Sentence The Onehundredandthirtieth
On their return to The Grassmarket and Cowgate Cowgate Community Policing Hub, the effervescent WPC Isa Urquhart and detective Inspector Gordon Brevity were surprised to find Professor Carolina Moonbeam awaiting them: she was in a thoroughly apologetic state of mind and did neither take a seat in Brevity’s Office, nor accept a cup of coffee, for she had, she said, no time to waste: she informed them that one of her lab technicians, Simon Symms, had been restrained and arrested after
attacking her in the Staff Room and then running amok in the Lab; then, after being cautioned, he had made a quaggy statement about being overworked, underpaid and highly sexed, claiming that Professor Moonbeam was the object of his affections and desires, that he only wanted her to return them, but that he was being bullied and black-mailed by police officers continually asking him to do extra work, even through his tea-breaks, and expecting him to 'multi-task' as though he was 'just a woman, without a man'; and on investigation it seemed as though he had put aside the work on hair, blood and soil samples, which he had been told to prioritise, as they were part of the investigation into the serial-killer – who, it was believed, would prove to be the man matching his description in every regard, whom WPC Urquhart had apprehended just this morning; instead, Symms appeared to be working on the identification of a red hair which had no paperwork, and no chain-of-custody tags – no-one knew where it had come from, nor who had given it to Symms, and he, when asked about it, had started burbling but forming no words, then snarling and baring his teeth like a dog, and then shouting “bang, bang, you're dead,” as children might when playing at 'Cowboys and Indians' (in my day, added Professor Moonbeam or 'Special Forces and Taliban' now); WPC Urquhart commented that she had been concerned that the non-arrival of the awaited results might have delayed the search for the perpetrator and could certainly shed no light on the errant red hair, and DI Brevity asked if the CCTV at the lab might shed some light on it, but the Professor said glumly that the CCTV seemed to have been switched off for an hour and no-one was admitting to having done it, while all Symms had
said was that the 'Big Man' had done it, but to whom he was referring it was impossible to say – “it certainly wasn't an Act of God!” said Moonbeam, laughing bitterly, but there was no evidence available to shed any light on the matter; after she had left, Brevity suggested that perhaps WPC Urquhart – something of a dab hand in these matters, might be able to constellate something up from the CCTV outside the labs – that is, not part of the internal system; and it wasn't difficult to atend enthusiasm in the vivacious WPC so, before long, Isa called him through to the surveillance room, where she indicated some images of the car-park from a camera across the street – she excitedly pointed to the figure of Symms, easily identifiable from a full face presented as he walked across, glancing furtively around, and stood by a car seen side on; the driver was hidden by the roof, but at one point he reached across to pick up something small and shiny, “an evidence bag,” said Brevity, and the lower half of his face was visible; then he sat back in his seat and Symms appeared to take the evidence bag from him, turn, and walk back to the Lab; “that must be the one with the hair,” said Isa, rewinding to see if there was any clearer view of the driver, but there wasn't; then they watched as the car moved out of shot, and moments later saw it turn towards the exit – it's number hidden by other vehicles, before turning into the street and disappearing from view; Brevity congratulated Isa on her keen eye and suggested that she try to pick it up on street cameras in a radius of a mile from the Lab, maybe manage to see it's plates and even a head-on shot of the driver, for he was sure that she was right, though he didn't say that he was sure he recognized the driver from the brief glimpse of his lower face, and hoped that he was wrong, for if he was not, well, it hardly needed saying, the shit would really hit the fan!
On their return to The Grassmarket and Cowgate Cowgate Community Policing Hub, the effervescent WPC Isa Urquhart and detective Inspector Gordon Brevity were surprised to find Professor Carolina Moonbeam awaiting them: she was in a thoroughly apologetic state of mind and did neither take a seat in Brevity’s Office, nor accept a cup of coffee, for she had, she said, no time to waste: she informed them that one of her lab technicians, Simon Symms, had been restrained and arrested after
attacking her in the Staff Room and then running amok in the Lab; then, after being cautioned, he had made a quaggy statement about being overworked, underpaid and highly sexed, claiming that Professor Moonbeam was the object of his affections and desires, that he only wanted her to return them, but that he was being bullied and black-mailed by police officers continually asking him to do extra work, even through his tea-breaks, and expecting him to 'multi-task' as though he was 'just a woman, without a man'; and on investigation it seemed as though he had put aside the work on hair, blood and soil samples, which he had been told to prioritise, as they were part of the investigation into the serial-killer – who, it was believed, would prove to be the man matching his description in every regard, whom WPC Urquhart had apprehended just this morning; instead, Symms appeared to be working on the identification of a red hair which had no paperwork, and no chain-of-custody tags – no-one knew where it had come from, nor who had given it to Symms, and he, when asked about it, had started burbling but forming no words, then snarling and baring his teeth like a dog, and then shouting “bang, bang, you're dead,” as children might when playing at 'Cowboys and Indians' (in my day, added Professor Moonbeam or 'Special Forces and Taliban' now); WPC Urquhart commented that she had been concerned that the non-arrival of the awaited results might have delayed the search for the perpetrator and could certainly shed no light on the errant red hair, and DI Brevity asked if the CCTV at the lab might shed some light on it, but the Professor said glumly that the CCTV seemed to have been switched off for an hour and no-one was admitting to having done it, while all Symms had
said was that the 'Big Man' had done it, but to whom he was referring it was impossible to say – “it certainly wasn't an Act of God!” said Moonbeam, laughing bitterly, but there was no evidence available to shed any light on the matter; after she had left, Brevity suggested that perhaps WPC Urquhart – something of a dab hand in these matters, might be able to constellate something up from the CCTV outside the labs – that is, not part of the internal system; and it wasn't difficult to atend enthusiasm in the vivacious WPC so, before long, Isa called him through to the surveillance room, where she indicated some images of the car-park from a camera across the street – she excitedly pointed to the figure of Symms, easily identifiable from a full face presented as he walked across, glancing furtively around, and stood by a car seen side on; the driver was hidden by the roof, but at one point he reached across to pick up something small and shiny, “an evidence bag,” said Brevity, and the lower half of his face was visible; then he sat back in his seat and Symms appeared to take the evidence bag from him, turn, and walk back to the Lab; “that must be the one with the hair,” said Isa, rewinding to see if there was any clearer view of the driver, but there wasn't; then they watched as the car moved out of shot, and moments later saw it turn towards the exit – it's number hidden by other vehicles, before turning into the street and disappearing from view; Brevity congratulated Isa on her keen eye and suggested that she try to pick it up on street cameras in a radius of a mile from the Lab, maybe manage to see it's plates and even a head-on shot of the driver, for he was sure that she was right, though he didn't say that he was sure he recognized the driver from the brief glimpse of his lower face, and hoped that he was wrong, for if he was not, well, it hardly needed saying, the shit would really hit the fan!
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