Floods 5 (2 page)

In the twilight world of forensic science Grusom was indeed a legend. Not because of his formidable skills or dashing good looks or the size of his blue torch, but because of his unusual – some would even say weird – methods. Unlike other forensic investigators, who searched for clues with powerful microscopes, very small tweezers and logical deduction, Grusom favoured the Throwing-A-Handful-Of-Magic-Beans-Up-In-The-Air method. Unbelievably, this nearly always ended with him solving the case.

Many other forensic investigators tried to copy Grusom's methods, but only ended up in a Lots-Of-Beans-All-Over-The-Floor-And-Down-The-Front-Of-Their-Shirts situation. They made the mistake of using ordinary beans instead of magic beans because they didn't believe there was such a thing as magic beans – especially not ones that came in cans of tomato sauce like Grusom's did.

It was because of this unusual reputation that the headmaster of Quicklime College had particularly asked for Grusom to be assigned to the case.

‘Someone who works like that must be a wizard,' he said to the assembled teaching staff. ‘Ordinary people don't have access to magic beans, and even if they did, they wouldn't be able to read them.'

If Grusom was a wizard, he was completely unaware of it. Neither of his parents showed the slightest hint of wizardry, though his father did always say that his mum's chocolate cakes were magic. Exactly where Grusom got his supply of magic beans might be revealed later. On the other
hand, it might not.
⁵
Whenever anyone asked, Grusom would simply say that it was classified information that he was not at liberty to pass on. This sounded so true that everyone believed it and never asked him again, though among his fellow forensic investigators there was endless speculation and frequent typing of ‘where do magic beans come from' on Google.

‘We don't want anyone poking around Quicklime's with electronic paraphernalia,' said the headmaster. ‘Not with some of the sensitive equipment we have … er, well, er, hidden away.'

‘Not to mention Cornish Elmroot with that thing in his head,' said the Matron. ‘Don't forget
what happened last time – and that was just triggered by an iPod.'

‘Exactly, and it was the tiniest one of the iPods, too, with some really bad music on it,' the headmaster agreed. ‘No, far better we rely on the magic beans method. That way no one gets hurt.'

(
The thing inside Cornish Elmroot's head was a miniature nuclear power-plant, which was put there by his parents to keep in touch with their beloved nine-year-old son while he was away at school. Most witch and wizard parents could talk to their children by telepathy, but the Elmroots lived too far away. They lived in a distant galaxy, which meant that by the time their telepathic thoughts had travelled across space and reached Cornish, he would have left school, married and had three children. The planet was so far away that Cornish's parents had sent him off to school several years before he had been born, so that by the time he arrived he was five years old and ready to join the kindergarten. The nuclear power-plant speeded up the whole process so they could keep in touch in real time. The trouble was that during the journey from
his home planet to Earth, the power-plant had been damaged by a freak solar flare, making it incredibly sensitive to the slightest electrical field. In fact, it didn't even need a whole electrical field. A small electrical back garden was enough to upset it.

The iPod incident the Matron was referring to had resulted in power cuts across the whole of Patagonia and as far north as the bedside lamp in a spare bedroom two kilometres south of Buenos Aires. Since then Cornish had been made to wear a solid helmet of lead that encased his entire head. Due to the great weight of this helmet, Cornish's head was gradually being pushed down inside his shoulders. This meant the signal was growing weaker, which in turn meant it was harder to stay in touch with his parents,
who were then forced to use more and more powerful signals, which were causing all sorts of weird weather patterns on Earth, which many people mistakenly put down to global warming.
)

Apart from Cornish's nuclear power-plant, there was other electronic stuff at Quicklime's that they definitely did not want the outside world to know about. So Grusom was the only man for the job.

Now that he'd established that there was definitely a murder scene, Grusom called all the teaching staff, servants and other various characters into the school's Grate Hall. He had laid a line of magic beans across the doorway and, as each person entered, they were forced to step over the magic beans under Grusom's scrutiny. Every now and then he made someone go back over the line of beans, remove all the metal objects from their pockets and cross the line again.

Finally everyone was assembled.
⁶

Grusom cleared his throat, then asked them this question. ‘Is there anyone here who knew the deceased, Professor Randolph Open-Graves?'

Avid scanned the room with her expert eye to see who was lying. Because this was not a roomful of ordinary human beings, her expert eye began to twitch and she felt as if she had been out in the sun too long without a hat.

No one did, or if they did they were not admitting it. And if someone had known Professor Open-Graves, they were incredibly brilliant at hiding the fact, because Grusom got no feedback at all from the beans. Not one single hair on the back of his neck so much as tingled, though he did get the feeling that there was something small and hairy wriggling in his left ear, which always happened when someone nearby was keeping a
secret, or when there really was something like a cockroach or an earwig in his ear.
⁷

‘We did have a Norman Open-Graves here many years ago,' said the headmaster, ‘but it was a very long time ago, long before my time.'

‘And what, if I may ask, is your time, exactly?' said Avid.

‘Half past seven,' said the headmaster. His complete lack of hesitation did not pass Grusom unnoticed. Only someone with something to hide would have answered so quickly.

Grusom scanned the room with a pocket scanner and fed the results into his laptop. A quick analysis told him that every single person there had something to hide, even himself and his beautiful assistant. If indeed she was his assistant. Suddenly it occurred to Grusom that maybe Avid was just too perfect. He would have to keep his eye on her.

‘No one is to leave the school without my permission,' he said.

‘What about students?' said the headmaster. ‘Most of them go home every day after lessons.'

‘No one,' said Grusom.

‘Does everyone have to get permission in person from you?' asked Matron.

‘Umm, yes,' said Grusom, ‘or from my assistant.'

‘That could take hours,' said the Matron. ‘The last children wouldn't get home until after it was time to leave for school again the day after tomorrow.'

‘The parents will be furious,' said the headmaster. ‘And you must remember they're witches and wizards with some seriously awesome powers.'

‘Look, I'm investigating a murder here,' said Grusom. ‘I will not be threatened.'

‘No, you won't,' said the headmaster. ‘You'll be turned into a toad.'

‘And that's if you're lucky,' said Matron.

‘And if I'm not lucky?'

‘You'll be turned inside out.'

‘In that case,' said Grusom, ‘I have decided that I
will
be threatened and everyone under the age of sixteen may go home as normal.'

‘Some of our students are over three hundred years old,' said Matron.

‘In that case, everyone under five foot six can leave.'

‘The Worple quads – Beryl, Beryl, Beryl and Beryl – are over three metres tall and they're only nine,' said the Matron.

‘And Elanora Bedlam, the cook, is only five foot tall,' the headmaster added, ‘though she is five foot nine wide.'

‘Yes, but she doesn't go home because she lives here,' Matron added.

‘Well … well …' Grusom began. ‘Beryl, Beryl, Beryl and … Beryl? Do you mean each child has the same name?'

‘Yes, they're identical quads.'

‘But how do you tell them apart?' said Grusom.

‘We don't.'

When Grusom had been assigned to the case, it had looked pretty straightforward. Quicklime College was so remote that he assumed the murderer would still be there. All he would have to do was stop everyone leaving and question them one by one. Now he was beginning to wish he had taken the other case that had come into the office that day – the Body-In-The-Box-Of-Cornflakes Case, or, to be precise, the Body-In-Three-Hundred-And Twenty-Seven-Boxes-Of-Cornflakes Case.

‘OK, everyone can go now,' said Grusom, holding up his hand for silence. ‘Though I don't mean “go” in the sense of “go home” or “go to
another town or another valley” or …'

By the time he'd finished adding to his list of places he didn't mean, there was only him and Avid left in the room and a skinny shape lurking in the shadows that might have been a grandfather clock, but was actually a person.

‘Do you want my help?' it said.

‘And who are you?' said Grusom, turning to face a sickly looking, skinny teenager.

‘Winchflat Flood,' said Winchflat Flood.

‘Can you throw any light on the case?' said Grusom.

‘Yes,' said Winchflat, ‘I happen to know that there is someone in the school who probably knew the deceased.'

‘Who?'

‘The school cook,' said Winchflat. ‘Come with me.'

Grusom was immediately suspicious. What if this weird boy was the one who had killed the professor and he was leading Grusom into a trap – a trap that would kill him by turning him into a
bowl of vegetable soup? The boy certainly looked like someone who might know how to do that.

‘Why don't you bring the evidence to me here?' he said.

‘OK,' said Winchflat and left.

Five minutes later Winchflat reappeared carrying an enormous leather-bound book. It was obviously very, very old. It had brass corners and a brass lock that had appeared to have been forced open with a screwdriver. The leather was cracked and split and there were dozens of extra sheets of paper sticking out from between the ancient pages. This was Elanora Bedlam's cookbook, written three hundred and twenty-seven years ago by the famous witch-cook Belladonna Bedlam, Elanora's great-great-not-so-very-great-great-great-grandmother, and added to over the following generations of Bedlams.

Winchflat laid the book on the table and opened it. Riffling through some loose pages, he pulled out a fairly new sheet and handed it to Grusom.

‘Look,' he said.

‘A soup recipe,' said Grusom. ‘So what?'

‘Look closer,' said Winchflat.

Avid grabbed the sheet from her boss and read: ‘“Granny Priscilla's Red Cabbage Soup” blah di blah di blah di oh my goodness …'