Detective Story

The pole is hollow. When I strike it, it rings like a discordant, unusually hard and toneless xylophone. Mottled gray-silver, the iron-sand surface scored with countless marks. I run my finger across it, and it feels like the scales of a snake - ridged, overlapping, cold. The faint scent of acrid metal emanates from it, though the smell is offset by the biting wind and the chill of the winter day. I have to inhale long and hard. Not like rust. A more weathered, less tangy smell, as expected from the galvanised metal. A single black sticker, peeling at the edges and ripped clean at one side, is pasted somewhere below my field of vision. I look down, touching the smooth, cheap-feeling gloss with my finger and scrutinizing the words.

SADD in bright red, screaming type
tudents gainst runk riving in white, between the spaces

Fair enough, I muse, moving on to the torn edge. Something has picked the black away like a healing scab, leaving the subdermal layer of grainy white paper clearly visible. So as not to leave things unfinished, I touch that too. Smooth, coming away under my touch like eraser dust - until I reach the black. Then it scrapes along like rubber.

I step away, scrutinizing the whole thing.  It is rather hard to write on.



Stockbroker kills the other stockbroker







The call comes at the crack of dawn. Like any hardboiled detective, I roll over the blanket, miss the phone, fumble for a few seconds, curse profusely when I drop it again, and finally manage to get the damned thing to my ear.

"Mick Scartooth, Private Investigator," I growl, trying to project the air of a hardened professional, not someone who's spent the last two minutes fighting a losing battle against a telephone receiver. "Specialist in supernatural and paranormal cas-"

"Mick, thank God." The voice is oily, abrupt, and desperate. It sounds like the owner is sweating profusely, rubbing his little hands together and forcing an ingratiating smile at the same time. Which, given who it is, is probably the case.

I scowl and sit up, drawing the sheets closer to me and trying to keep the pointed dislike out of my voice. "Inspector Chops. What the hell do you want with my agency?"

A brief intake of breath through flabby lips. "