Monday 21 January 2013

Snow

Waking up to a world that has become white overnight has never been overly thrilling for me. It's not because that snow is not fun to play in. In fact, last year when there was a complete white out of the city, the police department invited me to join in their city wide snowball fight. The detectives vs. the sergeants and the constables. Naturally as a private detective, I was assigned to the detectives' side, which meant that I was facing off against Fred. I took endless pleasure in pummeling him with snow for all the times he has had me arrested. Equally he took the opportunity to try and bury me in avalanches for causing him so much trouble over the years.

Most satisfying of all the detectives emerged victorious, earning me bragging rights. What I didn't know at the time was that the inspectors didn't know that the snowball fight had taken place and due to their exclusion from the battle, they banned all future such engagements.

It's not that it's cold. It's cold most of the time in my office, especially when I can't afford to pay the heating bill. It's something I have become very gradually acclimatized to and even developed a mild resistance towards it. It's not that it's wet either.

My biggest problem is that the world being white means that I stand out. The shadows are diminished by the light reflecting powder, and so my favourite places to slink around no longer exist. I dress in black, hence my moniker, but black stands out on white. Trying to hide from people trying to kill me becomes infinitely more difficult when you haven't any camouflage.

If this continues much longer I think I will have to change to being the Ivory Siren...as long as I live that long.

Saturday 12 January 2013

Hunting a Priest Killer Day 4


So having held several of the higher ups of the Snake Devils gang hostage for around seven hours before any of them thought of calling for help was not the highlight of my career. I'm not sure whether they thought I would get bored and start shooting them which would automatically raise the alarm or they just weren't at all threatened by my presence, but either way it's still a really long time to be sat in a dark, dank, back room with rough, violent men.

After seven hours I was debating whether or not just shooting them wouldn't have been a good idea, but then Sykes sent in his advanced team...and when I say advanced team, I mean overenthusiastic young boys. Three rounds in the wall was enough to send them running out the door they had boldly entered through.

Unfortunately they replied with their own gunfire. When I say unfortunately, I mean unfortunately for them...the men I was holding hostage didn't take too kindly to being shot by peons. I decided that getting in the middle of this particular gunfight probably wasn't in my best interest, so I slipped quietly out of the side door.

I would like it if one plan, just one plan, could come off without a hitch or completely falling apart.

However the seven hours I had spent with my hostages had provided me with a lot of very useful information that I should have shared with Fred but with him still wanting to arrest me, I wasn't really in the sharing mood. I need to make myself scarce though as the would be police on their way due to caring citizens not wanting the gun battle in the bar to spill out onto the street.

I needed somewhere that I could sit down and think through everything I had found out. It needed to be somewhere quiet, somewhere that people rarely visited and the last place the police would think of looking for me...