(no subject)

[no-npc-here.livejournal.com]

Date: May 6th, 2001
Status: Public (for anyone really No need to know anything or give worthwhile information. Lets just have a little fun with Dick.)
Setting: The Manor
Summary: Dick decides to take the direct approach, but it isn't as easy as he expected. Just where is the staff in this hotel?


The manor near the army base hadn't been hard to find and only a little over a week after his visit to Selfridges Dick had had his team in place to secretly observe it and follow Miss Stavrou whenever she went out. He'd been confident that that would lead him either to his serial killer or to the next victim.

However it seemed that he'd either missed an exit or Miss Stavrou didn't leave the house much. It might make sense, if she was afraid of the killer getting to her, but on the other hand according to his men's discrete investigations in the town the place was a hotel and restaurant so a stranger could come in at any time.

As time went by Dick got more and more worried that perhaps the woman had already departed. Why would anyone stay in a hotel this long? Surely it was getting expensive even for a TV star like Miss Stavrou. Then again his men hadn't observed many changes in who was coming and going. The guests seemed to be a very regular crowd.

Dick wondered what the attraction of a hotel in the middle of nowhere could be. Well, perhaps Miss Stavrou liked it because it was unlikely that anybody would look for her here. The loyalty of the other guests was a mystery to Dick, though and Miss Stavrou was a professional entertainer. Wasn't she bored?

Then again, maybe she worked there. She could be in charge of entertainment, which looked like a very challenging task. The most entertaining thing his team had found in the region so far was one Mr. Tyler whose lively imagination could turn a handful of children playing football in the street outside his house into violent street gangs, the hotel in the old manor into a meeting place for Satanists and Mafiosi and what Dick assumed had to have been an encounter with a disgruntled housecat into a sphinx attack. Well, at least it kept his men from dying of boredom while observing the quiet hotel.

However Dick was feeling more and more impatient as time went by without any results. The killer might strike again at any moment and he still had no other leads. It was time to give up on discretion and approach Miss Stavrou directly.

Thus one beautiful spring morning found Inspector Dick Watson walking up the neatly kept path and entering Tadfield Manor. The inside looked like a typical hotel lobby, slightly impersonal, but tastefully decorated, except for a pink chair that clashed horribly with the rest of the furniture. Dick wondered briefly whether whoever had picked it out had been colour-blind and why it hadn't been removed to a less obvious position while he waited for someone to answer his ring.

The place remained completely silent, however. Where was the staff? Maybe the lobby was only staffed when guests had announced their arrival or departure in advance and the business usually run from elsewhere?

Well, it shouldn't be too hard to find, Dick decided and tried the closest door. A good choice, he thought. Apparently he'd walked straight into the restaurant. There had to be a least a waiter here, though it was a bit too early for lunch.

"Hello?"

Comments

[swords-love-me.livejournal.com]

War looked up at the strange voice. She was lying back in her chair, stun gun propped against it on the floor, her feet resting on a chair she'd pulled out next to her, and she was idly tapping the heel of one boot against the seat as she contemplated the remains of her lunch and her half glass of whiskey.

"Hello stranger," she said. "Not seen you around here before. No one at reception? There's probably someone around if you're looking for lunch."

He wasn't anyone he'd seen before, but that didn't mean much. War didn't tend to need to remember many peoples' faces for very long.

[no-npc-here.livejournal.com]

Dick spun around in surprise at the voice coming from behind him. The owner turned out to be a stunningly beautiful woman with long red hair and ... Was that a gun propped up against her chair? Was this place really so dangerous that she had seen need to arm herself?

Well, she was an extraordinary beauty. Perhaps she'd been bothered by overeager suitors before. He sincerely hoped that none had ever gone so far that she'd have seen need to actually use the weapon.

"Good Morning, Madam," Dick returned her greeting with a slight bow. "Inspector Watson at your service." He wasn't hungry, but considered talking to the kitchen staff anyway. They ought to know most of the guests. Then again, perhaps this woman could help him. "Are you a guest here, then?"

[swords-love-me.livejournal.com]

"Madam?" War raised her eyebrows and chuckled to herself as she swung her feet off the chair and gestured towards it.

"I've got a room here, yes." Technically, she supposed she was Adam's guest here, but she'd been here so long - and seen so little of him - that "guest" wasn't really how she thought of her status at the Manor.

"I suppose you could say I'm here on a long term stay," she added. "Drink?"

[no-npc-here.livejournal.com]

"Miss?" Dick tried. He hadn't meant to offend her, just to express his respect.

"No, thank you," Dick declined politely. "I'm on duty. Wouldn't do for an officer of the law to be seen drinking."

He did sit down, though.

"Long term stay, you say?" Ah, maybe this was his chance to find out what was keeping all these people here. "What are you doing in this little town, if you don't mind telling me? It's merely curiosity, I assure you," he added quickly. He didn't want the thought of being questioned by an on duty policeman to make her nervous.

[swords-love-me.livejournal.com]

War shrugged. "Suit yourself. Can't say it ever stopped me. Puts a bit more of a spark in the blood," she said, taking another sip of her whiskey.

"As for what I'm doing here - well, things turned out that I needed a place to stay, and turned out there were a few folks round here I knew from way back, so seemed a good place to stop. Besides, it's quiet" - sometimes, she added silently to herself - "and it's nice to be able to have a place where you're not taking work home with you. Fine upstanding man like you, I'm sure you understand that," she said, quirking one eyebrow.

[no-npc-here.livejournal.com]

She was one very strange woman, Dick thought, but then he shouldn't be surprised. Her story pretty much explained everything, even if she did her best to only hint at the terrible truth. Obviously she was on the run from an abusive husband. In his line of business he ran into these men only too often. Hopeless drunkards that wasted all their money getting drunk then tumbling home in the wee hours of the morning to take out their frustration about their unproductive lives on their long suffering wives. The poor women grew hard and cold as a response projecting a false aura of strength to scare off further attacks, but it never helped. The drunken monster would strike again and again until he either killed the poor woman or sent her to hospital or she finally realised the futility of her attempts to save the marriage and fled into a hopefully better future. This one was one of the lucky ones having escaped with only mental scarring. Dick hoped for her that she'd get over it in time and learn to trust men again.

"Actually, I find it rather hard to put down my work even for the night, but then you have to understand that people's lives might depend on how fast I can solve a case," he explained. "I investigate unusual murders, you see. There's always a danger that the man might strike again, if I can't apprehend him first. Like this current case ... Ah, but I shouldn't tell scary tales. I'm merely searching for a witness here anyway. No reason to fear."

[swords-love-me.livejournal.com]

War swung one ankle up so it rested on her thigh, and leant forward. "Unusual murder, you say? Well, can't say I've seen anything unusual around here recently."

This was, she thought to herself, technically true. Nothing out of the ordinary for the Manor had been going on recently, after all.

"Why d'you think he's here then? Come to that," she said, with an edge of challenge in her voice, "what makes you think it's a man?"

She had a habit of resenting assumptions that women were too feeble to hurt people.

[no-npc-here.livejournal.com]

"Oh, the murder didn't happen anywhere near here," Dick reassured her hastily. "We have however come to believe that a possible witness is staying here." He slid the old picture of Miss Stavrou as well as a newer one taken from the Selfridges security camera across the table. "Do you remember seeing this woman around?"

"The way the victims were killed requires great strength," Dick explained. "I doubt that most women, or for that matter even an average man could have managed. No, we are looking for a large man, I'd say, someone who works out a lot and is fast, strong and brutal."

(Hope I've got this right...)

[swords-love-me.livejournal.com]

"Fast, strong and brutal, you say?" War queried with a barely detectable amused tone to her voice. "How... terrifying."

War glanced idly at the picture. "Looks maybe a bit familiar... but I travel a lot. See a lot of people, lot of places. D'you think she might be next, then?"

If so, it could be quite fun, she thought. Unless she was very much wrong, "Miss Stavrou" was none other than their resident bone wielding Sphinx - not that she was about to tell this chap that. If he was a detective, then he could detect. She wasn't going to spoil his fun...

(Perfect.)

[no-npc-here.livejournal.com]

"Yes indeed," Dick agreed proudly. "They're quite worried about this one at the Yard. That's why they gave the case to me. Wanted their most experienced man on the job."

Ah, but he shouldn't worry the poor woman. "Well, she has little in common with the earlier victims, so we don't think he'd go after her normally. Then again with this kind of case it's hard to predict and the killer might have reason to want to silence her. I'd rather err on the side of caution so don't be surprised, if you do see more police around."

"You're sure you don't remember where you've seen her?"

Re: (Perfect.)

[swords-love-me.livejournal.com]

"Is that so? Well, I'm sure we'll all rest easier in our beds knowing you're around... though if you don't mind, I'll keep this with me," War said, patting her weapon. "I'm sure you won't mind, just one of my indulgences - woman like me..."

Inwardly, she smirked. She knew damn well she was quite probably the only woman like her around anywhere ever, but he wasn't to know that.

"Afraid I can't remember where I might have seen your little miss, though. Something in my head says something about bones, though - but the only thing I can think of is that I must have seen her at the zoo, next to the lions enclosure... I do like watching those fierce beasts."

Having him around the Manor might be fun, but having the entire police force crawling through the rooms might not be... much more amusing to see them tussling with the big cats in zoos up and down the country.

[theban-sphinx.livejournal.com]

Sphix was on her way up from the cellar when she hear him.

"Inspector Watson at your service."

The sphinx froze, and her heart jumped in her throat. Inspector? The police!

They had found her.

They had finally located her, and now they had come to put her in jail.

That was not acceptable. She sprung to action, turned around and rushed back into her cellar lair. They would not catch her. She would run, or fly if it came to that. She would start over somewhere else. Remain in animal form for a while, just until they would turn their search to an older woman than she looked like. Ten years, perhaps? Twenty?

Twenty years as an animal. That, she thought, was almost as bad as having to spend that time in jail. Almost.