Chapter 8
The Office
Neil pulled up at the wrought iron gates of the Norman Shaw buildings and looked round. The incredible Romanesque style redbrick and Portland stone construction curved on every corner, hugging the road beyond.
As he stopped at the security station, Big Ben chimed ten, diverting his attention to the Palace of Westminster sat no more than a few hundred meters away. This building, Artimus’ office, was an extension of his country’s parliament buildings.
It was insane to think Artimus was located here. This was government property, and some of the most secure land in the country. This was not a drunkard’s playground.
A sub-machinegun toting officer walked over to the car, and Neil found a frailty in his voice as he responded to the reasons for his presence. “I’m here to visit Artimus Crane?”
The officer looked at Neil and then nodded to the booth. “I need to see your identification sir.” he said, still holding his weapon in both hands and standing a few feet from the car.
Neil removed his police ID and the passport Artimus’ note said would be required and held them up, as a flash made him squint.
The officer turned to his colleague in the booth who held up a thumb. “Your allocated space is at the end on the left. The wall is marked with your name Officer Townsend. Here is your ID for use on any further visits. Access will not be granted without it from now on. Artimus is in room three-seventeen. Your entrance will be on your left just after the row you are parked on.”
Neil drove down the slight ramp away from the barrier, skirting the far edge of the building on his left, and found his parking space. Sandwiched between a brand new Bentley and the car of the Secretary of State for Health, he cautiously exited his vehicle and closed the door.
Walking down toward the entrance, he found himself glancing at the nameplates attached to the wall in front of each bay. The Minister of State for Employment, the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, the Chancellor of the Exchequer; his humble car was in some very serious company.
Reaching a noble arch with a security point beyond, Neil presented his pass to a scanner, the machine dutifully blinking green, as the door opened.
Stepping inside and allowing another machinegun-carrying officer to pat him down, he passed through a metal detector and down a long corridor.
At the termination point, he picked up a sign for office three-seventeen, and followed the markers to a set of marble-coated stairs that led into the bowels of the structure.
Descending two flights through sterile white-walled corridors, he eventually reached a pair of oaken doors in the underbelly of the building.
Checking the door was correct one last time, he neatened his appearance and strode inside.
The room beyond was nothing like the blank slate of corridors seen before. It was immense. Above, a vaulted ceiling of interlocking bricks showed this was once a cellar of some kind. The rich, slightly dry scent of old parchment clung to the air and rows of tall wooden cabinets loaded down with case files to his right stretched far into the distance.
To his left, only a short distance from the door, a long bench was layered with scattered papers in an irritating mass of untidiness, and a pair of leather recliners, all red leather and studs, sat before them. On the wall above the mess, three poster-sized sheets of paper had been pinned to a massive board, images and notes linked with differing colours of cord dotted about on their surfaces.
As Neil scanned the assortment lining the bench, his view took him to an open bottle of scotch next to a half-full ashtray, ice bucket, and an array of assorted tumblers.
“Feel free to light up and pour yourself a morning snifter if you’d like Neil,” said Artimus, emerging from behind one of the cabinets.
Neil glanced from Artimus to the desk, blinking hard to clear his thoughts. “You are allowed to drink and smoke down here?”
Artimus deposited the files he was carrying on the desk, peering quizzically and shaking his head, his mouth contorted at the edges slightly as if asked the most stupid question in the world. “Why on Earth would you not be able to?”
“Because it’s against the law?”
“Oh my dear fellow!” said Artimus, chuckling. “The laws, if indeed that is the correct descriptor for them, which hinder the choices of layfolk are not imposed down here. You may do and act as you wish.” He poured a large drink, plopping two chunks of ice into it and swirling the glass gently before proffering it up. “Please, I insist.”
“I’m on duty.” said Neil, folding his arms across his chest.
“God lord!” baulked Artimus, retracting his arm and downing the drink in one swig. “Be a prude then. See if I care.”
Artimus moved to one of the chairs and flopped into it, shuffling uncomfortably as he adjusted his heavy tweed trousers.
“Are we likely to be doing any work today?” asked Neil, his tolerance for working in this manner already stretched as far as it would go.
“I’ve been working on our case since four this morning.” stated Artimus, coldly. “What’s your excuse?”
“You told me to be here for ten! That’s probably the best reason I have right now.” said Neil, his irritation at every new sentence Artimus came out with jangling his nerves even further. “Although, if you give me a few minutes, I’m sure I could re-envisage the question and give you even more reasons why you’re being a self-indulgent arsehole.”
Artimus broke out into bellowed laughter, slapping the desk with his palm and measuring out another hearty glass of scotch. “You and I are going to get along just fine Neil.” He pushed the other chair toward Neil with his foot, motioning for him to sit. “And to think, Bancombe was worried you wouldn’t have the balls to deal with my shit.”
“I have the balls,” said Neil, taking the seat. “I’m just unsure about my patience levels.”
Artimus nodded, not responding further. Taking the files he brought to the table, he began to search through the table’s papers until he found another. Binding the two together with an elastic band, he placed them atop a pile underneath the furthest right of the three sheets pinned to the wall.
Neil looked at the state of the desk. Even sitting near it was driving him crazy. There was no system of organisation to anything. It was as if a tornado had simply deposited random items from the shelves here. The lack of notes, pads, or any kind of writing implement, also meant none of the things required to perform any kind of rationalisation activity on anything brought here were present.
“How do you work like this?” asked Neil, revolted by Artimus’ working conditions.
“Like what?” asked Artimus, leafing through more papers in an attempt to find something else he had lost.
“Like this!” said Neil, waving his hand at the disarray before him.
Artimus stared at the mess, seemingly confused about the question. “This?” he said, copying Neil’s gesticulation in an exaggerated manner and raising an eyebrow.
Neil sighed. He had seen many a good officer try to work like this at Scotland Yard, invariably succumbing to the failure it brought. He could not believe Henry thought Artimus was even required on any case if this was how his investigations began.
“This,” said Neil, desperately trying to keep the frustration from his voice, “is total chaos. You will get nowhere working like this.”
“Chaos?” said Artimus, looking even more confused as he sipped on his drink. “Order is formed from chaos. The universe came into being from chaos. You are an ultimate example of chemical chaos. Everything around you, including your obvious mental disorder, is a direct result of chaos!” said Artimus, his voice rising in both tone and pitch. “What makes me think I can work in this chaos? Because chaos is the only way to work!” Reaching in front of Neil, he found what he was looking for and bound it with another band, before placing it on top of the pile in front of the second sheet on the wall. “If you only ever want to see the obvious, then by all means follow your ordered, regimented, listless,
pitiful, reasoned approach. If however, you want to see the slight threads, the intangible somethings that link events in a way that cannot be seen by rationality then chaos is the only rational avenue to take.”
Neil stared blankly at Artimus, not sure what he was talking about or even if a response of some kind was required.
Artimus paused, weighing up what to say next. His brow furrowed as he finished the last of his drink. “Think about it this way. Have you ever found an answer to something that was bothering you out of the blue? As if the answer presented itself from a part of your brain you are not consciously aware you even have.”
Neil could. He was sure everyone could. That was simply the subconscious mind at work. “Of course I have experienced that. Freud would have described that as…”
“Ignore Freud.” said Artimus, fidgeting the comment away. “Freud looked for an esoteric answer to a metaphysical dichotomy of personality and reality through an application of logic, and that pursuit, in its purest form, is devoid of both merit and any semblance of possibility of returning an answer. What I am trying to get you to see is that, as we have discussed, there are innumerate possible answers for all questions. Agreed?”
Neil nodded, unsure where Artimus was going.
“Good.” said Artimus, his fidgeting disappearing. “Then, how could your logical conscious ever find a solution to a problem from the multitude you can postulate? It can’t, it’s that simple. Logic, in that instance, is of no use to you at all. For every question there are an infinite number of answers, and for every answer, there are an infinite number of new questions. That equates to total chaos, as you described it. So how, and I want you to think about this properly, did your brain, without consciously working on a problem, ever deliver a solution to you from the multitude? A solution your conscious knew was correct and needed no further analysis.”
Neil was dumbfounded. He had never even begun to think about something like this. Trying to now, with the disorderly bench to his side firing every irritation nerve he had, was beginning to hurt his head.
Artimus smiled and began shuffling paper, as he bound more items together. “When you have an answer for me, and if it bears the hallmarks of something that could alter my own rationale on this matter, I will gladly tidy this desk. For the meantime however, things in my office will remain exactly as they are.”
Neil remained silent. It was clear Artimus was not looking for an instant answer, and he did not have one to give. There was no chance, given the current circumstances he would be thinking of one now either. There was work to do.
“So, given the situation is as I find it, and given I have no choice at present but to accept it, what are we going to do today?”
“We’re going to start with our most obvious possibility.” said Artimus, standing and moving to the first sheet.
Piling everything on the desk that was not part of the neat stack sat in front of the sheet into a bundle and heaping it on top of everything else, Artimus grabbed a marker and popped off its top.
Neil watched as Artimus clumsily reached up to the highest part of the sheet and started to write. The letters were swirled and vague. A clumsy attempt at writing by a clumsy mind, he thought. It actually looked like joined-up shorthand.
Artimus, surprisingly happy with his efforts, clipped the top back on the marker and turned to face Neil. “So, possibility one.”
“Is that what it says?” said Neil, straining to see any of the letters that should form the words.
Artimus turned and looked at his handiwork, frowning. “Do you think you could do a better job?”
Neil laughed, taking the pen from Artimus and putting a neat horizontal line through the scrawl present. He proceeded to write ‘Possibility One’ at the top of the sheet in his own script.
Neil knew how to write joined-up. It was a primary part of his junior education. However, in this digital age, text had become far more ordered and he found that an all caps approach to his script, large caps and small caps for differentiation, made more sense to the modern eye purely because it was more akin to the text of the technology we were so heavily engaged with. In addition, he found there was something deeply satisfying about writing in that way. It made words stand out, giving sentences an air of authority somehow lacking before.
Artimus glanced from the sheet and down to the desk. “Very neat, Mister Townsend.”
“Thanks.” said Neil, with a sense of pride.
“That wasn’t a compliment.” said Artimus, dismissively. “If you’re finished trying to disprove your stance on your sexuality, we should begin.”
Neil slumped into his chair. This was going to be one long, miserable experience.
“I take it you are familiar with the scientific methodological approach to problem solving?” said Artimus, his chirp as frustrating as ever.
“I am.” said Neil, disengaged.
“Good.” Artimus sifted the mess to his right and took out a pen and a crumpled sheet of paper. “I will try to write a little more homo-centrically than usual so the defective parts of your left hemisphere are not brought into play as we continue. What is the primary assertion of any good scientific problem?”
Neil was doing his level best not to reach over and punch Artimus in the face. He grimaced, pushing away the urge and focussing on the question. “Just as with any investigation, the primary assertion is the Event Description, or Problem Statement.”
“Well done.” said Artimus, pleasantly surprised. “So, in this case, what would you say our primary assertion should be?”
Neil knew there would be a trap in the question somewhere. Knowing the man Artimus had shown himself to be, one simply had to be present.
“I’m going out on a limb here,” Neil said, testing the water, “but whatever I say is going to be wrong, isn’t it?”
“Touché detective, touché.” said Artimus, beginning to write. “A good primary assertion is always the simplest one; the one that on the surface looks the most idiotic. So, knowing this, what would you say should be our primary assertion?”
Neil glanced from Artimus’ hovering pen to the man himself. All these games were seriously trying his patience.
“Come on now, Mister Townsend. The most idiotic. You should be a master at this.”
Neil closed his eyes and expelled a calming breath slowly through his nose. Was Artimus trying to rile him? Refocussing, he tried to think of the simplest question he could. “Why were…”
“Wrong.” said Artimus, coldly. “Try again.”
Neil pinched the bridge of his nose, and massaged it. Stay calm. “How did…”
“Wrong again.” said Artimus. “Assertion, not question.”
Neil growled. This was torture. He was angry now. He opened his eyes and glared at Artimus. “Three dead bodies!” he shouted, leaning forward. “Three dead bodies in a sealed fucking cellar!”
Artimus did not even flinch as Neil kept eye contact long enough to let him know physical harm was but a moment away.
“Very good!” said Artimus, cheerily. “We may make a detective of you yet.”
“What?” said Neil, still shouting.
Ignoring the question, Artimus proceeded to write ‘Three dead bodies in a sealed fucking cellar’ at the top of his sheet. The writing was clearly a mock-copy of Neil’s own style. “So, once we have our primary assertion, what comes next?”
“Are we going to do this all the way through?” asked Neil, exasperated.
“Until I am certain you can see what I trying to get you to see, then yes detective.” said Artimus, not moving his sight line from the page. “What – comes – next?”
“Propositions, or more accurately, Investigative Pathways.” said Neil, his defeatist thoughts now present in his tone.
“Correct.” said Artimus, jotting the term down and underlining it. “At this point we should take note of what we already know. As you can see from the board,” He pointed to the strings linking his notes and pictures, “I have al
ready made an initial assessment of the data we have gathered. Do you wish to review it, or are we good to continue?”
Neil looked up at the post-its interspersed between the lines of thread. The writing on the notes was illegible, and the use of green, blue, and red cord confusing. “As you know, your writing is in a form of Swahili I am unfamiliar with, and I am unsure what the relevance of colour is with the links.”
Artimus dug around under the pile of papers some more and found a pack of yellow post-its. Handing them and a biro to Neil, he stood up and walked through each note in turn, allowing Neil the time to rewrite and replace it.
“The colour bandings are there to show factual links, classically described as items that have no doubt to them, in Red.” said Artimus, tracing one with a finger. “Potential inquiries, items that may or may not be linked, but would require further investigation to prove, in blue. And testimonials, as presented upon discourse with subjects related to the case that can have no basis in truth other than that of the originator and thus cannot be verified instantly, in green.” He moved to the far end of the desk, and brought over another colour of cord, this one in fluorescent pink. “If at any point during our investigation, an inquiry leads us to acquire factual evidence a testimonial is a falsehood, we will replace the green chord with a pink one to show where the incongruous data has been given. This will quickly allow us to identify where information is being suppressed or altered to hinder or derail our efforts.”
Neil gazed at the board, lost with the complexity of the process Artimus was following. “Well, this looks easy.” He offered, acerbically.
“An idle mind resorts to sarcasm when it has neither the dexterity nor gumption to uphold a compelling rhetoric Neil.” said Artimus, snatching the post-it pad back. “You would do well to learn that.”
“Which part? The words or the meaning?” said Neil, grinning.
Artimus ignored the comment, but Neil could tell it had angered him. Good. He deserved some of the same treatment.
“Knowing the information in as much depth as you do detective, what, pray tell, would be your initial supposition?” said Artimus, not re-engaging eye contact.
“You mean, even though you’ve already ascertained that there are four possibilities, you want me to guess the first one?” said Neil, not interested in playing along. “That’s not going to happen. Go find someone else to stroke your ego.”
Artimus stared at Neil in way that although not threatening, did make him feel uncomfortable. He turned away, picking himself from his chair and slowly pacing toward the rows of files.
“Do you know why Mister Blackwater holds me in such high regard Neil?” asked Artimus, retrieving a large folio from a shelf and bringing it over.
“I don’t know.” said Neil, the retort a little too snapped. “Maybe you’re old golf buddies.”
Artimus nodded, pursing his lips slightly to hide a grimace. It was clear the comment, although designed to irritate, was taken as a far greater insult than intended. “When you manage to circumnavigate your own ego, detective, and realise I am no threat to your investigation, you would do well to read the contents of this case folder. You never know, you may actually learn something.”
Artimus left the folder on the desk, and moved over to the sheet. Still copying Neil’s writing style, he proceeded to write ‘Lookalikes’ under the ‘Primary Assertion’ heading. Under that, three lines linked to three more headings: Father, Mother, and Facts.
“Mister Blackwater told me he assigned some office juniors to assist you in gathering information.” said Artimus, his cheery manner now stilled and a colder tone settled firmly in its place.
Neil shrugged off the rueful air encroaching on his thoughts. He had done nothing wrong. Artimus’ manner made him snap. If the man did not realise the situation was a direct result of his constant prodding that was his fault. He would not be giving an apology any time soon, no matter how hurt Artimus’ feelings were.
“The Chief Inspector,” said Neil, keeping his tone formal, “has assigned us two assistants for this case. Do we have something for them to chase for us?”
“As an officer of the law, I assume you’ll be the one who needs to arrange interviews. So, whilst we do that, I need them to return to us the relevant facts required to link our responses together.”
“Do you have a list?” asked Neil, increasingly worried about the total change in manner of Artimus.
“I will meet with these assistants and allocate them tasks based on aptitude.” said Artimus, pausing and catching himself. “If that suggestion is ok with you, of course.”
Neil stood up and buttoned his suit jacket. “That’s fine. However, we’ll stop on the way for a coffee. I want to make sure the station doesn’t smell of whiskey.”
Artimus grabbed his jacket from the back of his chair and sauntered out of the room, as Neil turned and looked at the folder on the desk. Maybe, at some point, he would read it. For the moment at least, he was simply glad the constant teasing had ceased.