Detective Nicely Strongoak and the Case of the Dead Elf (3 page)

Now, with my head stuck under Perry’s recently vacated bed, I was getting a very clear signal of ‘gold’ coming in from the nose outpost. It didn’t take me long to realise that a false wall under the bed had been crudely added and behind that must be the source of the gold. This had ‘clue’ written all over it, just as I hoped.

I do not know if I was simply distracted by the smell of treasure trove, or maybe it was the drink, or perhaps I was guilty of not yet giving the case the attention it deserved … either way, I didn’t hear the swish of the mace until the briefest of moments before it took me with it into the dark that has no name. It’s like the dark that has got a name, but it was rotten to its parents and they disowned it completely, which has made it a whole lot meaner.

A rhythm section began playing on my skull’s back door – a good solid bass thump with fast persistent beating timpani. Nothing too refined involving brushes or sticks with tapered shoulders and fancy tips, just good solid mallets that displaced thinking with a pulsing cavalcade of agony.

Carefully I opened my eyes. I was lying on my front on the rug. I tried to focus on it, but the gnomes’ handiwork just made my head spin, so I tried my sleeve instead. When that didn’t work I compromised and concentrated on my hand. As I raised it into view, a few tiny grains of sand caught the last of the evening light and fell onto the patterned flooring.

The different percussive elements at play in my noggin became identifiable: the beating was the blood returning to the pulpy spot on my head and the thumping turned into Grove’s footsteps coming up the stairs four at a time. He burst into the room.

‘Axes and blood, I thought you were gone too long!’

Grove helped me carefully to my feet. Whatever had been under the bed was long gone, as was my attacker. Grove then picked me up and carried me down the stairs, which would have been embarrassing if I could have got there any other way. As it was I didn’t complain. He put another large glass of his special gravy inside me. This made me feel, not so much better, as just rather less. A third, however, had me wanting to go hunting dragons with a fruit knife. Instead we opted to go looking for managers, as they were now suspiciously overdue.

We found him unceremoniously dumped, tied up in a storeroom, assailant unseen and unknown. A busy officious man, he wanted someone to blame. He decided I would do, which I didn’t need, so I quickly helped myself to what passes for fresh air at that time of year in the Citadel. Before I departed I pledged to keep Grove informed of my findings. Grove, in turn, said he would pull in a few favours and see if there had been any word concerning young Goodfellow’s departure. He would also try to get more information from the manager, when he was in a better mood. Grove slipped a small bottle of his special gravy into my pocket, in case the pain returned. We shook on it. He had the kind of grip that reminds you of how tree roots are supposed to be able to split stone, given the time and the inclination, but he held my calloused mitt as carefully as a first-time mother holds a baby. I felt so secure I almost burst into tears. Then again, three of those drinks will do that to anybody.

Things were beginning to buzz and the nightworms were moving when I left
The Old Inn
and hit the cobbles. Lights appeared on everything that wasn’t moving and quite a few things that were; blue elf lights of iris-popping purity, yellow dwarf lights, homely and welcoming, and red wizard lamps, glowing with hidden power and slightly sinister, like a prophet with a hard-on. And everywhere multicoloured gnome lights – instant party-time for Hill folk. Evening vendors were out early to catch those homeward bound. Spice sausage and burnt-blood pudding, cold taffies and the prince of pickles, a heady cocktail for the nose and instant indigestion for the over-stressed Citadel shuttle worker. And all mixed together with the smoke and choke of too many folks, in too little space, driving too many wagons. Representatives from every corner of Widergard: men and elves, dwarfs and gnomes, goblins and trolls, most minding their own business, some minding other people’s business and no small number looking for business.

The night-time Citadel clocking on for the summer evening shift.

The roads to Old Town were as packed as I had ever seen them. Citadel guards, in warm-weather outfits of short-sleeved tabards and dark visors, were directing traffic with the air of tired magicians, to the music of a thousand overworked steam-powered fans. I was making far better time than anyone stuck in a wagon, boilers and tempers overheating. Old Town is not actually any older than anywhere else in the Citadel, the Hill being built all of a period, as it were. It just so happens that the High Council thinks it’s a good idea to corral all the visitors and tourists into one particular area – makes it easier to get at their bulging purses. I pushed my way through rubber dragons, battle-axe keyrings and various other tasteful knick-knacks until I ended up by a small pavement inn at the corner of Twelve Trees and Mine, and it was there that I ran into the march and the reason why traffic was backing up.

Demonstrations were the big thing of that year’s election campaigns. All the major parties had been out and about, airing their views and bad haircuts. Near riots had accompanied some of the more volatile pairings as rival supporters met and clashed. This march, however, was not of that ilk. This was forged from a different metal. In front of me a new force in Citadel politics was flexing its muscles.

My progress interrupted, I got myself a glass of something dark and sticky from a roadside vendor and sat and watched the free entertainment. I could see the placards above the heads of the watching crowd, carried by members of the newly convened Citadel Alliance Party. The placards were all very neatly written, on good parchment, stretched over well-constructed frames. The message seemed to be one of co-operation and ‘getting folk together’. The majority of demonstrators, though, were men, although the leaders seemed to be Lower Elves. They’re the elves that don’t get invited to all the very best elf parties, but they still look down their collective perfectly shaped noses at the rest of the population. There were even a few dwarf brothers who should have known better. They all walked neatly by, two by two. Everyone wore the shirts of the party’s sky blue, all neatly ironed. There was no ranting and no raving and indeed an unnatural silence fell upon the normally vocal bystanders as they passed. Nobody shouted, nobody even heckled from the sidelines. The few children that cried out of turn were hushed by their mothers. The whole march passed by without an incident. This worried me more than anything else. I immediately finished my drink, and left, feeling distinctly uneasy.

The crowds began to thin and I soon found myself walking through the Wizard’s Gate, one of the huge sets of ironclad doors built into the walls that separate the different levels of the Hill. The imposing blackness of the gate and the impressive strength of the cladding had been somewhat spoilt by a scribbled legend in faded white paint informing us that ‘Bertold loves Lucer.’ I hoped that Bertold’s intrepidity had been rewarded all those years ago and that Lucer had succumbed to his charms (and climbing ability) and they were now happily living in domestic bliss in the Bay suburbs. Well, that’s assuming the wizards had not found him first and made something far less appealing out of him, of course.

I started humming the children’s skipping song:

Walls of the Citadel,

One to Ten,

One for the elves,

And one for the men,

One for the wizards,

And the Keepers of the Trees,

One for the dwarfs,

But none for the pixies.

Round and round the Hillside,

Round and round the town,

Keep them hid,

Or the walls come down.

It was a surprisingly subtle little rhyme piece, with a built-in offbeat on the pixie line deliberately contrived to lure the unwary into the twirling rope. I had never worked out why, when there were only five walls to the Citadel, the children’s song said one to ten. Still, you’re on a hiding to nothing if you go looking for the truth in children’s nursery rhymes.

My rooms are in a converted armoury on lower fifth; not particularly fashionable, not particularly smart, but very secure. In my line of business you do not wish to encourage home visits.

I waved at Bes, the watchman at the desk, and made for the lift; the effect of the Tree Friend’s gravy was wearing off. My quarters are at the very top of the building, not handy if the lift is out of action, but giving excellent access to outside space.

Being an ex-armoury, at least the place is basically of extremely sound construction with good thick walls and strong foundations. Taken together with my very own battlements, it has a lot going for it. The front door I had added myself. It is made from ironwood with riveted brass banding, to discourage those more adventurous callers. The locks are of the best dwarf construction and guaranteed to three thousand feet. Still, as I pushed the great door back, I promised myself one day I really would do something to make the place just a little more homely.

I moved one pile of papers and introduced it to another matching pile, and carried a tray of dead dishes through to the scullery. With trepidation I approached the cold box. It didn’t look great, but at least it contained something that was green in all the right places and still had enough nutrients for a body that had, after all, developed in a world largely lacking in sunlight. Sometimes this works to a dwarf’s advantage – we synthesise many of our own vital factors, which means we only have to drink fruit juice through choice (usually fermented and then distilled) and as an added bonus we don’t get many colds. Our make-up also means that we grow body hair at a rate that requires we shave at least twice a day, especially when in female company, lest you risk complaint. Furthermore, we need to take in a lot of iron. This explains some of the more, well, bloodthirsty stories you may have heard about our eating and drinking habits. Many are exaggerated, of course. Many are not.

There was also a large stash of coffee beans in the cold box, which was a relief. Coffee has an important, if not pivotal role in Nicely Strongoak’s life. In the morning I drink it white and frothy and in copious quantities. At midwatch in the day I tend to take it filtered. As the shadows lengthen I take it black and percolated. Come night it’s as dark as the pit, measured in thimbles and would stir a petrified troll. I made a double and poured out an apple brandy to accompany it.

A bit of a breeze had now picked up and, despite recent temperature extremes, out on the battlements it was about as perfect as it can be without being taxed. Feet up on a crenel, I took in the view. I watched the molten silver of the river Everflow run across the plain of Rhavona and join with the opal iridescence of the bay. Small boats struggled upstream against the tide, engines chugging and smoking, their paddle wheels making spray that caught the sun, throwing up prismatic jewels. I lit a pipe and sat musing for a while about the missing boy and his most attractive lady and must have nodded off … wakening to find a night sky and a sudden chill in the air.

I went inside to put my head down and do the sleep business properly.

I collected my wagon early the next day. It’s a racing-green Dragonette ’57 convertible; the last model with the little wings and the air-trimmed front end. Daddy’s pride and joy, with marble interior finish and leather ragtop. It did my heart good just to touch her. Sceech the grease goblin had done a good job on the shoes, and I took off in a reasonable frame of mind. I had slept pretty well and though I didn’t feel like a million crowns, well at least I didn’t look like buried treasure. Silver linings and all that.

The morning rush had yet to start and I made it round the Hill in record time. I decided to cross the Everflow at the Troll’s End Bridge. Normally I would avoid this like the plague, as it is one of the worst bottlenecks in the Greater Citadel, but as the roads were still reasonably clear I gave it a go.

The suspension bridge looked like a web spun by one of the monster spiders of legend, dew still shining on the mighty struts and wires. Traffic was building up in the other lane as I drove across the bridge that spanned the Everflow Chasm. Down below I could see the rapids where the Great Troll was said to have met his end and the massive rocks that legend dictates are his remains. As tradition requires, I spat for good luck and sailed right through without any problems. Maybe tradition has something going for it after all.

It’s always a relief to be out of the summer Citadel and the air tastes better with the ragtop down. There are still small pockets of greenery to be found and these get more common the farther from the Hill that you travel. By the time you hit the Gnada Peninsula things look pretty good. Of course, it is no coincidence that the holiday homes of the White and Wise are all found in this region; the White and Wise, and the Surf Elves too, of course. I spotted an attractive-looking provisioner’s called
Dolores
and, hungry after having missed a meal, stopped off for some warm breakbread to go with the flask of coffee I had safely stowed in the glove compartment. There was a black Battledore ’83 pulled up in the wagon-park gently letting off some steam. That was a serious beast: expensive, big, and fast enough to give my Dragonette serious competition on the straight. I’d take him on the corners, though.

I opened the door and the smell of fresh baking hit my nose in a tidal wave of scrummy. I breathed deeply and tried not to dribble – never an attractive feature in a dwarf, dribbling, even without a full beard. There was only one other customer ahead of me – a man – and, well, he did not look like the sort to be out for an early morning drive in his Battledore ’83. I nodded politely and he ignored me impolitely, refusing to make eye contact. Force of habit made me give him the once over, but between the pulled-down brim of his hat and the turned-up collar of his coat there wasn’t much to see. His posture spoke volumes, however. I don’t think I’d ever seen anybody stand that straight without artificial aids. He certainly looked like an ex-foot soldier to me. Throwing some coin onto the counter, he snatched up his purchases and left, not waiting for change. My eyes followed him as he exited, jumped into the Batttledore, gave it some steam, and headed back to the Citadel with an unpleasant squeal of tyres.

The girl serving, dressed in a fetching white apron, smiled at me and shook her head. ‘Not a local,’ she explained.

‘As long as he’s left plenty of that wonderful-smelling breakbread!’

She assured me there was plenty and I stocked up for the duration. ‘You can’t be over-provided for’, has become my motto. I paid up and, resisting the urge to nibble, got back into my wagon and carried on to the north coast.

The sun was well risen over the hills before I heard the sound of breaking surf. I drove on down a well-maintained side road and soon got my first view of the sea. This was not the South Side with its oil refineries and petrochemical works that make the Bay area unfit for bathing; this was the real thing.

Large rollers tumbled in from the Big Sea onto a shoreline that mixed large sandy beaches and small hidden coves in the most tasteful manner. Wooded slopes ran down to the shoreline from the summer homes of the councillors and other High Folk. No tent sites or holiday camps here or any of those nasty work-related activities.

Well, at least it keeps the sea clean.

I followed the directions that Liza Springwater had given to me, found the beach road and drove down it carefully, mindful of the Dragonette’s springs. I spotted some buildings with a flagpole and pulled up nearby. It was busy on the strand, even at this early hour. Plenty of boards and riders were out taking advantage of the morning swell – both elves and men, and their ladies.

I carried on driving to a less-crowded part of the beach, where one lone surfer, garbed in a canary-yellow wetsuit with a matching surf cap, was slowly paddling out past the breakwater. I parked and walked across the sand dunes. At this moment I did not want an audience; even in my lightweight linen attire I felt conspicuously overdressed.

I sat on some driftwood and admired the surfer’s dexterity. A slim figure, obviously elf, with that deceptively tough, almost impossibly willowy frame that gives them a grace many other folk envy. I’m no elf expert but from the height, around the size of a tall man, I’d guess the surfer was a Higher Elf: the Lords and Ladies of the Hidden Lands. The Lower Elves tend to fetch up a smidgen shorter, are more compact, and have much more humble origins. I’ve heard it said that somewhere there are Middle Elves, but they’re far too embarrassed about the name and don’t get out much.

The elf was dancing the full length of the board, poised between the wind and water. Despite myself, I couldn’t help but be impressed. If only the whole exercise wasn’t so, well, wet.

Suddenly the surfer was knocked off the board and didn’t appear to get up. I ran across the wet sand to the water’s edge, though I wasn’t sure what help I could offer. Fortunately I was saved any difficult decision. A yellow surf-capped head bobbed up close to the shore, further down the beach, and swam the last few strokes in to retrieve the errant board. I guess those light elfin bones make drowning almost an impossibility.

‘You all right?’ I hollered across the roar of the surf. I got a nod as the wetsuited figure picked up the board and headed in my direction.

‘Mind if I have a word, son?’

‘I can think of a few, Master Dwarf,’ replied the young elfess, taking off her surf-cap and letting her long blonde hair flow before I had a chance to correct my error.

‘Sorry, lady – my pardon. It’s a bit difficult to make such distinctions with all the surf gear on.’

This got me a stony glance from those fierce sky-blue elfin eyes. Clearly I hadn’t really clocked the way she filled the suit either. I went on anyway.

‘I was just hoping that you could help me with an enquiry concerning Surf Elves.’

The sky-blue eyes turned stormy and the knuckles of the hand holding the board turned white. It appeared I had compounded my error. This was not going well.

‘If you are another quill-stiff from the press, then the words you are looking for have existed in the common tongue since the earliest ages.’

I took a deep ozone-filled breath and sighed. ‘Look, lady, I’m no scribe, just a dwarf detective with a job to do, and a bruise on his head bigger than a troll’s wart. Now, I have said my apologies, and if you accept them gracefully, I have fresh breakbread and a flask of coffee in the wagon. So if you have not yet broken your fast, I would be delighted if you could join me.’

It was quite a speech for that time of the day, and the young elfess looked at me closely before her face broke into a grin. ‘All right, Master Dwarf Detective, glad to see you are not too big to admit your shortcomings.’

I let her have that one, it seemed only fair, and matched her grin. Together we walked back up the beach to where my Dragonette was perched like some strange mutated dune insect. I laid out a rug and she threw herself down on it.

‘So, apology accepted, Master Detective. I admit these wetsuits are not exactly flattering to the figure.’ She unzipped the front of her suit, and released the more than adequate form constrained within. I was glad she had on another bathing top underneath. Axes and blood, of course I wasn’t really.

‘I am rather hungry,’ she continued, shaking loose her hair and sending my blood singing. ‘So I will join you and your provisions. However, I am not sure whether I can be of any assistance. Contrary to appearances, I am not a subscriber to the Surf Elf philosophy.’

I mused over that one while I fetched the provisions from the wagon’s trunk. We set up breakfast on her board and for a while just munched on the light, fluffy rolls and sipped coffee, whilst we took in the ocean. I had to admit it was some sight. Sky and sea of a blue they just cannot quite replicate in house-paint colours, sand like dusted gold and gulls soaring like spirits freed from the Necromancer’s Pits, crying out thanks for their liberation … or, more precisely, just their desire for some breakfast.

‘Good breakbread,’ I said finally.

‘Yes, from
Delores
, if I’m not mistaken. Best breakbread on the Peninsula.’

‘Know the region well, do you?’

She wasn’t fooled by my mock innocence. ‘Back to work already, Master Detective?’ she said, her eyes still fixed on the ocean. ‘Don’t I even get a chance to finish breakfast?’

I looked her over surreptitiously. My work did not lead me to mix with elf folk much. My clientele was mainly at the opposite end of the social spectrum. One thing I had noticed, though, was how different, and yet how very much the same they were – especially the ladies. Some had curves that would make a tree blush, but others, well, here was this tall, fair, blue-eyed lass with pipe-cleaner arms, every bit as elf-like as some twilight enchantress. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve not got a fey fixation like so many of my kin, but neither am I made of stone. I’ve read all about those tricky scents they give off, but we’re all mortal. Or, rather, only some of us are, I reminded myself.

‘Right, sorry, your ladyship.’ I knocked the ball back into her half. ‘Let’s just finish breakfast, then I’ll go drown myself. It should be easy. We dwarfs swim almost as well as some elves surf.’

‘That last wave was just bad fortune,’ she cried, defensively. ‘If I had not been distracted by the sight of an overdressed dwarf, in a cheap linen suit, walking down the sands, I would never have lost my balance.’

‘Now that I object to,’ I said, butting in. ‘This suit is by Gaspar Halftoken, and was hand-cut by at least a dozen gnomes!’

She gave me the full-beam elf smile for the first time, and I felt something go fluttery inside. ‘Gaspar Halftoken! In that case, Master Dwarf, I am very sorry. It is a fine suit.’

‘And the name is Nicely,’ I said, handing her a card, ‘Nicely Strongoak.’ She took the card and examined it closely. Satisfied, she replied:

‘Well, I am Thelen, and I will answer your questions if you answer me one first.’

‘Fire away,’ I said.

‘Who are you working for?’

‘A young lady who has lost a boyfriend; I thought at first he had just ditched her, but now I am not so sure.’

She picked up a handful of sand and let it slip through her long graceful fingers. ‘This boyfriend, not Perry Goodfellow by any chance?’

‘The same. Did you know him?’

‘By sight and reputation. One of the best surfers around – had to be to win the Gnada Trophy.’

‘So it’s that prestigious?’

‘Sure.’ She shrugged. ‘Mind you, not everyone feels the need to enter competitions.’

‘Like you?’

She regarded me solemnly. ‘I know you have never surfed, Master Strongoak, so it is difficult to explain. Out there it’s just you and the big blue ocean. Total communion, total involvement. When I am on the board I feel free, like I imagine they felt in our ancestors’ times, when the world was still wide and the sky unbounded. That’s what it’s about, not trinkets.’

‘But Perry thought differently?’

‘I suppose he thought he had something to prove. He was very aware of the gulf that many say exists between the elves and the men of the Citadel.’

‘Go tell it to the gnomes, lady.’

‘Sure, but gnomes do not go surfing.’

‘Did anyone bother to invite them?’

‘Yes, an interesting point. That would really upset Highbury. Gnomes on his precious beach.’

‘And who is this Highbury?’

‘He is the self-appointed leader of the Surf Elves faction.’

‘Faction? I thought the Surf Elves were really just something invented by the tabard-shirt manufacturers.’

Thelen began picking up small pebbles and throwing them at a piece of driftwood, punctuating her speech with each direct hit. ‘Oh no, Master Dwarf, it’s about more than T-shirts. I would not grace it with the name of philosophy, let us just call it an attitude. An attitude of elfin elitism calculated to annoy most right-thinking members of the community.’

‘And it annoyed Perry?’

‘I am not really sure; as I said, I did not actually know him well. When he came to the Gnada and started surfing, I think at first perhaps he was flattered by the attention of the elves. It was obvious that he was a natural on the board. Later, when he started getting rather too accomplished for the likes of Highbury and his friends, he may have felt their displeasure.’

‘Would it have been enough for him to have quit the beach and run out on Liza, perhaps to prove himself elsewhere?’

‘See this board, Master Strongoak,’ she said, knocking our breakfast table and appearing to change the subject. ‘It is made of myrtle, a superb wood. It is wonderfully light, but extremely hard. It can be worked, but only by a craftsman, and in consequence it is very expensive and only the elves can afford them. Perry Goodfellow might have done a lot of things for one of these, but he would not have left his lady for a goldmine full of them. It was just not in his nature. And remember, he wasn’t the only one with something to prove.’

‘What, Highbury and the Surf Elves?’

‘Yes. The relationship soured on both sides. He had, after all, won the Gnada Trophy, and was, incidentally, the first man to do so. The Surf Elves like having followers, but they are not so keen on being on equal terms with mortals. And Highbury, well, let us say he has ambitions which encompass more than simply the sporting arena.’