Goon looked over at Fatty and motioned him over. Fatty rolled himself over in his chair over to Goon’s desk.
“Let me show you what I found”, he said as he typed away on Goon’s keyboard.
He sat back as the screen refreshed. Goon stared impassively ahead. A list appeared on the monitor. Fatty pointed with his finger down the list and waited for Goon.
Goon grunted.
“What are looking at?” he asked.
“I compiled all the cases into a single list. So what you’re seeing is that list. I tagged all the locations, the old ladies’ names, their next of kin, and, their neighbours.”
“So?”
“So first I want to show you the locations. I’ve categorised them here, as general location area, using this area categorization here. So if you look at this map and see where the concentration of cases are, what we see is the very high concentration of cases in the East End.”
“You told me that 12 out of 27 were in the East End. That’s only about half. This grouping doesn’t show that.”
“I was wrong, Chief. I mixed Abbey Lane with Abbey Road. When I fixed it you see now that 22 of the 27 are in this general area.”
“So?”
“I knew you’d ask me that question and that is an excellent question, Chief! Well done.”
“Trotteville, do not patronise me, young man.”
“But it is an excellent point! It’s exactly what made me sit up and ask myself .. uh what.. um what am I going to say when the Chief asks me this question.”
Fatty paused as Goon turned to look at him. Goon’s gaze was piercing and Fatty quickly, typed a few commands and saw the screen refresh.
He cleared his throat.
“Uh, Chief, here’s what I wanted to show you.”
He waved at the new list on the screen. It was series of names. Goon peered at the list.
He leaned back and said, “So you going to look up this guy, how do you pronounce it? This Dijo… whatever it is?”
Fatty laughed.
“My guess is this is our Zoogi. Mrs Miller also probably mispronouncing her name. Djordji. Maybe is Georgy… Spoken in an accent it could sound like Zoogi.”
Goon said, “How man times does he appear?”
Fatty said, “Fifteen times. See this little list of numbers and names? That’s how many times each appears. Also, interestingly, there’s Casamir, who appears eight times, Tobar and Pesha, two each. That brings us to twenty-seven, the total number of cases where an old lady has complained of her neighbours. And, I have been going through the reports that were filed at the time of the complaint. I spoke with each office who interviewed the ladies. In at least ten cases, the old ladies mentioned accidents that they had or nearly had.”
“Accidents? What kind of accidents?”
“Mostly falls. Two ladies found a ball.”
“And the others?” said Goon, “I think I know what you’re going to say.”
Fatty got up, bowed deeply in an elaborate courtesy. As he straightened, he found himself staring at Superintendent Johns.
“Well, things seem to be going well, I should assume?” she asked, her head bent inquiringly at Fatty.
Goon cleared his throat.
“It seems, Superintendent, that we are seeing some strong patterns here. Trotteville here has analyzed the incident reports and found a common set of names that seem to recur. Also, a recurring theme of accidents happening to the old ladies. Skateboards, it seems, are a recurrent theme. Am I right, Trotteville?” said Goon.
“Uh yes, we have balls on the staircases on two occasion and skateboards in eleven cases.”
“Eleven? Good god, man, get on with it. It seems to be more serious than we thought,” said Alicia.
She left, striding out in her usual manner.
Goon sat down with a thump in his chair. Fatty slid into his chair, threw his head back and laughed.
“Skateboards, Chief, skateboards! I think we have a glue, a very big glue.”
“What is a glue?” asked Goon, his eyebrows knitted together into a huge caterpillar.
Fatty sighed.
“Oh, it’s just a word someone I once knew used to use”, he sighed.
“Sounds like someone who left an impression on you”, said Goon.
“If you only knew, Chief, if you could but guess …”, Fatty gazed up at the ceiling.
