Floods 5 (6 page)

The most likely and yet the most unlikely fact was that whoever killed Professor Randolf Open-Graves only touched the tips of his fingers.

In the situation where a perfect set of prints are found, they are immediately faxed or emailed to a great big secret database that has EVERYONE IN THE WHOLE WORLD'S fingerprints on it. Of course, all the major governments pretend this database doesn't exist.

‘The prints belong to a pair of twins,' said Avid when the message came back from the top secret database that doesn't exist. ‘And they are pupils at this school.'

‘Morbid and Silent Flood?' said the headmaster when Grusom confronted him in his office. ‘I doubt it.'

As far as the headmaster and most of the teachers were concerned, the Flood children were the school's star pupils. He could not believe that they could have been involved in the professor's demise. And yet history had shown that even the prettiest, nicest, best behaved, cleverest people who loved puppies and went out of their way to help old ladies across the road even when they didn't want to go, quite often turned out to be psychotic
axe-murderers. Though of course the professor did not appear to have been killed with an axe.

‘I think you're barking up the wrong tree there,' he said.

‘Absolutely,' said Satanella Flood, who was sitting under the headmaster's desk chewing her way through his shoe. ‘And if there are any trees that need barking up, that's my job.'

A dog that talks? I don't think so,
Grusom thought.
Amazing disguise, though.

‘Back to class, please, Satanella Flood,' said the headmaster as Satanella's chewing reached his toe. She trotted reluctantly out of the room.

Grusom put two and two together and got five. Five Flood children. Five suspects. Merlinmary had kidnapped him in the catacombs.
²³
Creepy Winchflat Flood had brought him Elanora Bedlam's cookbook. These twins, Morbid and Silent, must have had access to the body. And now
a girl pretending to be a dog. Obviously the whole family was involved.

On the other hand, if the professor had been murdered eleven times it would mean each of the Flood children at Quicklime College had killed him twice, with one left over. Unless they all killed him two-and-one-fifths times each.

If Grusom had a weak link – and if the truth be known, his entire brain was held together with weak links – it was that he was rubbish at mathematics, like most incredibly clever people are. That's why calculators were invented by someone incredibly clever.

The headmaster sent for the deputy headmaster, who, being a vampire, could only come out after dark or he would melt. As most of the children went home before it got dark, he did not seem the ideal candidate for the job. He had, however, sucked the blood out of all the other candidates and was therefore judged to be the perfect candidate for the job. The school genius, Winchflat, had solved the problem with a brilliant invention, a special paper
bag that the deputy wore over his head to protect him from even the brightest sunlight.
²⁴

‘Normally, headmaster,' the deputy said, ‘I would agree with you completely. I have found the Floods to be upright citizens, who always live by the magic code of witchcraft, which as you know includes clause three, sub-section eight, which says that no witch or wizard may ever cause any harm to a Belgian professor.'

‘Exactly,' nodded the headmaster.

‘However,' the deputy continued, ‘on the night the professor died, at the naughty hour of 3.13 am I saw all five of the Flood students out the back of the school, past the carnivorous nettle patch, by the very edge of the Dark Forest … and they were digging a deep hole.'

‘But the professor wasn't buried in a hole,' said the headmaster.

‘He might have been,' said Grusom, ‘and then got dug up again.'

This was such a ridiculous statement that no one could think of a response to it.

‘Or,' Grusom continued, ‘they were digging a tunnel to escape from the valley.'

Once again, everyone was speechless.

‘Or they were planting some magic bulbs to grow a new professor to replace the one they had killed.'

This time, in addition to being speechless, everyone began wondering where Matron kept the straightjackets and if the padded cell was available.

At that moment Avid opened the door and
interrupted their meeting. ‘Phone call for you, boss.'

‘This does not add up,' Grusom said to the headmaster. ‘I want you to give us photos of all the Flood children. We must get wanted posters made immediately. '

He stormed out of the headmaster's office and followed Avid back to the attic lab. She handed him the phone.

‘Hello,' said the voice on the other end.

‘Hello,' Grusom replied.

‘Exactly.'

‘What?'

‘Tuesday,' said the Belgian Police.

It was a very bad phone line, made worse by the fact that it was being tapped not just with a hot tap, but a cold tap and shower mixer too, which made it almost impossible to hear what anyone was saying.

‘Will you stop that tapping? I can hardly hear a thing,' said Grusom.

‘Sorry,' said Avid. ‘Old habit.'

‘We have contacted Professor Randolf Open-
Graves's place of employment,' said the Belgian Police, ‘and they say they have never heard of him.'

‘Maybe he works somewhere else?' said Grusom.

‘We tried there too. They said they have never heard of him either, but they did tell us something that might be of use.'

‘Yes?'

‘The professor who they have never heard of and who has no living relatives is currently sitting in the Café Max in the town square of Bruges, drinking coffee and eating after-dinner mints.'
²⁵

‘At this time of day?' said Grusom. ‘You're telling me the professor who everyone says they've never heard of is having dinner less than an hour after lunch? I find that very hard to believe.'

‘It's eight o'clock in the evening over here,' said the Belgian Police.

‘Well, really, I find that hard to believe too.'

This strange conversation went round and round and sideways for another forty-seven minutes and ended when the Belgian Police asked Grusom if he could send them an autographed photo of himself holding his blue torch.

‘Colour or black and white? Front or side view?' said Grusom.

‘Umm, err,' said the Belgian Police.

‘I know. It's a difficult decision. I tell you what, I'll send you ten of each.'

Grusom never went anywhere without his ‘Special Suitcase'. People assumed it was full of top-secret scientific FSI equipment. It wasn't. It was packed solid with hundreds of photos of Grusom in various exciting poses. It had taken him so long to sign them all that he had ended up with his arm in a sling from excessive wrist strain.

‘But the professor does have at least one living relative,' said Avid after Grusom had hung up. ‘That crazy cook lady.'

‘Not to mention the photo in his wallet of
that group of eighty-seven Belgian people with “My loving family” written on the back,' said Grusom. ‘And we know it was the professor's handwriting because of the other piece of paper in his wallet that had “This is a sample of my handwriting, signed Professor Randolf Open-Graves” written on it.'

‘They could both be forgeries,' Avid suggested.

‘You know,' said Grusom in one of his brilliant flashes of Being Very Clever, ‘I'm beginning to wonder if the whole professor is a forgery.'

While he picked out three dozen more little tiny bits of mysterious stuff from beneath the professor's fingernails – thirty-five of which turned out to be bits of fingernail – Avid continued her search of the dead man's clothing.

‘Look, boss,' she said. ‘I think I might have a fresh lead.'

‘What?'

‘It was in the professor's left pocket,' she said, holding it up.

‘Yes, very funny. FSI joke number 83,' said Grusom. ‘A dog lead. I suppose you've checked it for prints?'

‘Yes. It's covered in them, and also dog dribble – that's chock full of DNA!' said Avid. Forensic investigators were always excited by DNA, though it had delayed Grusom's promotion for many years, until someone told him it was not an abbreviation for Do Not Answer. ‘And there's a dog tag with the initials SF on it.'

‘So the professor had a dog,' said Grusom. ‘I didn't see a dog hanging round the dead body. Did
you see a dog? No. So I think we can assume the professor left his dog behind in Belgium.'

‘If it
is
the professor's lead,' said Avid. ‘It could be a plant.'

‘You're not doing FSI joke number 127, are you?' said Grusom. ‘The one where I say, “What grows when you plant a lead?” Then you say, “I don't know. What grows when you plant a lead?” And then I say, “Dogwood”.'

‘No, no, I'm not,' said Avid. ‘It's a good joke, though, isn't it?'

‘Only the first eighty-five times,' said Grusom.

‘Well, I've never heard it before and I think it's really funny, especially the way you told it,' said Avid. ‘But no, I wasn't doing an FSI joke. The lead really could be a plant.'

Grusom bit his lip and gritted his teeth, but he couldn't stop himself. In all his years in forensic medicine he had never once had the chance to tell FSI joke number 232. It was legendary, its creation lost in the mists of time. It was the Nobel Prize of jokes, the Oscar. All forensic investigators knew
it, and all dreamed of the unimaginable day they would have the opportunity to say it.

Grusom pointed to the pot of geraniums sitting on the windowsill and said it.

‘Or the plant could be a lead!'

The two sensible, mature, highly trained
forensic scientists collapsed on the floor in stitches.
²⁶
They laughed until every muscle in their bodies ached. They wept until they were dehydrated and still they couldn't stop laughing.

Through it all Avid realised that Grusom was the true love of her life. No other man would ever
be able to make her laugh like that again, not even if he managed to use FSI joke number 13 which, of course, was impossible as the chances of getting an elephant, a bowl of custard and seventeen Welsh-speaking Princes called Charles in the same place at the same time were 987 billion trillion to one. Grusom, too, knew that Avid was the true love of his life for, no matter what happened between that moment and the day he died, nothing could ever bring him as close to anyone as FSI joke number 232 had brought him to her.

As they lay exhausted and helpless on the floor, trying and failing to stop laughing, an almost invisible creature appeared just above them on the examination table. It lifted up the corpse of Professor Randolf Open-Graves and the two of them vanished.

By the time Grusom and Avid had regained control of themselves and changed their underwear, it was dark outside. The laboratory was even darker as whoever or whatever had taken the dead body had also taken the light bulb. Strangely, they
seemed to have stolen the geranium too. Grusom grabbed his Big Blue FSI Torch and switched it on. Maybe the thief had left a secret stain on the floor. Criminals were famous for leaving incriminating stains. It was one of the things that kept getting them caught.

‘Oh my G–'

He fainted.

Whoever had stolen the dead professor and the light bulb and the plant had committed an unspeakable, unforgivable sin, an act of pure evil that attacked the basic laws of science and was worse than any murder.