Whodunit140 is the world’s first great detective novel written for Twitter. The novel is written daily and appears on Twitter first. The previous episodes have been repeated here for you to catch up with the story. To follow the novel in realtime as it is written just follow @FLANEURZINE on Twitter. Tweets have the hashtag #whodunit.
Whodunit140
The door opened, not quietly enough.
N swirled around, his coat knocking the laptop off the table.
‘Aha!’ He threw his hot mug of coffee
K ducked, narrowly avoiding facial scalding.
‘I say! You wake me at 4.00am, drag me across town…
If you really want me to be your sidekick
Zounds!’ N held up the laptop.
The screen was smashed.
‘You hellhound! I had spent 27 minutes crafting an apposite, witty Twitter update.
He collapsed into a Queen Anne wingback and swigged a tumbler of Margaux.
‘Why, K? Is she mad? Am I wrong?’ He snorted at the impossibility
You’re not the pope.’ I toe-punted a pile of tracts and sat on a red recamier,avoiding an old piece of toast with a Travoltian bottom shimmy
The pope’s not the Pope,’ N muttered, searching his pockets.
His stomach screeched like a 747 overshooting the runway.
‘Have you supped?’
Of course!’ N was a gourmet.
His eggs were couriered in weekly from Genova;his cakes were gateaux.
He held passionate opinions on olive oil.
His taste buds once solved a case that had -of course- baffled police.
He discerned where a villain was living from the taste of some salt.
Bordeaux vintners lived for his praise.
Presidents and ministers begged him to insure his tongue.
They frowned on his penchant for hot chai.
N missing a meal was as likely as the Flat Earth Society securing BBC funds for their play ‘Walter Sodrington and the Spherical Conspiracy’
What’s caused this calamity?’I recalled previous comestible horrors.
We had once suffered the indignity of having elevenses at twelve o’clock
In darker moments we still referred to that delayed sustenance as an example of societal decay.
In Georgian days elevenses was sacrosanct.
The great inter-meal meals are almost forgotten.
High tea, supper, midnight feasts – all sacrificed to progress, profit, health and safety.
I will devote retirement to writing a monograph on the fall in respect for afternoon tea and the concomitant decline of the British Empire.
Calamity?’ N asked with an ataraxia unseen since Pyrrho decided everything was incomprehensible, worry was absurd and he was off to the pub
You do remember The Whitehouse Whippet Crisis?’ N lit a Gauloise,which was odd as he didn’t smoke.
‘Saw The Big Sleep yesterday.
Got inspired
All the top sleuths love gaspers.’
He puffed La Marseillaise in smoke rings.
I grimaced.
My great uncle died after winning a charity smokeathon
He was raising money for children with cancer.
A.Morrisette would appreciate that.
Organisers blamed severe tonsillitis.
His wife took to gin
N flicked his tailored hams over the chair arm, wriggled, pulled a paper from a pocket.
He could loll for Britain.
He has just the right build
What think you of the Foxy Knoxy verdict?’he asked, unfolding the document.
‘Is that the case?Have we been engaged to prove her innocence?’
She would hardly hire a fictional detective.
‘ I laughed.
‘Fictional! Toi! Terry Waite would still be in a Jihadi fridge if you were fiction
If you had half, nay! 10%! of the recognition you deserve, you would be paraded in an open-top bus through Trafalgar Square.
Every weekend.
You forget my aversion to rain.
This is England…
”MPs would surely clamour to melt down tired statues of Churchill and erect one to you’
Maybe there’d be enough bronze left for a small statue of me.
I usually ask a question that makes N stop, look thoughtful and solve the case
Even a small oil would be nice, nothing fancy.
By Freud maybe, hung in the Tate or amongst the National Portraits.
I’m no canonizing Boswell
Mere reportage is not in my bag.
I’m a Liu Ji-Bernstein-Rasputin mix.
N and I are a team, like Hillary and that Sherpa who did all the work.
This missive…
I welcome your thoughts.
‘ He proffered the paper, leaning slightly across the yellow arabesques of the Ushak rug.
His right hand darted to his exquisite ebony desk, stubbed his cigarette in a Roman libation bowl.
A priceless gift from a grateful client.
The apartment was full of treasures he seemed not to appreciate, or rather appreciated in his own way.
‘Objects must be used or they die!’
He had once bellowed that apophthegm when I had questioned his use of a precious Romano-Egyptian Unguentarium as a travel bubble-bath bottle
He scoffed when I said the holiday insurance wouldn’t cover a delicate glass piriform phial last used by a hetaera in antiquity.
I was right
In remorse I sent the shards to the British Museum.
They detected perfumes that rewrote the scholarship on ancient enfleurage and parfumerie.
The fragments were the cornerstone of fundraising for a new museum wing and centrepiece of an exhibition called ‘The Shah and the Shards’.
Irate Egyptians demonstrated on the neoclassical steps.
Cairo expelled diplomats and began a campaign to ‘Repatriate our cultural heritage’
When the flag-burning began I was grateful I’d donated anonymously.
‘I forgave you aforetime,’ N murmured.
‘And the Museum hasn’t twigged.
It can’t now, there’s too much at stake.
Would be like Al Gore saying ‘You know that stuff I said about climate change and global warming..?
How it was all your fault? Seems -you’re going to laugh! – a hundred years of manipulated data wasn’t a sound foundation for a cogent case!
He frowned.
‘But how did you know what I was thinking?’ ‘My reputation, Albert, my reputation! Stop sidetracking.
The missive.
Thoughts?’
That’s an awful catchphrase.
‘I hated how he could read me like a big print edition of a kid’s first ABC.
Stung,N flung a silver paperknife.
Keep you in temper!’ I only have my quick wits to thank that I still own two ears.
Instead of flesh the rapier gashed a Whistler nocturne.
Do that again and I start my own ‘tec agency.
‘ I can stand much, but I am flesh and like anyone I cannot abide wanton cruelty to art.
I gently waggled the jade filigree handle of the exquisite instrument of ruin.
‘The monarch who gave me that would appreciate its fate!’
I looked in horror at my friend.
‘Nothing a bit of No More Nails can’t fix!’ he added, playing a Boeotian with convincing aplomb.
Infact I’ve created a continuum-busting admix of Hiroshige and Fontana! The Turner prize awaits! Charles Saatchi will be on the phone!’
I aimed the weapon, willing to risk a life sentence in defence of fine art.
I was once under-sixteen cricketer of the year.
I don’t miss…
N was a flick of my fingers from certain death.
No right-thinking jury could convict.
Not when presented with the facts.
But this is England.
Justice isn’t what ’twas.
Though it’s also not what ’twas before it was what ’twas-when a child could be hanged on’Strong evidence of malice’
You could be transported to Australia for stealing a hat.
Although constant sunshine and cricket doesn’t seem much of a punishment.
These days prison’s no all-expenses-paid, round-the-world trip-of-a-lifetime.
I’ve got no tattoos.
I don’t like digging.
I wouldn’t fit in.
Friendicide is a big step.
It can ruin a relationship.
With a hollow moan I lowered my killing arm and dropped the Persian knife to the floor.
N chuckled.
‘My Budd Swiss voile lives on!’ He is infuriating.
‘If I ever hear you have been murdered I will immediately suspect myself.’
The attitude of a true friend.
Though if you do not proffer your views on that paper tout de suite your hours as a sidekick are numbered.’
His sidekickery jibe grated and he knew it.
Back at college we’d had equal billing when we solved The Case of the Missing Tutor.
It was yours truly who’d examined the clues,solved the mystery and found the sot in a local pub.
N just pontificated on TV and became a celeb
C’est la vie…
We do work well as a team.
Maybe I’m greedy to want more of the credit, to want clients to contact me in the dead of night.
I looked at the paper N had handed me.
Thin,white,approximately 21 by 30 centimetres.
Something about it seemed familiar.
‘It seems familiar’
Of course it seems familiar,you clay-brained guts! It’s a common or garden sheet of 80g/metre sq A4 as seen in offices around the globe.’
The man was insufferable.
I tried to tell myself that was what I liked about him, but it wasn’t true.
We’d become friends in fresher’s week.
I still hadn’t shaken him off, as you have to do with most of the ‘friends’ you make in that frenetic alcohol-fuelled introduction to uni.
There must be something I liked about the fellow,but right then I couldn’t put my finger on it.
The paper was completely blank.
Or was it?
I flipped the sheet,held it to a bulb.
It was untainted by ink.
N grinned, as though he thought it beyond me.
‘Inscribed with lemon juice?’
I used to correspond in secret citrus writing with a confrere at school.
We thought we were spies.
We even applied to Mi5.
Aged 10.
No reply.
If our correspondent was that puerile they’d surely use a baked bean tin and string phone’N scoffed.
‘They never work.
‘Bitter experience
I spent my youth enthusiastically building things that didn’t work.
Some were downright life-threatening -a DIY sit-on mower springs to mind.
What’s your theory?Sure I’m old-fangled, but a blank sheet of A4 tells us nothing.
Unless…
dactylograms?’ The jackanapes opposite smirked.
If by that absurd locution you are suggesting we have been sent some easily identifiable fingerprints, you are, as so often, in error.’
Enlighten me then, oh master,’ I puled, adding ‘Share your hard-won wisdom.’
N smiled.
‘At last some respect for my talents.
Very well.’
An ego in full swing is utterly rebarbative.
He cleared his throat, adding to my sense of revulsion.
Oh!The trials of being born so sensitive!
I could tell at a glance it was from a lady.
Age, mid-thirties.
Brunette,no doubt,fitness fanatic, probably.
Definitely in fear of her life.
I hardly need add she is left-handed, wears Dior perfume, speaks French and has a slight lisp.’
He lent back.
‘You mean you’ve got no idea.’
You fustilarian!’ N exclaimed, looking about his desk for something to throw.
‘Do not judge another by your own toweringly low standards!’
That makes no sense’I snorted.
His hand found an old blue and white Wedgwood vase,full of months-old stems.
It would cause more than a bruise
I leapt up quicker than Usain Bolt after a caffe ristretto.
N bayed as I dashed the Jasperware from his grasp.
‘Your coup de main has failed!’
We wrestled like gladiators, albeit gladiators so inept that they aren’t allowed weapons.
At one point I had him in a glorious head-lock.
Seconds later he had me in a headlock.
‘Oh for a dagger to perform the coup de grace,’ he lamented.
A cunning elbow and I was free.
‘Hah!’
Surrender whilst you are still four-limbed,’I advised.
‘Never!’my adversary barked.
‘Then you leave me no option!”Nor you I,’N retorted
We stared at each other,wondering what the other meant.
Luckily there was a tap on the door.
‘Remember your position.
We will continue later’
Cowards die many times before their deaths,’quoth I.
‘Indeed?’N snarled as he walked to the door,’Then you must have more lives than a cat!’
He grabbed the handle and pulled with a flourish.
A woman fell through the open door, her brown hair tumbling as she moaned ‘Au secours!’
N caught her and laid her on the chaise.
‘Diorella!’ he remarked, sniffing the air.
‘Your father was a quack, what’s wrong with her? Quick!’
My father was a doctor.
I’m not.
”You must have picked something up at the dinner table?’I approached.
She was strikingly beautiful.
And inert
She’s either sleeping or fainted,’I observed, moving closer.
The girl was stiller than a learner driver stuck in neutral.
‘Or possibly dead!’
Just as I suspected,’ N nodded.
‘Dead already.
Nothing we can do to help her.
Murdered, no doubt.
‘ As he spoke the girl opened her eyes.
Call Hodgson and Sons,’N instructed,’If I’ve learned anything in all my years as a detective it’s that you can’t have corpses lying around’
Are you sure that’s necessary?’ I asked.
‘I’d kill for a ham sandwich,’ the girl snapped.
N looked at her in disbelief.
‘Back from the dead?’
From Paris actually.
‘ N raised a palm in my face.
‘Hold the undertakers! We have a veritable Lazarus in our midst!Have you word from Pluto?’
She looked confused.
I empathised.
I often hear N speak and feel as baffled as a litterateur listening to a football commentary.
In Greek.
Not ancient Greek, which I’d understand like a newly-minted curate, but an illiterate’s patois from the steps of the Acropolis.
‘A brandy?’
She nodded, I poured, N scowled.
He never enjoyed sharing his Audry Très Ancienne cognac.
‘I’m not from Pluto,’ the girl said after a gulp.
Why are the government after you?’ asked N.
The girl flinched, Audry glistened down her chin.
‘The waste!’ N muttered.
‘How do you know?’
N raised a finger lipwards.
‘You were followed!’ ‘Never! I changed taxi five times and swam across the Thames.
‘ I shook my head and smiled.
Your clothes are dry! You lie!’ N swatted my words away with a wave.
‘Au contraire, she’s spent an hour hiding in Tate Modern’s boiler room.
How have you upset Her Majesty’s Government?’A police siren sounded.
‘Speak!’ She wiped her mouth.
‘Have you heard of the Windsor Anarchists?
N nodded.
‘Publishers of the Berkshire Anarcho-Revolutionary Weekly.
”A waste of paper’I contributed.
She said’Yes.
Except they’ve gone daily!’
Daily!?’ N leaped on her words like a hungry genetta launching itself on a millipede.
‘Windsor? Hardly a hotbed of anarchy,’ I commented.
N ignored my astute observance.
‘Then you are Winifred B.
Waiblinger?’ She nodded.
‘Call me Win.
‘ I jolted.
‘I knew your brother Wetmore!’
A glare stayed my reminiscences.
‘So the rumours are true?’Win nodded.
N grabbed an umbrella.
‘Then we must act immediately.
Make some sarnies!’
Action at last! I sped kitchenward.
Horror infused my face.
Earlier I’d baked a tomato and olive ciabatta .
’twas all gone.
Just crumbs.
‘N?!’
Now is not the time for comestible recriminations,’he bellowed, preparing to leave the flat.
‘Twas delicious…let us speak of it no more.’
I pocketed a pack of oat cakes, grapes and an apple.
‘Haste, Haste!’ K barked, following Win outside.
I dashed, the door swung shut behind.
Wear this.
‘K handed me a false moustache.
‘Never!’I grow devastating facial plumage.
To wear an artificial Impériale would be a perversion.
K pulled on a false beard.
So thick and luxuriant WG Grace himself would have been envious.
‘Don’t come crying to me if you get shot.
”Shot?’
You are armed?’ Win nodded, opened her jacket slightly.
A Beretta 92 shimmered beyond a Dior-clad breast.
‘Death or glory,’ she muttered.
Shot?’ I repeated.
‘Shot, yes,’K nodded.
He marched onwards.
‘Death or glory?’ Win frowned.
‘Habit. It’s the motto of the Windsor Anarchists.’
An oddly Establishment sentiment for anarchists.
‘ Win looked across at K.
‘Why so?’ ‘They share it with the British Army’s Royal Lancers.’
I paused.
‘I don’t intend to get shot tonight.
Tomorrow’s the anniversary of grandmama’s death.
We’re having a party.
‘ ‘You’re celebrating?’
Win looked at me in disgust.
‘We’re not celebrating her death, we’re remembering her life.
It’s very tasteful.
‘ K dodged down a side alley.
Quiet!’He yelled quietly, which seems impossible but isn’t.
Win and I followed the disappearing trench coat.
‘Give me the beard,’I muttered.
K’s hand pulled the dreary imposter from a pocket.
I affixed the soup strainer to my upper lip.
It smarted to wear such a hairy monstrosity.
Twas though better than getting shot.
We had left the thoroughfare with only seconds to spare.
A man with a scowl ran past staring at a phone
…continued on Twitter
Everything above was first posted on Twitter. The novel continues everyday on Twitter – you can follow it by following @flaneurzine. New episodes are tagged #whodunit.
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