Shadows of Valderia: An Urban Fantasy Detective Noir

13

As they approached the particular RatHole that had shielded Benny from everything other than a big pointy blade, Ridley’s eyes became glued to the ground. His head slowly swept back and forth, his eyes scanning everything with the minutest detail.

“Nothing,” Ridley muttered, having crept in a silence all the way up the stairs of the RatHole Nairo had made her way up only hours before.

Nairo had stopped looking for clues and had begun watching him. In that thick, musty silence, she could have sworn she heard the heavy clunk of his brain ticking over. When they reached Benny's flat the door was open, some blue painted rope hung across the entrance with not a soul in sight.

“Hello? Sargent Nairo here!” Nairo stepped cautiously over the rope.

Ridley held back, respectful of the fact the last time she had walked into that room there had been a giant Goblin and a dead body. When her head had remained on her body for a good ten seconds, Ridley followed her in. Nairo held a finger up to her lips, body crouched and ready to spring, as she pointed towards a figure slumped in the corner.

“Is he…?” Ridley whispered.

Nairo shrugged and crept carefully towards the body. Her expression changed suddenly and she stood up and kicked the slumped figure.

“Zarb you lazy bag of sheets! On yer feet!” Nairo barked at the snoozing officer in her best drill sergeant voice.

The tuft eared HobGoblin, remarkably, sprung from a peaceful slumber to fully upright, saluting furiously in the blink of an eye.

“M… maam,’ he mumbled thickly, frantically scrubbing sleep from his eyes. He stood there quivering, his baggy green skin jiggled, even the hairy tuft on his ears wiggled nervously.

“Zarb you useless glow wyrm, you were put here remain on guard… awake!'' Nairo knew she shouldn’t, but after the day she had had, she relished the catharsis of yelling at someone trained to be berated by officers.

“Err… well I was ma’am…” he spluttered, still standing completely to attention, salute picture perfect, fingers glued to his forehead.

“You were awake with your eyes closed?”

“Yes ma'am. I was taking a tactical period of inactivity to ensure maximum energy and awareness should I be called upon to enforce the letter of the law.” He kept his eyes just a fraction above Nairo’s head, voice even and monotone.

The silence stretched as they both waited for the other to break. A snigger from Ridley conceded the battle on behalf of Nairo.

“Ridley!” she snapped.

“What?” he said. “That’s some impressive bullshit to pull out your ass seconds after you’ve been caught napping on the job.” He shook his head, shoulders bobbing in silent laughter.

“Ma’am?”

“At ease, Zarb,” Nairo waved him away and returned her attention to Ridley. He had taken his hat off and was currently hugging the wall closest to the door. She left him to it, assuming it wasn’t worth asking.

“Err, alchemists have already been in ma’am, said it was more’n likely a murder,” Zarb told her, shuffling from foot to foot awkwardly, trying not to stare at the dishevelled blood covered PI on his hands and knees scrutinising a squeaky floorboard.

“Just a routine inspection,” Nairo answered, half paying attention.

She was trying to focus on the image of the murder scene in her mind, finding a lack of space between the dull throb of pain and the ache of tiredness. She rubbed at her itchy eyes, opening them to see Benny laying slumped in his dingy white vest. His scaly skin was the mottled grey of the Krooa tribes of Goblins, noticeable for their more gangly appearance and tall Doberman-like ears. The table was a lake of congealed browning blood. The viscous liquid oozed off the table, dripping a melancholic rhythm in the quiet room.

“When do you think Benny was clipped?” Ridley asked her as he shuffled across the floor, running his fingers through the stained carpet.

“Are you buying what the Goblin said about finding Benny already dead?”

“I dunno. It fits. The body was already cooling. No way that was a fresh kill. And what kind of murderer just hangs about after doing the deed?”

“He could have been waiting for someone. Maybe they were going to dispose of the body.”

“Maybe.” Ridley was now tracing a finger across the skirting boards, searching for something. “But for hours? That seems pretty amateurish for the Kith.”

“Well, we can at least place the window of his murder,” Nairo said, tiptoeing around the puddle of blood and examining where Benny had been sitting. “Sarita said she had been with Benny until sunrise.”

“Well done Sarge, didn’t even have to look at your notepad,” he said, but his usual venomous sarcasm was half hearted, his mouth working while his mind left them both behind. He padded around the room, eyes unfocussed, concentrating on nothing in particular while swallowing every detail around him.

“Sarita is the last person we know that saw Benny alive. But how do we know he was still alive when she left? She’s not exactly a trustworthy source of information,” Nairo asked, thinking aloud.

“Benny was a burner,” Ridley murmured, barely loud enough for her to hear. “No one ever told him not to burn his earn. Most likely him and Sarita got high, why else would a leech like her be hanging round with a thug like Benny?”

“I didn’t see any burn marks around his lips,” Nairo said as she examined the wall behind the murder scene.

“He was a cutter,” Ridley muttered. “They slice the skin, pack the wound with heated burn, hence the small cuts on his arms. It takes longer to kick in but doesn’t leave signs till a lot deeper into the addiction, usually when the scabs turn green and become weeping sores. No way Benny could risk smoking, Uncle Sam looks down on that kinda thing.”

“So how do you know his time of death then?”

“He was sitting down to breakfast, had eggs on the cooker, burners can't eat for at least an hour. Matter of fact they ain’t coherent enough to take a piss let alone start cooking.” He had finally reached one corner of the dilapidated room and had now begun working his way past the windows, stopping to glare at Zarb till the gangly HobGoblin gulped and hopped out of his way like a scalded dog.

“Look at this,” Nairo said, pointing at the wall.

“What?”

“The blood spray.”

Ridley looked up and saw that Nairo was pointing an arc of splattered blood behind Benny.

“I’ve never seen a slashed throat bleed like that,” Ridley mused.

“It doesn’t make sense,” Nairo said. “Benny was slumped across the table, like he had been sitting when he was killed.” Nairo walked around the gore soaked table, recreating the scene in her mind. “Someone would have had to walk up behind him and cut his throat.”

Nairo pulled the chair out that Benny had been sitting on. With a full grown lug like Benny in it, there was barely enough room behind the chair for someone to squeeze through, let alone sneak up on him.

“High as a kite or not, no one’s getting the drop on a life long hitter like Benny,” Ridley said.

“How could they? Unless they melted through the wall.” To make sure, Nairo rapped her knuckles on the solid brickwork behind the chair. “And this blood splatter implies… an incredible amount of force.”

“Benny’s head was hanging on by a thread.”

“Oh gosh,” Zarb muttered, rubbing his stomach, looking more green than usual.

“Suck it up officer, don’t you dare contaminate my crime scene with your sick.”

“No ma’am, promise I'll chuck up out the window.”

Nairo turned her attention back to the blood spatters. Something else was bothering her but she couldn’t put her finger on it.

“Could the killer have attacked from the front?”

“How?” Ridley replied.

“I don’t know,” Nairo said, chewing on her lip. “What kind of weapon would simultaneously carve a creature's throat up like that and cause that sort of blood spray.”

“S’cuse me sir, I need the window.”

“I’ve not seen a blade wound like that before,” Ridley said, stepping aside so the stricken HobGoblin could run past him.

Nairo and Ridley stared at the blood splattered wall to the musical accompaniment of Zarb chucking up his lunch.

“Oh dear,” Zarb groaned.

“Don’t worry mate, better out than in,” Ridley said absentmindedly.

“Maybe it was an axe?” Nairo said.

“Must have been a great big bloody axe.”

“Goblin criminals are known to use obsidian hatchets aren’t they?”

“True. But the whole point of obsidian is that they aren’t good at killing, just maiming.”

“What did Conway say about different kinds of Diamonds?”

“That some contain Magicks,” Ridley replied.

“Could a spell blast a hole in someone like that?”

“I don’t know… but if it could then that’s the evidence we need that the Diamond was here!” Ridley said excitedly. “Has your inside man come back to yet about viewing the body?”

“Not yet, I’m still waiting to hear back.”

“We need to see that body Sarge… What’s that?” Ridley snapped at Zarb who had returned wiping his mouth with some scrunched up paper that had bright blue ink scrawled all over it.

“It’s me, Zarb.”

“Didn’t expect you to have such a delicate constitution, corporal.”

“S’not that ma’am,” Zarb gurgled from the window.

“Ate something funny?” Ridley asked, still inspecting the blood spatter, swinging an imaginary axe at imaginary Benny’s throat.

“It looked good,” Zard moaned. “But I guess that’s why you shouldn’t eat grub you find in a crime scene.”

“What?” Nairo said sharply.

“There was some leftover steakfish and I hadn’t eaten since breakfast…”

“Steakfish?” Ridley perked up, forgetting about the crime scene for a moment. “Is there any left?”

“Ridley!”

“What! I haven’t had steakfish in months.”

“Neither have I but…” Nairo stopped and pondered for a moment. “Matter of fact, no one has. Where would Benny get steakfish from?”

“Goblins are elbow deep in bootlegging grub,” Ridley said.

“I didn’t think Benny was much of a chef,” Nairo said, looking around the grotty, burn stained kitchen.

“Oh no ma’am, this is the good stuff. From Garvoire’s!” Zarb said with a dreamy smile.

“What? How do you know?”

“Got a receipt in the bag.”

Ridley pushed Zarb out of the way and made a beeline for the takeout bag.

“Relax Ridley, it’s only…”

Without looking at Nairo he extended an open hand expectantly.

“What?”

“Pencil.”

“You’re telling me with all those pockets you don’t have a pencil?”

“Don’t have any paper,” came the blunt response.

“What?”

“Don’t have any paper, why would I have a pencil?”

“He’s not wrong ma’am.”

Nairo sighed and rubbed her tired eyes.

“Give it to him, Zarb.”

“Think I just did, ma’am.”

“A pencil Zarb. Give him your damn pencil!” she kept her voice carefully even, feeling the pressure rising behind her eyes.

“Oh right.” Zarb pulled out a freshly sharpened pencil, never used, and handed it over.

Ridley poked around in the bag, even the stale smell of the food made Nairo’s stomach growl and her mouth flooded with saliva. Finally, Ridley found what he was looking for. He skewered a scrunched up wad of paper and brought it over to the least fouled surface he could find. Carefully, he laid out the paper and then used the pencil to unfurl the paper. His tongue worked side to side like a confused dog as he inspected it, before dramatically magicking a sealed evidence bag from his coat.

“You don’t have a pencil but you have an evidence bag?” Nairo threw her arms up in exasperation.

“Like evidence. Don’t like writing.” He had dropped into monotone responses, mouth moving, mind whirring. Nairo gave up, it was no fun antagonising him like this.

“Yer man was right,” Ridley said. “This receipt’s from Garvoire’s.”

“Garvoire’s? That fancy place by Mulway street?”

“Yeah.”

“I thought all those restaurants were shut down due to the food crisis. Didn’t the Mayor place heavy levies on anyone operating a restaurant?”

“Since when has Government intervention actually worked?” Ridley snorted. “Most places were driven underground.”

“I thought that was just an urban myth.”

“Corse you did, you’re a copper. No one’s gonna tell you about ‘em. They’re operating all over the city anywhere they can stay out of sight. Dock warehouses, homes, shop fronts, I’ve even heard of one in a dog kennel, although I wouldn’t trust the meat there.”

“Oh gosh,” Zarb grabbed at his gurgling stomach again.

“Wait, when is that receipt from?” Nairo asked.

“Yesterday.” Ridley grinned at her. “And I’m betting a goon like Benny doesn’t eat at a place this pricey...”

“Unless he’s celebrating something! You don’t think he went there after the bank was robbed?” Nairo said excitedly.

“It would still be open.”

“This could be the missing piece of the puzzle! There will be eye witnesses! They could tell us if there was someone with him or he might have said something…”

“I wouldn’t be too keen ma’am,” Zarb interrupted.

“What? Why not?”

“Them places have become proper hangouts for… Faces,” Zarb whispered the word, looking left and right like he might be attacked any moment. “Villains of all sorts frequent them underground eats. They’re the only ones that can afford to go there and word in the community is some real nasty Kith love Garvoire’s. Some real inner circle types. It’s not the kind of place you go asking questions.”

“How inner circle?” Ridley asked.

“Real inner.”

“Uncle Sam himself?”

Zarb blanched at the mention of the name.

“No no… Uncle Sam don’t do nothing so extravagant, he’s proper Goblin, old school. Don’t believe in all that fancy flavour and expensive cuisine.”

Nairo didn’t miss the hint of pride in Zarb’s voice as he spoke about one of the most notorious villains in the whole city.

“But the younger generations do. It’s become like bragging rights. How much they paid for a lamb shank and all that. Prices would make your eyes water.”

“Rufi?”

Again Zarb blanched, and he threw a quick look over his shoulder. When he was sure the shadows weren’t going to hatchet him to death he turned back to Ridley and gave a single nod.

“Least, that’s what the boys in Goblin Town say.”

Ridley considered this for a moment before looking at Nairo.

“It’s worth trying.”

“If we just poke around and maybe we can find someone who’s willing to talk,” Nairo said.

“You sure, ma’am? Rufi’s making quite a villainous name for hisself. Becoming a real Face around the place.”

“I’d heard,” Ridley said.

“We are talking about Ruf’gar Chaw’drak, Sam’sun’s nephew?” Nairo asked.

Ridley nodded.

“The crown prince of the criminal empire.”

“Do you think he’s going to be there tonight?” Nairo said.

“Only one way to find out,” Ridley said with a smirk on his face. “And I know just where the restaurant is.”

“Good. I’m starving.”