Shadows of Valderia: An Urban Fantasy Detective Noir

22

Nairo woke with a dreamy stretch and a yawn so big it cracked her jaw. She regretted it instantly as she felt pain spasm up her swollen face. Reality kicked her in the stomach, or more like the hip, as the awkward sitting slump she had fallen asleep in had caused her injured hip to lock and her leg to stiffen badly. She looked blearily around the dimly lit room until her eyes focused on the back of Ridley. His oversized shirt was untucked and hung comically low. For the first time she could really see his wiry, underfed, frame that was usually hidden under his billowing coat. He was standing in front of a sprawling mess of scrawled names, locations, and string zigzagging back and forth. Nairo hauled herself up off the stool with a grimace of pain, the aroma of lukewarm Gnommish food drifted past her nose and made her mouth water, giving her the motivation to grit through the pain. Slowly, she limped over to the takeaway boxes that Ridley had already pilfered through. Looking around, she grabbed a fork and began to shovel thick sticky rice into her mouth between mouthfuls of succulent stewed vegetables and what she hoped might have been meat. She tucked back her thick bush of curly hair and continued attacking the rice as she limped over to Ridley. She stood next to him studying the wall and eating with furious attention.

“You look pretty,” Ridley said after a few seconds, even though his eyes had barely left the wall.

“Fanks,” Nairo muttered around a thick mouthful of food.

Without looking, Ridley poured another drink and handed it to her.

“What is this?” she asked after taking a few sips.

“Elvish Vodka… ran out of rum,” he answered.

Now she noticed the little sway to him as he tried to stand still.

“No… this.” She pointed to the sprawling map of thoughts before her.

It was a haphazard deluge of what must have been going on in Ridley’s mind. She saw the names of people they had interviewed, criss crossing with locations and then scrawled with times and dates. She saw Benny’s name in the middle and then lightning bolt off shoots saying things like, ‘magic?’ and ‘Goblins did it?” In the middle of the web he had scrawled ‘Elves?’

“It’s the case,” he answered, looking almost forlornly at the mess in front of them.

“Yeah… it is…”

“I thought writing it all down would help…”

“Did it?”

“I’d be rubbing it in your face right now if it had.”

They paused and Nairo tried to follow the threads of their case. They went round and round but never led anywhere, or even displayed a trackable sequence of events. It was as if everything they had encountered since starting the case was just one long series of unrelated coincidences. Ridley’s shoulders sagged and he flopped down in the armchair that he had dragged directly in front of the wall. Nairo finished her drink and then shrugged when Ridley topped her up again. She eased herself on to the arm of his chair as her eyes wandered freely back and forth, reading but not really reading.

“What’s your theory?” Ridley asked, surprisingly tentative.

“My theory?” Nairo replied incredulously.

“Yeah… you must have one. I’ve been spinning my brain for hours and I’m no closer.”

Nairo brushed her hair back from her face and sighed.

“I know you won’t like it but we need to approach this like police. A police officer’s job, amongst other things, is to sort fact and suppositions. What do we know as a fact?”

“A big chunk of rock that goes boom was stolen,” Ridley responded with a sarcastic tone.

“Incorrect.”

“What?”

“We know for a fact the Diamond is missing, we don’t know for a fact it was stolen.”

Ridley raised an eyebrow at her.

“Well, going by that logic we don’t even know there was a Diamond.”

“No, but it is highly unlikely that the Elves and De Woolf all colluded to sell us a story about a Diamond that never existed. No, from all reactions at the scene of the crime I am comfortable saying the Diamond did exist and it was interred into the bank vault for safekeeping and it has gone missing. Those are all facts.”

Ridley scratched his chin and Nairo waited for a biting comment or a sarcastic remark.

“Okay. We know Benny was in the area every day for a week leading up to the robbery, including the night the Diamond was stolen… went missing.”

Nairo nodded her agreement.

“And we now know that De Woolf,” Nairo pointed to the name on the wall. “Was in big time debt to Benny.”

“And Benny was bleeding him like a stuck pig.”

“Right. So, De Woolf had motive, opportunity and the knowledge that the Diamond was there. Which only a few creatures in the whole city knew.”

“He lifts the Diamond and hands it off to Benny,” Ridley said, running his finger along the string that connected Benny to the Diamond.

“And we’re almost completely certain that a powerful magical object had to have been present in Benny’s flat and was most likely used to kill him… is that a vampyr?”

“Yeah. Your mate.”

Nairo shook her head at him.

“Thanks to Drake, we know that it was most likely magic that killed Benny.”

“And there’s no way a moron like Benny robs one of the most secure vaults in the city without leaving a trace.”

“So De Woolf steals the Diamond and passes it off to Benny, who is killed with it a few hours later?”

“Could be a coincidence,” Ridley said.

“That many?”

“Not unless someone’s playing a cruel joke on us.”

“I still haven’t ruled that out entirely.”

“We know Benny was celebrating,” Ridley continued. “He gets the Diamond from De Woolf, organises a big party and goes to his favourite fancy eatery to celebrate. That all tracks.”

“But why the Diamond?” Nairo asked, tapping the side of her tumbler.

“Coz it’s a priceless chunk of rock?”

“Exactly. Why steal something that would be so noticeable? If De Woolf was trying to pay off his debts, why not steal something no one is going to notice? There must be vaults in that bank that haven’t been opened in decades. He could easily have lifted something that wasn’t so… high profile. But to steal a one of a kind Diamond that was literally put in the bank that night? It’s too… stupid.”

“Plus, there’s still the mystery of who killed Benny?” Ridley said. “If we’re saying De Woolf took the Diamond, then it stands to reason he might have clipped him for it. Maybe they were supposed to split the takings and Benny wasn’t playing ball?”

“Could De Woolf have used the Diamond?” Nairo asked.

Ridley looked at her and shrugged, then winced and held a hand to his injured shoulder.

“I don’t suppose there’s just some magic words you say and it shoots magical lightning bolts?” Nairo continued.

“I haven’t got a clue,” Ridley said. “I didn’t even know Diamonds could kill a creature like that.”

“That’s the problem. Both our missing item and our potential murder weapon are a complete mystery to us.”

Ridley groaned and flopped back into his seat.

“There’s definitely a piece of this missing. There’s something we’re not being told, like why were there Elves just wandering around the free cities with an active fucking Diamond?” He then held up his hand as Nairo opened her mouth to respond. “I know you don’t agree about the Elves…”

“No, no… you’re right. They told PD the Diamond wasn’t dangerous, that was a lie. The fact that the Diamond is active completely challenges the validity of their story. A group of Elves don’t just go for a walk with a Diamond that could blow up a city. There’s rules and regulations against such a thing. To even travel with a Diamond you need a registered warlock or a magical creature with the correct training should something happen, oh and the permits to cross city lines with such a powerful magical object take days to fill out!”

“Good ol’ rules and regs,” Ridley said.

“They’re in place so something like this doesn’t happen! If the Elves had been truthful, I doubt they would have even been allowed entry to the City and at the very least there would have been an armed escort and overnight guards!”

“So why did they lie?” Ridley asked.

“Maybe they wanted to avoid the paperwork, this was an unexpected detour after all…” Nairo started but then cut herself off. “Except, you don’t have unexpected detours when you are travelling with something so powerful. Where is their guard by the way? Since when would an Elf travel with a dangerous, priceless, Diamond without armed escort from the Elvish Kingdom? Why the hell would they even be travelling through the Free Cities with that?”

“There’s only a few reasons why people lie and the main one is usually because they’ve done or are doing something they shouldn’t be.”

They paused in quiet thought for a few moments when suddenly there was a thump on the front door of the office.

“Did you order more food?” Nairo asked him.

“No…” he answered as they shared a look of joint suspicion. Ridley hauled himself out of his chair and Nairo limped around the hallway door.

“Who is it?” Ridley shouted, arming himself with a bat as he crept towards the door.

“It’s me!” a slurring voice yelled back.

“Who’s me?”

“Boy, you’ve made me trek halfway across the city in a damn storm! Open the damned door!” the gruff voice of Conway barked back at them.

Ridley scampered over the door and pulled it open, only to be brushed aside by a sopping wet, and very perturbed. disgraced detective.

“Lieutenant Conway, sir.” Nairo hastily tried to fix her hair and tunic at the same time.

Conway grunted at her, and then shook his bushy main of white hair, splattering rainwater everywhere.

“Sargeant,” he said with a nod before throwing his cloak at Ridley and easing himself into a chair. “Pour me something stiff.”

Nairo passed him her tumbler and he downed it in one, his Adam's apple bobbing under the scruff of his beard.

“More miserable than a Gnommish missionary out there,” Conway grumbled as he held the tumbler out for a refill. “Speaking of which, why the hell do you live in Little Cang?”

“I like the nightlife,” Ridley muttered as he disposed of Conway’s cloak in the hallway and limped back in. “Did you find anything?”

“More than you two by the looks of it,” Conway said, eyeing the insane web of their case on the wall.

“We’re clutching at straws right now,” Nairo admitted. “It seems like every clue is pointing at something we just can’t see.”

“That’s the problem with clues, they don’t make no fucking sense until they do,” Conway said before downing another shot of Elven vodka. “A good detective knows clues ain’t worth shit anyway. Every crime’s always got a base motive. Once you figure that out everything else falls into place.”

“We’re pretty short of those at the minute too,” Ridley said as he settled down on a precarious stack of papers.

“Well I’ve been busy while you too have been having a slumber party.” Conway reached into his vest, pulled out a thick file, and slammed it down on the desk. “That right there is a list of every illicit gambling den, fight pen, card house, and dice shack that the vice boys know about.”

Nairo picked up the file and weighed it in her hands.

“There’s this many?”

“And probably twice as many we don't know about,” Conway said, leaning back and pulling out a cigar.

“How are we going to narrow all this down?”

“By reading it first, I’m guessing,” Ridley said.

“Put the kettle on lad,” Conway said as he puffed his cigar into life. “I haven’t done an all nighter on a case in years!”

*

It had taken two hours for them to pair the list down to the most likely establishments. They had reasoned that De Woolf wouldn’t be going anywhere near Goblin controlled gambling houses, so that knocked quite a few off the list. Then the more legitimate establishments were next. After that, Ridley claimed the Gnommish didn’t do business with non-Gnomes so all of theirs were taken off.

“That leaves us with the human controlled gambling,” Nairo said as she straightened up the piled list of establishments they had left. It was still a worryingly big pile.

“If we knew what he liked a flutter on, we could really get somewhere,” Conway mused, scratching his jaw.

“Can’t say he shared with us the specifics of his addiction,” Ridley said, rubbing his eyes.

“How would that help us?” Nairo asked.

“Because, most of these places specialise in one thing or another. Some do racing, some do animal fighting, some do games of chance, and others are card houses,” Conway explained. “If we knew what your boy's flavour was we could target those.”

“Well what do we know about him? He’s a bank manager and a HobGoblin, probably something to do with numbers?” Ridley mused, only half taking the piss.

“Games of statistics and odds rather than chance,” Conway said. “That would probably eliminate a lot of the roulettes…”

“Card houses?” Nairo said suddenly, something in her brain tapping furiously at her consciousness for attention.

“Yeah,” Conway nodded. “You know all the classics: BlindElf’s hand, Copper tin, Bloody Martha, Peeling Onion…”

“That’s it!” Nairo said.

“What?” Ridley asked.

“Peeling Onion… hold on… one second.” Nairo patted herself down and then scrabbled for her cloak.

“She alright?” Conway asked.

“Dunno. She’s had a fair bit of that Elvish vodka.”

“Where’s my notepad?” Nairo shouted from the hallway.

“Not the bloody notepad again,” Ridley groaned. “She loves writing things down,” Ridley said to Conway.

“Here!” Nairo came stumbling back into the room waving around her little blue notepad. She flicked through the pages in the dying candlelight and chewed on her lip.

“Here look! The secretary, Isabelle, said something about cards, remember?”

Ridley thought for a moment.

“Yeah, didn’t she say something about De Woolf teaching her a game…”

“Peeling Onion!” Nairo tapped her finger on her meticulous notes. “She said he loves card games and that he could calculate all the chances of the cards like magic!”

“He’s a card counter,” Conway said, nodding his head. “Makes sense why he was always in so much trouble with nasty sorts, they don’t like it when you even the odds.”

“And if he counts cards, then we can assume he must be pretty good,” Ridley said. “How many card houses are in that pile?”

With renewed vigour, they sorted through the stack of paper, eliminating all options until they were left with only fourteen card houses that were run by humans.

“Well, it’s a lot less than we started with,” Ridley said as they eyed the pile.

“Even better,” Nairo said. “Almost all of these are within two main locations in the East and West.”

Conway sucked his teeth and sat back.

“East probably won’t be an issue, most of those card houses will be independents, but the West? That’s all the Landlord’s territory. You could be walking into some very nasty villains if you go poking around there. Even with a badge I wouldn’t risk asking too many questions.”

“We wouldn’t need to,” Nairo said. “We would just need to get some eyes up there and stakeout the card houses.”

“That would take too long,” Ridley said. “What if we waste days staking them out and De Woolf’s in the East?”

“I’d put my money on him being out East,” Conway said. “Unless your boys got a death wish. Goblins of any sort ain’t too welcome West of Durry bridge.”

“That leaves us with… five card houses! We could go there and question them and see if De Woolf’s resurfaced,” Nairo said. “But what about the others? I don’t want him to slip by us.”

“Send some grunts,” Conway said. “You must know a couple of boots who owe you a favour? Send ‘em up there to stake out the place.”

Ridley grinned at Nairo.

“I know just the perfect pair of coppers who owe us a favour.”

Nairo sighed.

“What was his name again?”

“Wally,” Ridley sniggered.

“No the other one.”