The Florist And The Spider

(A small but baffling crime has the local police applying the latest investigative technology to detect the culprit, from a long list of suspects. A humorous short story, with a twist.)

Florist’s Window Smashed For A Bunch of Flowers. This was the headline in the local newspaper that evening. The story went on to report: The Florist’s shop in the High Street had its front window smashed earlier today and apparently an expensive bouquet of flowers was stolen. Police were on the scene immediately as, by chance, a CID officer was in the vicinity at the time. "I just happened to be passing moments after the incident," said Detective Constable Neil Bell. "We are taking this matter very seriously as we are operating a policy of zero tolerance to petty crime and vandalism. We are following up a number of lines of enquiry."

"Why smash a florist’s shop window just for a bunch of flowers?" said Detective Inspector Keating, Neil Bell’s superior, just as Neil sat down and put his feet up on his desk.

"Because you wouldn’t get any flowers if it was a bakery or an ironmonger’s," said Bell, without looking up from his notepad.

Keating bent over Bell’s shoulder and said, "If you’re so clever, show me what you’ve come up with so far. And get your feet off your desk. You make the place look untidy. Number one conference room in five minutes."

"Are you sure?" said Bell, without moving. "I mean, it’s only a bunch of flowers."

"Five minutes. Zero tolerance, remember? And that means the feet too. Put ‘em down – you’re not on holiday."

Five minutes later, Bell was standing before the whiteboard in the conference room with Sergeant Cross, Inspector Keating and Bell’s oppo, Scott McKay. Quite a team. Though Bell knew Cross was only there out of courtesy and that both he and Keating would leave him to it once he’d done his little briefing. Even McKay would probably busy himself with something else – there was talk of a theft of a large quantity of sausages across town.

"Everybody here? Right – " Bell answered his own question, pulling the top off his marker pen. "This is what we’ve got so far."

"Nothing at all, I would imagine," said McKay, who looked like he wanted to be elsewhere.

"You’d be surprised."

"Witnesses?" said Keating, sounding authoritative.

"Not to the smash and grab itself, but quite a number of interesting suspects in the area.

"Do tell," said McKay.

"OK," said Bell, who turned to the whiteboard and drew a big oval in the centre of the whiteboard, and wrote the word Florist in the middle.

"Is this going to take long?" said McKay.

"Shut up and find out," said Sergeant Cross, who was probably wondering the same thing.

"I spoke to the proprietor, Mr Kent. He said that he saw no-one at all in the street at the time. He also said that he’s had a number of breakages in recent months that he can’t account for and he is beginning to the think that the shop may be – well – haunted." Bell drew another circle on the whiteboard, wrote the word Ghosts in it, and drew a line between it and the word Florist.

"Oh, great," said McKay. "So now we have to investigate suspects in the afterlife."

"Shut up," said Sergeant Cross.

"He did have one other theory," said Bell, "but as he had never seen anyone he thought it unlikely to be the explanation."

"And a ghost is?" said McKay.

"What was the theory?" said Inspector Keating.

"Kent said he was in dispute with a chap called Gallagher." Bell drew a third circle and labelled it. "Gallagher owns the confectioner’s around the corner. Kent said he once had to get some spare change from Gallagher one day a few weeks back because the cash float in the till was low. Gallagher later accused him of not paying up the full amount, and got quite heated about it, but Kent says it was just a mistake."

"So Gallagher smashes his window and grabs a bunch of forget-me-nots in revenge?" said McKay.

"Shut up," said Sergeant Cross.

"I went round to see Gallagher, and he said he’d forgotten all about it – we’re only talking ten quid. But Gallagher had another theory."

"Oh, great," said McKay. Sergeant Cross glared at him. "What was it?

"Gallagher says that there are some property developers interested in the whole block. He’s heard that they can get pretty imaginative when it comes to persuading reluctant tenants to sell up. They are called Astra Holdings." Bell drew another circle on the board and linked it to the centre.

"Intimidation," said Sergeant Cross, pursing his lips with his first show of enthusiasm. "Could be a motive."

"My brother-in-law works for Astra Holdings," said Inspector Keating, with a withering tone. "They’re as straight as a die. Some other property company started that rumour about them."

"Oh," said Sergeant Cross, slumping back in his chair.

"Just a minute, said Inspector Keating, "isn’t there a CCTV camera on that corner of the High Street?"

"I was coming to that," said Bell. "It turns out that the camera is angled on the pub, The Drunken Duck, across the street and doesn’t show the front of the florist shop. But we do know several people who were in the area." Bell left the whiteboard and switched on the trolley-mounted TV and VCR in the corner. Picking up the remote control, he set the tape running. The picture was a mix of black and grey. Faintly discernible was The Drunken Duck. "Here," he pointed to the pavement in front of the pub, "a few minutes earlier was some sort of argument between two men who had just come out of the pub. At one point, one of them – here, you see? – seems to throw something at the other, but misses." Bell paused the tape.

"Blimey, they started early in the day, didn’t they?" said McKay.

"Any idea who they were?" said Sergeant Cross, glaring at McKay again.

"No – I’ll need to go back to the landlord and show him this tape to see if he recognises them." Bell drew yet another circle on the whiteboard and wrote Disturbance –something thrown? in it. Only the lettering didn’t quite fit the circle. The diagram was getting rather crowed. "But there’s a couple of other faces I’ve identified in the street."

"Amaze us," said McKay.

"Shut up," said Cross.

Bell ran the tape on a few seconds before pausing it again. "This is Thomas Fairchild," he pointed to a grey figure. "He’s a known schizophrenic out on Care In The Community – he’s regarded as harmless, according to his psychiatrist, a Doctor Fisher, as long as he remembers his meds. We’ve pulled him in a couple of times for trying to direct traffic on the motorway – presumably he doesn’t always take ‘em. Dr Fisher said Fairchild has a thing about Stargazer Lilies – thinks they are the most beautiful flowers in the world."

"So he took ‘em," said McKay.

"The missing flowers were not lilies."

"Perhaps he’s branching out."

"Dr Fisher said he attended an out-patients clinic twenty minutes later at the General. He didn’t have any flowers on him then. Still," Bell drew on the whiteboard once more, "we can’t rule him out. Then there’s this chap," Bell pointed to the screen. "This is Reggie Blower. He’s an environmental campaigner. He was arrested last year up at Crofter’s Farm for destroying genetically modified maize."

"Does Mr Kent sell genetically modified roses or anything?" said Cross, wearily.

"Kent says of course not. There’s no such thing, apparently."

"You’d still better draw him on the board," said Cross with a hint of irony. "You wouldn’t want to miss him out while you’ve a bit of space left."

"There’s room for just one more," said Bell, as he scribbled with his back to his little audience. "While I was talking about this to Mr Kent, he told me he’d had a customer, a Mr Ledbetter, who had complained that some flowers he’d bought a week ago gave him hay-fever when he’d never had it before." Bell filled one last circle with this name, and added one last line to Florist.

"Was he in the Mafia, this Ledbetter? Did he threaten to have Kent sleeping with the compost before the day was out?"

"No," said Bell. "It was just that, when I asked Mr Kent whether he’d had any dissatisfied customers, Ledbetter was the only one he could think of."

"I never knew it could be so exciting being a florist," said McKay.

Pointing to the mass of circles, lines and scribbles now sprawling out in all directions on the whiteboard, Inspector Keating said, levelly, "Is that it?"

"Yes," said Bell.

"And what do you call that?"

"It’s a spider diagram. It shows all possible lines of enquiry in the case."

"I don’t think you’ve much chance of solving it," said Inspector Keating, rising stiffly to his feet.

"It’s a complete mess," said McKay, as the officers filed out, "that’s what I call it. You won’t catch me getting involved – " he pointed to the diagram – "with that."

"Shut up," said Sergeant Cross, closing the door behind them.

"No," said Bell to himself, shaking his head. "I don’t think I’m going to solve it either."



"Darling, I’m home," said Neil Bell. "Happy anniversary!"

"You remembered!" said his wife, seeing him standing in the doorway. "I didn’t think you’d be able to get me anything – I found your wallet after you left for work this morning."

He handed her a huge and impressive bouquet of flowers. "Well – it has been a busy day… but you know me – I’d always grab you something, no matter what."

THE END