Jade Monkey

I looked up at the stars. Thousands of small white pinpricks of light, remote, distant and beautiful.  It had been a while since I’d taken time just to look at them. But I was taking the time now because they were dancing. As I turned my eyes away from one part of sky they span and rearranged themselves into different constellations. A small part of my mind was trying to grab my attention, but I  was resolutely ignoring it. My thoughts were quick skittering things that jumped and ran away just as I tried to focus. Sometimes they stayed still long enough to draw my attention away from the starscape with some cryptic observation, or a fragment of a word that I could almost make out  if only I could concentrate.

I watched the stars dance, content, as in the far distance dawn was just beginning to shade the nights sky a deep, dark blue. But the scratching noise was back, it seemed to dominate the world. I hated it, it echoed in my skull, sharp and angular before stopping for a few moments and then starting again. I’d turn and give whoever was making that racket a piece of my mind if the ropes weren’t so tight. It was a small detail, but a stray thought peeled away from the rest to suggest that this was important. A cool breeze caressed my face, refreshing my senses. A window, I was sat in front of a open window and there was a reason why I should be worried about this. I marshalled my thoughts.

I’d been drugged, which was better than dead, but my mind wasn’t all there. Someone wanted me alive, which was good. But they wanted me to either do something, or tell them something which judging from their way of asking they weren’t  expecting me to want to co-operate, which was bad. I was waking up in stages. My head was clearer than five minutes ago, the stars didn’t seem to be careening around the heavens as they had done before. The window in front of me was huge, and reached down to the floor, one swift kick to the back of the chair is all it would take. The scratching noise started again, I listened carefully and it resolved itself into the sound of a fountain pen moving across a page. There was someone here with me.

I made the effort to turn my head to look. Now the drug was wearing off, my head ached where I’d been knocked out, and I felt that soon my body was going to try and cash a few cheques that I was really not going to be able pay.

Miss Mills sat behind her desk, much as she had before. This time though, she was wearing a blue suit with a dark blue tie, the fedora she wore was pulled down low. Her face was lit from below by a small lamp on her desk. I don’t think I made a sound as I watched her, but she turned to face me and met my gaze.

‘Mr Jones.’ She sighed. ‘Has anyone ever told you that you’re remarkably resilient? I hadn’t expected you to be lucid again for quite some time.’ Her voice was amused, but her eyes told me a different story. I suppressed a shudder as I realised that if this was her office, the ground was a long way below.

‘I think lucid is probably stretching it.’ My voice sounded weak.

‘Quite remarkable really. When you came here the first time I thought that you were barely competent, and yet you’ve got to a where I had to act otherwise you might have started putting everything together.’

‘You mean the reason you killed the mayor?’

The words hung in the air. Miss Mills looked at me silently, waiting for me to speak.

‘To be honest, I can think of  a few scenarios.’ I said. ‘They mostly revolve around him overreaching himself.’

‘Close. Shall I tell you?’

‘Now why would you do a thing like that? Out of the kindness of your heart?’

She shook her head. ‘Because I need you to do something. To do that I need to show you that I’m a rational actor and won’t just have you summarily shown the window.’

‘Isn’t it usually shown the door?’

She smiled, and again I found myself thinking of cats. This time big orange ones with black stripes. ‘I find the window to be far more effective.’

‘I bet you do.’ I murmured.

‘What was that?’ She asked, one eyebrow raised.

‘Nothing important. So why kill the mayor?’

Miss Mills leaned back in her chair and tilted her hat back with one hand. ‘Because he had delusions of taking over. After I’d arranged the permanent retirement of Loughborough’s former criminal elite there was something of a power vacuum while I and my associates moved to fill the gap the mayor and Scary Anthony were doing something along similar lines. Bribery is one thing, forming a rival organisation is quite another. That’s why he hired that ridiculous oversized hamster of a bodyguard.’

I pulled my eyes away from the kaleidoscopic effect of the colour changing wall behind her. ‘He did have a rather hamster-like expression didn’t he?’

‘Despite that, he was responsible for the theft of the Jade monkey. I’d already arranged for someone with a duplicate of my key to leave the locks open. I never expected someone else to attempt to steal it while I was confronting the mayor about his moonlighting. Which brings us back to you.’

‘It does?’

‘It does. As well as investigating the murder, you’ve been looking for the Jade monkey. A little haphazardly perhaps but you’ve been looking.’

‘What’s the Jade got to do with anything?’

‘Its not especially the Jade itself. As a piece of art I don’t feel it rates really highly. What I do rate it as, is as a symbol.’

‘A symbol?’ I asked.

‘Yes, a symbol. Its all about power and control. If I can take the Jade, it proves a certain ruthlessness and criminal competence to some people who I need to expand my current activities, and to reign in some of the independents like Red Mark and make crime in this town that little bit more organised.

Which brings us back to you again. You were the first person to find Mr Charles’ body. I’m afraid my colleagues were rather enthusiastic in asking him where he’d hidden the Jade. All he had on him was this.’ She  leant forward and opened her desk drawer and put the Jade on the table.

I thought for a moment that the drug was taking hold again. At least I knew that that world of dancing stars and flashing colours made no sense.

‘But, that’s the real one.’

Miss Mills met my eyes properly, and I was glad of the dregs of the drug in my system because the ice cold fury in those eyes would probably have made me flinch under normal circumstances and next to the window, that was a bad idea.

‘The real one,’ she snarled. ‘Does not have ‘Made in China’ on the bottom.’