that means the flower was placed on the body later after she was either dumped or found dead later by her forbidden lover.” Said Mark, again, mostly to himself.”
“Such machine rooms are very warm. You would suffer and sweat greatly if you were wrapped in too much clothing.” Added Dister
“So rich girl goes to or is held at a steam-driven water pumping station in a crowded industrial environment, probably dressed in just linen chemise and no one remarks or says anything?”
Mark exclaimed, not even looking directly at Dister anymore but instead at the picture in his own head.
“That would be impossible, loads of people would have known but must have been too scared for their jobs to say anything.” Said Dister
“So, we are not looking for a Mine Owner, Forman or Union Leader with a female ward that has now gone missing,” Continued Mark
“The motive?” Asked Father Dister
“She, the victim fell in love with the wrong person.” Mark replied
“She was likely held against her will to make her ‘see sense’.” Said Dister with a sickening note of approval.
“The death was also likely to be an accident, during an ill-conceived attempt to escape!” said Mark, who was too dead inside to have noticed his brothers’ judgemental tone
“And the guardian, knowing where the lovers were due to meet, left the body there as a warning to shut up!” Said Dister again approvingly.
“And the flower was left by the distraught lover when the body was found!” Continued Mark looking into the far mid-distance.
“That means there is a person responsible for their female ward’s death who is used to scaring people into submission and now there is an angry young man out there who feels he has nothing left to lose!” Said Dister
“Some young man is going to either kill or be killed tonight!”
Mark did not bother to correct his self-righteous homophobic and misogynistic brother.
Because in this world, between the two of them, Dister was the “normal one” who’s world view, almost everyone else held or said they held.
It this world, it was Mark’s world view that was the one with the abnormal personality.
“How will you find the young man first before he does something foolish?” asked Dister.
“I know exactly where they are right now!”
“I do not know who they are. But I know for certain where they are!”
“How and Where?” asked Dister fascinated.
“Use your brain brother!”
“You do not need facts, faith or science to solve that one.”
“You just have to know the core nature of people,”
“They were the sort of young person who seeks and feels love very deeply.”
“They are a romantic who found their dead true loves dead body and left the Rose gift they had brought for her”
“They foolishly, now consider themselves as already dead!”
“Meanwhile the person who caused the death and who had left the body as a warning is so used to acting as feared tyrant, bully and takes his personal delusions of power for granted.”
“It would never occur to such a Man that revenge against him would ever be a possibility,”
“He assumes everyone is far too scared of him!”
“Its obvious where the young lover in grief and mourning is!”
“I have been trapezing all night solving this crime,”
“But they knew instantly where to go to get their revenge!
“The Man who dumped the victim’s body would have been killed by the young romantic less than an hour before passers-by had even discovered the body in the playground!”
“They are currently in the local prison cell being processed for murder!”
All she could do was stare at the slimy cell wall.
She had never loved like that before and she knew full well that she never would again.
Nothing seemed real.
Part of her registered the cell door opening and closing.
Part of her then registered the Man, obviously a copper, sit opposite her.
She was not aware enough to realise that Mark had sent the guards away.
Mark looked at the young ladies’ maid.
According to the arrest report, she had heated a fire poker until it was read hot then charged screaming into the Union Masters bedroom and attempted to thrust the thing straight into the ‘breadbasket’ of the man’s belly, angled to go straight into his heart.
It was a nice idea but even full of rage that sort of strength did not exist.
Such was the poetic thinking of an enraged avenging romantic.
He was still just as dead though.
The shock of the pain had killed him.
She had then spent a good five minutes using the same weapon to beat the already now dead body across the face with all her might.
Her hands have now become horrendously scorched and burnt, she had not even considered bothering to wrap them to protect them from the pokers scalding surface.
She looked at the unknown copper's face and saw no surprise in his eyes.
Which in turn, despite her fudged mental state, still managed to surprise her.
Mark simply said,
“I know”
And Vicky (for that was her name) knew this was no coppers cheap tactic.
They looked into each other eyes and swapped an hour’s worth of unsaid dialogue in an instant.
It was one of those rare moments that Detective Inspector Mark Stain felt a slight stir of compassionate emotion.
He tried to ignore it,
Unknown to him the door to his long-dead soul had now been levered open a crack and a path of personal redemption he could never expect could be possible, had now begun.
“Do you know what steam is?” Vicky asked
“Tell me!” replied Mark
She then slowly, in a far-away voice, she said,
“What you see coming out of your kettle is NOT steam!”
“That is merely water vapour”
“The Actual steam.”
“The Real steam!”
“The sort of Steam that scolds, burns, cooks and kills, is, invisible.”
“The real steam is that empty-looking space between the boiling water and the visible vapour.”
Mark knew there was more and waited patiently for her to finish,
“Do you know what a ‘Her’ is?”
“It is merely the general descriptive term for the ‘Female’ of a species.”
“They are the ones that gestate the babies.”
“Most other differences between a ‘Her’ and a ‘Him’ are only cultural.”
“We are too busy pointing at the ‘Water Vapour’ and describing it as ‘Steam’”
“We are too busy pointing at sexual organs and using that to describe what or who we think a person ‘is’.”
“We do not see the real steam between the vapour and the boiling water.”
“We do not perceive the real person either.”
“Real person!”
“The person that scolds, burns, cooks and kills, is, invisible.”
“Real person is that empty-looking space between invented cultural expectations and gender.”
Mark knew the truth would come out.
He did not care about the family scandal.
He did not care about social conventions.
He had his puzzle solved now, and that was enough.
Accept this time, for some reason it wasn’t
Despite being a murderer, she was still in lots of ways still an innocent
Her crime was that of passion and rage.
It was not a long drawn out planned crime
If she had been a male Butler, they would have been entitled to a humane execution by hanging.
If she had been both male and had a family with money, they would have just been sent to a mental institution for life!
If she had been a man and had family money and political connections they would have been smuggled into the armed forces and given the honour of dying in a heroic “forlorn hope” charge.
But she was not a man, but a woman who had loved another woman.
He looked at this young broken woman and knew she would be burned alive for Heresy.
He had seen such a thing happen before and even enjoyed the festival atmosphere and the screams of the condemned.
But for reasons he did not understand, he could not bear the thought of the poor young woman dying in such a terrible and horrific way.
She did not deserve such a fate.
Again, looking into each other’s eyes they came to a mutual unsaid agreement.
There was only one way he could possibly help her.
He had more than enough favours banked with superiors to get away with what needed to be done.
He took a breath.
Looked into her silently pleading eyes.
Put his hand around her none resisting throat
And Squeezed!
End
.
.
.
!
.
The Purity of Heat and the Snow!
By Ross Lombardi
.
The very first story introducing “The Unholy Republica Britannica” universe.
The knife does not give two flying smelly craps who wields it.
The Shot from a pistol does not give two flying smelly craps who fired it.
Gravity does not give two flying smelly craps who pushed the body over the cliff.
Why?
Because the raw forces of nature are incapable of making such inane trite moral judgements
For example, when your nose smells freshly boiled ham, your mouth may automatically drool and your stomach may nag at you for food.
Detective Inspector Mark Stain’s stomach did not give two flying smelly craps that the meat scorched and roasted to perfection he could smell was that of a human.
It was the grand year of 1820 AD:
In the far North East of the Great British Republic,
In a little seaside town called Saltburn By Sea.
Mark had been on shift without a break (or food) for over 12 hours, and as he smelled the roasted human carcase on the floor, he noticed that he was drooling slightly.
He mildly wondered if the fact that this involuntary physiological reaction did not worry or make him scare himself, meant he was more ‘broken’ as a human being than he had thought.
Then he “mildly” wondered if the fact that last thought itself was “only mild wondered” was an even worse sign.
He quickly stopped the meandering thought process there.
He could see the infinite loop that was about to mentally unfold if it was left unchecked.
He knew he had a brilliant mind for solving murders, but he also knew that same mind needed reigning in on occasion, like a wonderful but dangerous stallion that could be ridden but never truly broken in!
He could have gone home.
He was halfway out the door when the call came in.
But despite the hunger and tiredness, his runaway mind demanded he looked at this body when heard about it.
Unions did have an awful lot of unchecked power!
(Not as much as the Catholic Church but they were a close second.)
Everyone knew he was technically “Off Duty” and that he would not be claiming any overtime.
But even the staunchest of pro-union socialist would not bat an eyelid on this one occasion.
This murder was “Something Special” and normal procedures simply did not any longer seem to matter at this point.
No one had seen anything like this!
It was winter.
There was snow on the ground.
And in the middle of the playground was a roasted body.
There were no charcoal marks,
Whatever had roasted it had done it without any form of obvious flame.
The body was defiantly attacked with a huge amount of heat but with no actual burning.
The deceased flesh had been cooked very much like a boiled ham.
But the snow around the body was still there.
There were no drag marks,
No very large cauldron large enough to hold a body had been dragged here then dragged away.
Such a thing full of water would have weighed well over a ton, at least!
Even if a large cauldron or container had been used to boil the victim then it would still have used fire to heat that container.
As stated previously, there was no indication of any open flames having been here.
The body must, therefore, have died somewhere else then dumped here.
The marks that were on the snow were many and varied,
Everything from children’s footprints to the little cute claw marks made by winter birds and animals looking for food.
This late at night with no adequate lighting would make it totally impossible to find either the victims or the murders footprints.
Maybe if digital camera technology had existed at this time then some sort of footprint evidence could have been found.
But this version of the world did not yet have digital camera technology.
Or even any form of bog-standard flash powder photographic cameras.
This version of the world was still in the 1820s.
To be more precise the 1820’s of North East England.
A world version where the “Harrowing of the North” had never happened in 1069 and the ‘Peasants Revolt’ in 1381 had a very different outcome.
There had never been a Queen Elizabeth the first!
Queen Victoria was not yet on the throne but also, she never would be!
Because this version of England was a Republic.
The Royals that did now exist ruled America and had made that their new land since the ‘Declaration of Royal Dependence’ in 1776.
The world was different from ours but was also very much the same.
The raw fundamentals of human nature still applied,
Sex, Money, Greed and Murder!
There is a religious philosophy called Gnostic or “Revelation” that once claimed that the spark of the holy and divine was deep inside every human being.
Mark felt knew that there was something to that philosophy, but to his mind what sat in the core of every human being was far from divine, but instead a rancid ball of puss.
He had seen enough of the petty evil that normal people did to each other to feel the no one was worth saving, ever.
They always had an excuse,
“I did it because my dad used to hit me”
“It was not my fault, I was drunk,”
“I cannot help how I am,” because, “My Mom did not hit me enough!”
Why has he stayed a police officer?
Because he was addicted to the puzzle solving.
This puzzle was a ‘Doozy’
Death by extreme sudden heat but with no flames.
Some very weird form of spontaneous combustion but instead a sort of spontoons external boiling or poaching?
His stomach growled another reminder that Mark had not eaten for a while.
He could make out the body was a clothed female,
At first glance in this darkness, he thought the body looked naked.
But she had been wearing some sort of single layer of light linen.
(Why just such light clothes in such freezing weather?)
Although made from natural fibres, (There was no other kind!) the Fabric had almost melted to the surface of the skin.
No, that observation was incorrect!
More accurately the skin has melted to the fibres of the clothes.
The fat just under the skin had bubbled out and seemed though the fibres and congealed outside of them.
The heat was so localised that the one uncooked lower arm and hand still held a Small Fresh red rose that was still in almost perfect condition.
A Female dressed in light linen in freezing weather in the snow-covered playground at night, holding a single fresh red rose.
The image itself was very “New Romantic” and would have made a nice watercolour for a Christmas card or postcard.
Had she brought the red rose with her as a sort of affectation?
Was she setting a pose of whoever she was meeting?
Had someone given it to her as some sort of romantic gift when they came to meet her?
Or was the red rose some sort of calling card left by the killer on the dead body?
How the hell was this woman? Perhaps girl? Killed?
The Rose was not much but it was a start.
They were grown in artificially heated hothouses.
They were fairly expensive, but people were selling them around the local pubs to young men eager to get a kiss this side of Christmas.
The flower was fresh enough to mean that it must have been purchased earlier that night.
Certainly, some woman in this weather wearing little more than the chemise would have been arrested for indecency in a public place.
Unless she stripped down later?
Even then it was very unlikely to have been purchased by the victim herself.
What sort of cursed spinster would draw attention to that sad fact by purchasing such a romantic token for herself?
What sort of respectable woman would even be out this late without some sort of escort unless she was a prostitute?
But a common prostitute was not going to get a fresh rose bought for them!
So, Mark felt he was looking for a Man.
Just because ‘He’ brought the victim the flower did not mean they were the murderer, but their interview would at least offer some more leads.
Or course they could also still be the Murderer.
She was frightened.
A heavy banging on the door this late at night was never a good sign.
A heavy banging on the door followed by,
“Police, open up!”
Was an even worse one.
She rushed to the door as quickly as she could, but she was not being quick enough!
Outside, alone in the Winter cold was Detective Inspector Mark Stain.
He also knew she was taking far too long to answer.
He already knew that she was hiding something.
The door did not just open a cautious crack.
Instead, it was gently opened right up, letting the full blast of the cold in and the precious expensive heat out in a pleasant wave.
She was smiling and seemed happy to see him
She was most definitely hiding something and was trying to hide it by overcompensating her apparent welcome.
“Yeh,” Thought Mark to himself, “She was definitely hiding something.”
Out loud He said
“Ivy Druey!”
It was a statement, not a question.
“Hello, officer how can I help you on this cold night, perhaps some hot chocolate on this very cold night for one of the Republics Finest?”
Mark simply stepped in and shut the door and quickly scanned the room.
Like all small Catholic Dwellings, there was the usual paraphernalia.
There was a Mary statue here and there dotted about and a small nativity scene.
The rest of the contents were very modest.
So, she was not involved in any of the local rum smugglings.
The amount of fear she was showing would not add up to mere smuggling either.
The place was acceptably clean and tidy, and the Catholic decorations were spotless.
This did not mean that Ivy Druey was a good Catholic, but it did mean it seemed vital to her to appear to be a good Catholic.
Another quick room scan while moving his head as little as possible and a quick calculation confirmed his suspicions, she was guilty of what the state considered a terrible crime.
Mark did not care,
He was no crusading policeman,
He was a puzzle addict whose brain needed its fix.
It was not a crime that was totally relevant to this case, but it was a crime that gave Mark leverage if needed when he questioned her.
“You alone here Ivy?”
They had never met before; Mark was acting presumptuous informality as an intimidation tactic.
He knew that she was not.
“I am merely a lone widow; I make ends meet doing odd jobs here and there.”
“Selling flowers?”
“Yes Officer,” Ivy replied,
“Sell any tonight to anyone who seemed a little off or a bit unusual?”
“Anyone that stood out at all?”
Mark saw her eyes quickly flicker right then left, she was recalling the evening then quickly editing what to say.
“Just the usual young men trying to get a cuddle or a stinky finger?” Pushed Mark.
This was not how a gentleman of the state was ever allowed to speak to a respectable widow, but it was a conscious choice by him to fugitively shake the tree and see what fell out.
Being a respectable widow is was the sort of comment she would feel comfortable repeating.
Mark had to give her credit where it was due, she hid the shock to her sensibilities very well and almost instantly.
He knew why she was being so compliant, if he was in her position, he would have rolled over backwards to accommodate as well.
Execution by being burnt alive was a truly horrible way to die!
“It’s been a long day Ivy,”
“A VERY long day!”
“Too long to piss about!”
“I know something stuck out”.
“I do not care about your secret room, or the Protestant Vicar you have hidden in there.”
“If you want to follow King Henry the Foolish to the grave, then that is your lookout.”
“Tell me what I want right now, or by morning you will be being burnt as a heretic in the courtyard of Jervaulx Abbey by dawn.”
“I will be there joining the local children with marshmallows on a stick in one hand and some potatoes to bury in your still-hot ashes in the other!”
“There was one young man that stood out,” She blurted out, already ashamed of herself for sacrificing some poor innocent stranger.
“Answer with no hesitation or I will suspect you are lying!”
“In what way did he stand out?”
“He seemed far gentler in his feature and manners.”
“He was a ‘nice’ boy!”
“A ‘Nice boy’? Do you mean a Nancy boy? Do you suspect he was not buying the Rose for a Woman?”
“I could not prove it, it was only a feeling” She kept blurting,
“He hid it well, he looked at all the pretty ladies and flirted with them all!”
She was partly trying to undo the terrible thing she was doing,
Despite this, ‘attempt ‘she felt that she knew full well, that she was replacing herself on the burning stake with some poor young boy whose only crime was loving other men.
She did not know Mark,
He just wanted the puzzle solved, and did not care about either arrest, professional credit or the social norms of his world.
Mark even made sure not to do “Too well”, the very last thing he wanted was to overperform himself onto a desk away from all the juicy puzzles.
People loved him in the force because he gave away “Solves” to those who wanted a promotion as if they were free water crackers at a party.
This meant he had a wealth of favours owed by loads of his superiors in the bank to use if he ever needed to cash them in!
The Rose had been a gift.
He knew that Ivy was partly right about the suspect being homosexual.
Homosexual men do not give secret romantic gifts to women in secluded midnight spots.
Homosexual women, however, do give secret romantic gifts to women in secluded midnight spots.
How do you get to “Be yourself” be able to do something as simple as buying a rose for yourself without getting odd stares?
Easy, simply do not look like a Woman when you buy one!
Again, the cross-dressing Lesbian might not herself be guilty but knowing this again gave leverage for Mark if he needed it when he questioned her.
And again, of course, this did not mean that she was not the murderer herself either!
Mark found the getting of the motive and the killer was irritating him.
He did not care about getting justice for the victim
But he desperately needed to know how the murder was done!
The puzzle was everything to him!
The arrests that sometimes happened afterwards seemed just a needless hassle to him.
The next stop was to visit the body at the morgue.
Father Dister Stain MD was Marks younger brother by six years.
Father Dister Stain MD, unlike his brother, believed in righteous smiting fury in serving the holy Vatican church.
He outranked his older brother in many ways, even though he was an investigative officer for the church while his brother Mark Stain was working for the state.
Father Dister Stain was an Inquisitor.
But there was not much heresy to investigate up in this quiet far North-East corner of the Republic of Britain.
So, he made himself useful by helping the state police with his medical knowledge and the odd autopsy
There was, (in reality) an awful lot of what the Church would consider Heresy in the area, but the heretics were much better at hiding themselves than Father Dister Stain was at investigation.
The state police ran across heresy quite often.
But policemen are a practical bunch.
You got promotion and financial incentives from the duty and excise men for arresting rum smugglers.
All you got for reporting Heresy was a lot of extra work and some crappy Inquisitor taking all the credit.
If you have a limited number of hours in a day, and you liked both being successful and buying things, which crimes would you choose to prioritise?
If you cared about inconvenient crimes like heresy so passionately you would not join the state police in the first place, you would instead join the Vatican Republican Guard.
At the same time, the lack of Heresy crimes reported looked very good on the national police stats.
The stats gave all the appearance that heresy crimes were very rare, and the numbers were totally under control.
Father Dister rolled his eyes and groaned when his bother Mark walked in.
They did have a genuine deep sibling love for each other but that did not mean they liked each other at all!
“What do we have?” Snapped Mark,
Father Dister instantly recognised his brother Mark’s obsessive work fervour.
The ‘Good’ father mused to himself, People lack faith and claim they never see any miracles.
They never seemed to notice all the quiet miracles constantly around them.
Like the miracle of his state police brother’s mind, that when revved up to full speed seemed to ignore all known biological laws of both sleep and nourishment that applied to normal people.
“There is no scalding or water in the lungs”
“So, the victim was not in any way submerged in boiling water”
“I knew that,” Replied Mark,
“There was clearly no way of getting anything like that down there without leaving some serious tracks”
“Well, the back is a lot less cooked than the front.” Continued Dister
“Some sort of new directional weapon?” Asked Mark.
“If such a thing was possible, then surely it would have been so much cheaper and easier just to use a common pistol or even just a dagger!” Said Dister,
Then he continued,
“And she has all her teeth!”
Mark silently nodded,
It was common as an eighteenth birthday present to have all your teeth removed at once.
It was a practical and generous solution to the lifetime of expense and pain of oral health care.
This left three options.
Either she was from a family too poor to afford such a procedure or so wealthy that they could afford the future dental cost.
Or maybe she was under eighteen?
Judging by what he had noticed about the quality of the linen she had been wearing, Mark, for now, was going with the “wealthy victim” theory.
“Egyptian linen?” Asked Mark.
Without any need for extrapolation Father Stain MD nodded and confirmed.
“Egyptian linen!”
Mark started to think out loud,
“Rich girl, unescorted and underdressed in freezing conditions found shot dead with some sort of directional heat after being given a red rose by what is presumably a romantic interest.” He surmised.
“She was a rich girl, not some destitute woman. Any rich girls reported missing by worried guardians?” Asked Dister
“No!” replied Mark, and of course, this meant that any guardians of this ward would now be a prime suspect when they were identified.
‘IF’ they were ever identified!
The Father continued, “I have only seen injuries similar to these in one other place.”
“Do tell!”
“High-pressure steam on workmen, when an accident happens on one of those water pumps, they use to drain mines.”
“Such machines are huge and are not in any way portable.”
“But those injuries are not just from one single direction like this one,”
Mark thought for a moment then asked
“Could the steam in those machines be directed in one direction if needed.”
“Yes, they do have release valves to stop explosions, but that would not be directed, you would need to be climbing on the wrong place when that valve automatically released.” Replied Dister
“So not a type of new gun, but a botched escape?!” Said Mark to himself out loud,
“She was near such a device when she died, and the body was taken to the playground much later?!”
Dister reminded Mark,
“You did say in your initial report that the tracks were all over the place.”
“Yes,” replied Mark
“Because of the distances involved that means the flower was placed on the body later after she was either dumped or found dead later by her forbidden lover.” Said Mark, again, mostly to himself.”
“Such machine rooms are very warm. You would suffer and sweat greatly if you were wrapped in too much clothing.” Added Dister
“So rich girl goes to or is held at a steam-driven water pumping station in a crowded industrial environment, probably dressed in just linen chemise and no one remarks or says anything?”
Mark exclaimed, not even looking directly at Dister anymore but instead at the picture in his own head.
“That would be impossible, loads of people would have known but must have been too scared for their jobs to say anything.” Said Dister
“So, we are not looking for a Mine Owner, Forman or Union Leader with a female ward that has now gone missing,” Continued Mark
“The motive?” Asked Father Dister
“She, the victim fell in love with the wrong person.” Mark replied
“She was likely held against her will to make her ‘see sense’.” Said Dister with a sickening note of approval.
“The death was also likely to be an accident, during an ill-conceived attempt to escape!” said Mark, who was too dead inside to have noticed his brothers’ judgemental tone
“And the guardian, knowing where the lovers were due to meet, left the body there as a warning to shut up!” Said Dister again approvingly.
“And the flower was left by the distraught lover when the body was found!” Continued Mark looking into the far mid-distance.
“That means there is a person responsible for their female ward’s death who is used to scaring people into submission and now there is an angry young man out there who feels he has nothing left to lose!” Said Dister
“Some young man is going to either kill or be killed tonight!”
Mark did not bother to correct his self-righteous homophobic and misogynistic brother.
Because in this world, between the two of them, Dister was the “normal one” who’s world view, almost everyone else held or said they held.
It this world, it was Mark’s world view that was the one with the abnormal personality.
“How will you find the young man first before he does something foolish?” asked Dister.
“I know exactly where they are right now!”
“I do not know who they are. But I know for certain where they are!”
“How and Where?” asked Dister fascinated.
“Use your brain brother!”
“You do not need facts, faith or science to solve that one.”
“You just have to know the core nature of people,”
“They were the sort of young person who seeks and feels love very deeply.”
“They are a romantic who found their dead true loves dead body and left the Rose gift they had brought for her”
“They foolishly, now consider themselves as already dead!”
“Meanwhile the person who caused the death and who had left the body as a warning is so used to acting as feared tyrant, bully and takes his personal delusions of power for granted.”
“It would never occur to such a Man that revenge against him would ever be a possibility,”
“He assumes everyone is far too scared of him!”
“Its obvious where the young lover in grief and mourning is!”
“I have been trapezing all night solving this crime,”
“But they knew instantly where to go to get their revenge!
“The Man who dumped the victim’s body would have been killed by the young romantic less than an hour before passers-by had even discovered the body in the playground!”
“They are currently in the local prison cell being processed for murder!”
All she could do was stare at the slimy cell wall.
She had never loved like that before and she knew full well that she never would again.
Nothing seemed real.
Part of her registered the cell door opening and closing.
Part of her then registered the Man, obviously a copper, sit opposite her.
She was not aware enough to realise that Mark had sent the guards away.
Mark looked at the young ladies’ maid.
According to the arrest report, she had heated a fire poker until it was read hot then charged screaming into the Union Masters bedroom and attempted to thrust the thing straight into the ‘breadbasket’ of the man’s belly, angled to go straight into his heart.
It was a nice idea but even full of rage that sort of strength did not exist.
Such was the poetic thinking of an enraged avenging romantic.
He was still just as dead though.
The shock of the pain had killed him.
She had then spent a good five minutes using the same weapon to beat the already now dead body across the face with all her might.
Her hands have now become horrendously scorched and burnt, she had not even considered bothering to wrap them to protect them from the pokers scalding surface.
She looked at the unknown copper's face and saw no surprise in his eyes.
Which in turn, despite her fudged mental state, still managed to surprise her.
Mark simply said,
“I know”
And Vicky (for that was her name) knew this was no coppers cheap tactic.
They looked into each other eyes and swapped an hour’s worth of unsaid dialogue in an instant.
It was one of those rare moments that Detective Inspector Mark Stain felt a slight stir of compassionate emotion.
He tried to ignore it,
Unknown to him the door to his long-dead soul had now been levered open a crack and a path of personal redemption he could never expect could be possible, had now begun.
“Do you know what steam is?” Vicky asked
“Tell me!” replied Mark
She then slowly, in a far-away voice, she said,
“What you see coming out of your kettle is NOT steam!”
“That is merely water vapour”
“The Actual steam.”
“The Real steam!”
“The sort of Steam that scolds, burns, cooks and kills, is, invisible.”
“The real steam is that empty-looking space between the boiling water and the visible vapour.”
Mark knew there was more and waited patiently for her to finish,
“Do you know what a ‘Her’ is?”
“It is merely the general descriptive term for the ‘Female’ of a species.”
“They are the ones that gestate the babies.”
“Most other differences between a ‘Her’ and a ‘Him’ are only cultural.”
“We are too busy pointing at the ‘Water Vapour’ and describing it as ‘Steam’”
“We are too busy pointing at sexual organs and using that to describe what or who we think a person ‘is’.”
“We do not see the real steam between the vapour and the boiling water.”
“We do not perceive the real person either.”
“Real person!”
“The person that scolds, burns, cooks and kills, is, invisible.”
“Real person is that empty-looking space between invented cultural expectations and gender.”
Mark knew the truth would come out.
He did not care about the family scandal.
He did not care about social conventions.
He had his puzzle solved now, and that was enough.
Accept this time, for some reason it wasn’t
Despite being a murderer, she was still in lots of ways still an innocent
Her crime was that of passion and rage.
It was not a long drawn out planned crime
If she had been a male Butler, they would have been entitled to a humane execution by hanging.
If she had been both male and had a family with money, they would have just been sent to a mental institution for life!
If she had been a man and had family money and political connections they would have been smuggled into the armed forces and given the honour of dying in a heroic “forlorn hope” charge.
But she was not a man, but a woman who had loved another woman.
He looked at this young broken woman and knew she would be burned alive for Heresy.
He had seen such a thing happen before and even enjoyed the festival atmosphere and the screams of the condemned.
But for reasons he did not understand, he could not bear the thought of the poor young woman dying in such a terrible and horrific way.
She did not deserve such a fate.
Again, looking into each other’s eyes they came to a mutual unsaid agreement.
There was only one way he could possibly help her.
He had more than enough favours banked with superiors to get away with what needed to be done.
He took a breath.
Looked into her silently pleading eyes.
Put his hand around her none resisting throat
And Squeezed!
End
.
.
Posts
Comments
Post a Comment