33

The Observation skill tree, according to his Starter Sleuthing book, involved two different types of observation: persistence during lengthy stakeouts, and attention to minute details at crime scenes.

‘The Starter Sleuth is advised to buy a flask that will keep coffee hot, and to never leave for a stakeout without packing a sandwich,’ read a helpful tip in Starter Sleuthing.

Mick decided that he should hold up his end of the deal with Flo Anderson. Early one morning, he got up and completed his usual run while it was still dark. After a quick breakfast of buttered toast, he made his way to the east of town, where Flo’s house sat in the early gloom, with no sign of the sun lighting over her roof slates just yet.

He positioned himself on a waist high cobbled stone wall just across from Flo’s street, and he sat there sipping coffee from the flask he’d bought from Joe Phillips’ store.

Soon enough Rodney Franks, Sunhampton’s only milkman, appeared, riding his cart that was stacked end to end with jars of milk and orange juice. A lone, brown-spotted mule pulled the vehicle, while Rodney’s young helper, a teenager named Jonas Clyde, was standing on a step that stuck out of the back of the cart like a lip, clinging onto the roof to stop from falling off while they moved. Rodney whistled under his breath. Not loud, given the time of day, but enough so Mick could just about make out the sound, if not the tune.

“Here,” said Rodney in a clipped voice. The mule stopped walking. Rodney hopped down off the cart and placed milk bottles down on Flo’s doorstep. Three of them. Full fat, judging by the color of the caps. Mick was very aware of milk bottle cap colors, because Ma wasn’t allowed much fatty food anymore, and her favorite milk had been the first victim of her diet. It hadn’t stopped there, though. No more lumps of cheese before bed, no more thick gravy with her Sunday roasts.

After tying his bootlace, Rodney hopped back onto his cart and urged his mule on, heading down the road a little before stopping at a house three doors away.

Alright, thought Mick. The bottles are in place, now I just need to see what’s messing with them.

Subtlety was needed now that the trap was set, so Mick climbed over the cobbled wall and ducked down on the other side of it, out of sight. Kneeling behind the stone, he poked his head out just enough so he could see Flo’s front door. And then he waited.

And waited.

And waited some more.

Daylight broke over Sunhampton like old age, arriving in increments so small you didn’t really notice them. Then, before you knew it everything was changed; the sky was bluer than a sea of bluebells and the birds were singing melodies only they knew. A few houses down the road, a door opened and Headmistress Penelope stepped out of it, dressed in her prim, plum-colored suit and holding her satchel in her right hand, setting off for another day at Sunhampton school. From somewhere distant, maybe a few streets over, came the sound of someone hammering on something.

Mick’s knees were hurting from kneeling down for so long behind the wall, and he didn’t know how long he could stay put. How sleuths did this so often, he had no idea. Maybe they all had top class stretching regimes. He was about to stand up, when Flo’s front door opened and Flo, dressed in a fluffy gown, appeared. After a quick glance left and right, she kneeled down to pick up her milk bottles.

Mick climbed over the wall and approached her. “Hey, Flo. Don’t think our mystery cap-stealer showed today,” he said. “I could come back tomorrow.”

Flo held a bottle so he could see it. Their metal caps were gone. “Oh really, sparrow?”

“This doesn’t make a lick of sense. I was watching the whole time from when Rodney put the bottles down to now, and nobody went near your front door. I swear on my honor.”

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“I don’t know what to say, Mick. I just don’t. All I want is my cereal in the morning. Is that too much to ask? Martha says I should use the milk anyway, but who knows what’s been done to it, with the cap missing?”

“Leave it with me,” said Mick. “I’m not quitting yet. Mulroons don’t quit, and I’m a Mulroon through and through.”

This being a Monday morning, Mick had to leave town and walk to Perentee, where he had another case to attend to. He was joined for the walk there by Chris Crier, who worked in Perentee as their town crier.

Chris was a nice lad. He had a big appetite, or at least he used to before he started dieting, and he enjoyed beer and a singsong at the tavern. A generous sort of fella, too. If you needed a hand with something, he was the guy you’d ask. He was best friends with Lewis Cooper, and he’d moved into a cottage with Paisley Porter not long ago. Mick didn’t know him all that well, but what he did know about him, he liked.

“Flapjack?” said Chris, taking two out of his pocket and offering him one.

“Thank you kindly.”

“Don’t usually see you out this way, Mick.”

“Got business in Perentee. Guard business. Well, sleuth business, actually.”

Chris arched his eyebrow. “Oh?”

“Yup. Apparently there’s…hold on a second. Whatever I tell you, you’re going to go blabbing in town, aren’t you?”

Chris shrugged. “I am a town crier. Part of the job is having news to tell people.”

He had to watch out for this kind of thing. Starter Sleuthing had said so. Sleuths, detectives, inspectors, they had to be careful about what they said to town criers and journalists, unless they wanted details of their cases spread throughout Easterly. Sometimes it could be useful, say if you wanted to appeal for witnesses or information. In that respect, it paid to have good relations with the press. For cases like the mysterious carriage, though, discretion was needed.

“How’s your new house, anyway?” he said, changing the subject.

“Ah, okay. You mind your secrets, then, Mick. I won’t pry. The house is great. Can’t decide on the color for the living room walls, though. I keep going back and forth. Ocean blue or lobster red. Pais doesn’t care. She said I can paint it black, for all she minds.”

Mick got to Perentee for nine thirty, which made him early since the carriage supposedly showed up at eleven on the dot. To pass time, he found a bench in the town plaza, poured himself another cup of coffee from his flask, and took out his notepad to review his case.

Where does the Black Carriage Go?

There’s a carriage that parks up on the outskirts of Perentee every Monday. It’s there for exactly one hour, and nobody gets on it or leaves it. Why’s it coming here, and where does it go?

This case had come from Alderman Woot, assistant to the mayor of Perentee. Ald had been in Sunhampton shopping for a new case for his cello, when he’d spotted Mick handing out fliers. Mick had already noticed Ald before the man came to say hello; it was hard not to, what with the poultice he wore on his bald head, kept in place by see-through wrapping. It was for the skin on his scalp. It was very sensitive.

“Mysteries, eh?” Ald had said to Mick, studying the flyer. “As it happens, there is something bugging me. But I can’t do anything in my official capacity. Nor can Mayor Foster.”

Ald explained how they’d noticed the black wagon showing up in the forest west of town like clockwork, and how they didn’t like it.

“Nothing illegal about a wagon,” said Mick.

“Come on, Mr. Mulroon,” he said, adjusting his head poultice wrapping. “It arrives the same time every week, and just sits there for an hour. Is that normal? I don’t think so.”

“Again, nothing illegal about that.”

“Well, we don’t like it. Only, Mayor Foster was elected less for his own virtues, if you’ll excuse my candor, and more because he promised not to breathe down people’s necks like Mayor Washering used to. That’s why we can’t just go asking the wagon driver what they’re doing. Anything that smells like mayoral interference, we have to steer clear of.”

“Carriage driver,” said Mick. “You said it was a carriage, not a wagon.”

“They’re the same thing.”

Mick thought about Inspector Sammy Lee in her scrapyard. His mentor, at least officially. Not that Sammy had done much other than put her name on a form and loan him an old book.

“Carriages are much fancier than wagons, Ald, and they’re used by different people, for different purposes. So it’s very pertinent, if you want to know what they’re up to.”

“All we need to know is that the wagon isn’t doing anything dodgy,” Ald had told Mick. “If it ain’t illegal, we don’t mind.”

“Tell me more about it,” Mick had said, pen ready.

“Not much to say. Turns up in the forest near town every Monday, same time. Stays there one hour, then goes. Nobody leaves it, not a single soul approaches it.”

“That does sound peculiar. Still not saying they’re doing anything illegal, mind.”

“Well, as you said, there’s peculiar, and there’s illegal. I just want to rule out the second. If all it’s doing is sitting there being strange, then we’ll leave it alone.”