13

The Elmshore East guard station in Full Striding wasn’t as impressive as he’d expected. He guessed that meant it wasn’t as foreboding, either, which was a relief. If it was a cart horse, it’d be time to take off its reins and let it enjoy the last year or two of its life. Peeling paint, mold patches in the upper corners of rooms. In the reception area, near the wooden benches where visitors were supposed to sit, rain dripped through a hole in the ceiling and into a bucket, which was almost full to the brim. There was a smell in the air that Mick couldn’t quite make out at first, pitched somewhere between pleasant and unwholesome.

To try and discern what it was, he tried a technique he’d been practicing. Sleuths needed to have highly developed senses. It wasn’t just about what you saw or the things you deduced. To get some clues, you had to tug your ear and listen carefully, or take a big sniff of air and experience what smells were around.

This particular technique was called Five and One, and involved him sniffing quickly five times, then closing his eyes and taking one huge nostrilful of air. When he did this twice, his nostrils seemed to take in more of the aromas present, and he got a definite sense of freshly-brewed hazelnut coffee.

Mick took his place in the queue to see the desk sergeant. The sergeant behind the reception counter had a moustache so bushy you could have swept a floor with it. He was busy taking details from a man who’d lost his cat. The poor old fella with the missing moggy had the kind of stature some people get as they age, where they seem to get shorter. Only, really, it was just because they were losing muscle mass in their backs or something like that. Or maybe not stretching enough. Mick’s mother was heavily into stretching, so her posture was great for a lady her age.

“Name?” said the sergeant to the old man.

“Misty. Misty-Bell.”

“Not your cat’s name, sir.”

“Oh,” said the man, cheeks reddening. “Tim Ritson.”

“Where do you live, Tim?”

“Bishop’s Garth, just past…”

This’ll take a while, Mick thought. Noticing that the ceiling leak bucket was maybe a drop away from filling now, he took it upon himself to carry it out of the reception and onto the street, where he poured it down a sewer grate. When he headed back into the station, the old man was still talking.

“…and last time I saw Misty was Thursday morning, right after she had her tuna. She’s not been back since. I’ve left a bowl out every morning and every night.”

The sergeant scribbled in a big ledger that almost took up the whole of his desk. “We can’t spare a guard to look for Misty at present, I’m afraid, sir.”

“Wha…then where’re my taxes goin’? Tell me that!”

Mick didn’t see the sergeant reacting well to this. Everyone knew how stretched the Striding guard force was, and if you asked Mick, the fella had already shown a great deal of patience in taking the old man’s cat problem seriously. Some guards would have told him to get lost. Missing pets cases just weren’t in the remit of the guard force, unfortunately.

The sergeant fully opened the glass window separating him from the reception room, and leaned forward. He spoke in a soft voice. “Listen, there’s a dozen rescue centers in Striding, and my wife works for Claws and Paws Sanctuary. They’re the biggest. She knows almost everyone in the rescue game, does Lisa. I’ll have her see what she can find out, okay?”

The old man wiped his forehead with a white and blue spotted handkerchief. “You don’t know how grateful I’d be.”

“No promises. But I’ll speak to Lisa, see what she says. In the meantime, if you come back here then do it late night or early morning so it’s me on the counter. If I’m away, I’ll only be getting a brew or something. You just make sure to ask for Desk Sergeant Nichols. Got it?”

Mick felt sorry for the old man as he watched him toddle out of the guard station and onto the street. He quickly took out his notepad and added a line to where he had made a note of mysteries to solve once he was earning his tokens.

Mysteries to take a look at:

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1) Tim Ritson’s Missing Moggy

Help the old man find his missing cat

His sympathetic feeling was soon replaced by a more selfish one, however. Now that he was at the front of the queue, it was as though all his nerves came back to him at full force. He felt queasy, like the time he’d accidentally eaten cheddar and his stomach hadn’t been right for a week.

“Saints alive,” said the sergeant, seeing Mick. “What happened to you, sir? You look a state! Look how pale you are. A mugging was it?”

Mick caught a glance at his own reflection in the glass panel near the sergeant. His hair could use a comb, perhaps, and his pallor had paled somewhat, no doubting it. But he didn’t look that bad, surely?

He cleared his throat. “Here for the sleuth token program. The interview and the rest of it, that is.”

“Ah. Very well. Name?”

“Skinny Mick.”

Desk Sergeant Nichols frowned. “Your real name, sir.”

“Oh, sorry. Skinny Michael.”

“Did the saints see fit to give you a surname, Michael?”

“It’s Mulroon, sir. Mick Mulroon.”

The sergeant took a different ledger book down from a shelf to his right, flicked through a page or two, and then ran his index finger down a list of names. “Ah. Mulroon. Take a seat, please, and Inspector Longwaite will collect you shortly.”

The hands on the clock above the waiting room door moved too quickly for Mick’s liking, and Inspector Longwaite showed no signs of arriving to collect him. This all began to feel strange. Where were the other candidates? He’d have thought a few of them would be here by now. They couldn’t all be running late, surely?

He waited as patiently as he could for another minute, but his nerves began to get the better of him. Standing up, he approached the glass panel. Desk Sergeant Nichols had gone off duty now. His replacement was an already-tired-looking lady with pink hair, who looked like she’d rather be anywhere else in Easterly this morning.

“Excuse me,” said Mick. “I’m waiting for Inspector Longwaite.”

The desk sergeant’s grin was enough to clue Mick in that a jest was going on. Mick had read a book called ‘A Face Tells a Thousand Lies’ by a retired Hattersdale sleuth, and he knew that every smile had a different meaning. This one, where the smile was thinner than a wood shaving and the sergeant’s lips were tremoring as though she was trying to hold the smile back, meant a joke was being played. What was it, though? What could be so funny? Was it Mick’s clothes? The way he looked? Did his small town-ness shine through?

Then a flash of inspiration - something a fully-classed sleuth would call an aha moment, an insight, or perhaps a deduction - hit him.

Inspector Longwaite.

Longwaite was a common name in this part of Easterly, which was why it hadn’t started ringing church bells in his head. But it was a name that you could snap in half, wasn’t it? Long…Wait.

Mick was disappointed in Sergeant Nichols. It was completely unprofessional for a sergeant in the city guards to act that way. Where was his sense of duty? Where was the idea of leading by example, of respecting the badge? When Mick was a fully-classed sleuth, he’d never act so flippantly while on duty.

He could only assume that the sergeant had decided to play the prank on Mick because he came from Sunhampton, a tiny town by Striding’s standards. He must have figured that he could have a joke with a small-town bumpkin – as some people called town dwellers -with no consequences. He certainly wouldn’t have done it to another candidate, say the son or daughter of a sleuth in the force, would he? Mick would bet his last pear drop that he wouldn’t.

Even worse was that this new sergeant was playing along with it. Mick knew how to deal with jokers, though. There was a knack to it.

“Sorry,” said the sergeant, “Can you repeat that name?”

Mick said in his most serious voice, “I’m looking for Inspector Longwaite.”

The sergeant tried to hold in a laugh but failed, and the sound came out as an exhalation of air. Behind her, two guards who were standing by some open filing cabinets couldn’t help themselves, and they burst into laughter.

Mick kept his face straight. “I’m sorry, I don’t understand what’s so funny.”

“It’s just a joke, sir. Someone’s played a joke on you.”

“You mean the fella who was here before? The one who told me to ask for Inspector Longwaite?”

Saying the name again made the two guards almost crease over with laughter. One of them excused herself, leaving the reception room and exiting by a door to her left.

The sergeant nodded, her stern look completely gone now. “I’m sorry, but Nichols must have been having a jest with you. A little joke, that’s all.”

Again, Mick made sure his expression was serious. “I don’t understand. What’s the joke?”

“You know? Inspector Longwaite?”

“Yeah, that’s who the fella told me to ask for.”

“Sounds like long wait? And then he left you sitting there waiting?”

Still, Mick didn’t betray anything but perfect seriousness. “You’ll have to explain this joke again. I don’t get it.”

At this, the sergeant’s smile dropped, the change in her attitude almost instantaneous. Mick smiled inwardly. The trick never failed; if someone made a joke at your expense, one that you weren’t involved in or playing along with – a bad sport joke, in other words – all you had to do was repeatedly ask them to explain why it was funny. Put under scrutiny like that, even the best joke folded like a tent without a support pole.

It wasn’t as if Mick didn’t like a joke. He laughed like a drain at the King’s Head standup comedy nights, especially when Alec, the owner, booked a bard from Pearle to perform. He’d laughed so much he thought he might pass out.

Mick’s idea of comedy was that it shouldn’t be mean-spirited, though. You could laugh with someone, but not at them. As for pranks? Well, if you asked him, a good prank was one where the pranker and prankee were both laughing at the end. Besides, he was really stressed out and nervous today. He didn’t need this kind of messing around.

The sergeant treated him with a little more respect now, telling him, “I’m sorry, sir. What was it that you actually needed?”