Positively Painless

 So Far .....

This may change later on.  You see, like a properly-compliant employee, Your Humble Scribe re-started his work laptop this morning, which automatically ditched Word, which is where I've been keeping "Tormentor" open.  So I cannot open it up and post another screed of murder and misery, and my pen drive with the actual document, is, of course - obviously! - at home.  

     Not only that, I'm on the late shift this week and don't finish until 18:00 AND I'm meeting the lovely Anna and her only-slightly less-lovely sister Georgina after work, and we are off to gorge at Little Yang Sing.  Art!

Big Trouble In Little Yang Sing*

     If we stop to gabble then it might be 21:00 or even 22:00 before I totter on my aged feet into The Mansion.  Aged feet in great big boots, I might add, thanks to the amount of snow up at Gravel Pit.  There's hardly any in Gomorrah-on-the-Irwell, you know.  

Said feet in said boots

     There you have things as they stand at 14:22.  Conrad unsure what the weather has in store for us; the clouds did roll away from the hills set upon the hills a short while ago, however they have rolled right back again, the dirty curs.  You know Conrad and his aged feet; not looking forward to a long plod home if the buses are diverted.

     Motley!  Let's test that comic-book trope about substituting tennis rackets for snowshoes.  You first.

"Wanted on centre court -"

Following On From That

Where do they use snowshoes all winter long?  British America, that's where, that proud Commonwealth nation that gets to show the South Canadians what they're missing, being a republic and all (yet a republic that CANNOT GET ENOUGH of This Sceptred Isle's monarchy).  Art!

"O Canada!"

     Here an aside.  People tend to forget that Greenland is a Danish territory, and for all it's enormous size Conrad wonders what the population is.  Shall we find out?  Yes!  Yes we shall.  56,000 total, for an island of 836,000 square miles, which means one person per 15 square miles.  

     ANYWAY back to British America, because Your Humble Scribe was reading about the Canadian (I shall reluctantly resort to the conventional names here for your convenience) ace William George Barker, who flew stringbags in the First Unpleasantness.  Art!

The terror of the skies

     He was tragically killed in a flying accident in 1930 and the city of Toronto came to a dead stop for his funeral, which was witnessed by 50,000 people.  He was so impressive that the Americans sent an honour guard.  His list of medals sounds like the collected awards of eight or nine people, not one.  They were: the Victoria Cross (amazingly rare for a pilot); the Distinguished Service Offer (TWICE); the Military Cross (THRICE); Silver Medal for Valour (TWICE) and the Croix De Guerre.  Plus 3 Mentioned In Despatches, which is where his OC decided a more personal attribution was needed.  We will doubtless come back to this chap, interesting bloke.

A Froth Of Righteous Rancour

Your Humble Scribe is, as ever, furiously angry, both thanks to the ridiculous state of the roads this morning - and I guarantee there will be a reckoning when I take over TWENTY PER CENT OF YOU DRIVERS WILL BE EXTIRPATED**! - 

     For Lo! we are back on the vexed subject of Codewords, and those compilers have really been pushing both the envelope and their luck.  For instance - 

"HAJJI":  Okay, an unfamiliar enough word to provoke FROTHING NITRIC IRE in itself, but how do you think Conrad felt when trying to parse a solution?  The "I" had already been given, so the most logical solution was RABBI - except that way led to either nothing or madness.  FYI, it refers to one of the faithful whom has conducted the Hajj, or pilgrimage to Mecca.  Conrad too cross to continue.  Art!

"VESICLES": This sounds like a swung censer full of incense as used in liturgical ceremonies by that church as espoused by the Vatican - let's check -

     NOOOO! Not even close.  "Any small sac or cavity, especially one containing serous fluid" according to the Collins Concise.

     Bah.  I think MY definition was immeasurably better.  Art!

<thumbs up>

"APEXES": Hmmmm Conrad is suspicious of this one.  He isn't convinced that it's not APICES.  Shall we check it out?  O go on then.  AHA!  Yes, APICES is an acceptable plural.  O and it means the highest point, or the vertex, just so we're clear.  Art!

Very much an apex, among a collection of apices

     Conrad had a clue here as the plural of 'Vertex' is, indeed, 'Vertices', which goes to prove how clever he is***.

HA HAR!

Since I am now back at The Mansion writing this, you SHALL go to the ball, Cinde - no, sorry, I mean you SHALL have another extract from "Tormentor".

     CAUTION! not the usual piffle we write about on here, this is dark stuff that's going to get darker.

Louis decided, in a distant way, that enough was enough.  Enough.  Was.  Enough.

              ‘NO!’ he shouted, stamping the coffee table squarely on, smashing the glass, drawing his foot back and stamping on the metal frame, crushing it, stamping again with the other foot.  ‘No! I won’t have something precious taken from me again!’ he yelled.

              Both constables, suddenly shaken from their air of complacent suspicion, backed away as far as possible in the confines of the living room.  The female drew a canister of pepper-spray, the male officer pulled out a baton.

              ‘That’s enough!’ he snapped.  ‘Any more behaviour like that and I’ll arrest you.’

              ‘For what!’ snarled Louis.  ‘For suffering twice over?’ and he trailed off into muttered cursing. 

              ‘The sample?’ prompted the female officer, looking at her colleague, as if daring him to not bother thanks to the suspect going beserk.

              ‘What do you need?  Blood?’ snapped Louis, still breathing through nostrils flared with impotent rage and hatred.  ‘I’ll get a knife and slash my wrists if you want,’ he continued, with twisted humour.

              ‘Calm down, sir!’ implored the male officer.  ‘All we need is a surgical swab from the inside of your cheek.’

              The practicalities of the DNA sampling were so mundane and prosaic that Louis felt almost mocked: a swab like a q-tip was rubbed along the inside of his cheek, bagged and the specimen annotated.

              ‘We may need to interview you again, sir.  Your job doesn’t require you to travel, does it?  Then don’t leave the town or cross the county border.’

 

Constable Burnham took the samples he’d collected to the Mobile Incident Unit, set up alongside a verge near the junction.

              ‘What d’you think?’ he asked Contable Scott.

              ‘I’m not so sure now.  Our witness across the road definitely saw the victim leave at seven.  McMahon himself didn’t leave by the front door until after ten.’

              ‘He wasn’t faking that temper,’ opined Burnham.  ‘Either he’s a schizophrenic killer, or innocent.’

              Scott tapped the case she carried.

              ‘This’ll sink or save him.’

     Those results won't be back for a while, by which time Luma is wondering if he is, in fact, an amnesiac killer.  O the torment ...

Finally -

Well, as you're aware from the above, Your Humble Scribe has just gotten in from Submarine City, to the City In The Clouds.  Literally.  We'll have more on this tomorrow as I have photographic proof.  Just you wait.

*  Hopefully not, I just couldn't resist.

**  Done via a lottery system to make it entirely fair.  Heh.

***  Perhaps.