Dear Jo,

After some analysis of your findings, it seems that Monday was far from just an ordinary day.

So, we have Mr Brown working from 8pm-8am, seven nights a week on rotational shifts. He’s worked with the same firm for fifteen years and at this site for five years, so was familiar with everything that went on at Knight’s Quarter. I would say that whatever he has to say, however insignificant, holds the clue to this case.

The cameras in his office showed views of the car park, entrance to individual suites, but not their interior. Mr Brown saw her car parked, and a woman he identified as our subject.

The Samson’s seem oblivious to Miss Johnson’s life passing away whilst they worked, cleaning the office suite and possibly the evidence away. Again, the clues are all there, aren’t they? Miss Johnson arrived in the midst of their routine, so her room must have been attended to. They claim to have not seen her or any sign of her necklace.

The layout of the suite is interesting; it being like a donut ring. The inner ring was the hub; the workshop aspect of the company, with an open plan reception area at the entrance. Moving clockwise from there was the kitchen, Miss Johnson’s office, storeroom, toilets, meeting room, and Miss Wright’s office.

Mrs Samson started cleaning clockwise and her husband anticlockwise meeting in the hub. They used one vacuum cleaner each and cleaned their own half of the room. It’s all ritual. What happened? What was out of place?

Mrs Samson doesn’t remember anything different in the kitchen when she cleaned it, just mugs left to soak in the sink from the previous day. Following fits of uncontrollable coughing, she returned to get a glass of water. Mr Samson returned to the kitchen and washed it along with a mug. He assumed she hadn’t cleaned up the kitchen. Poor Mrs Samson was struggling outside with her coughing so left her husband to finish putting the cleaning gear away in their van.

There’s something hidden in front of our eyes. Do you see it?

Yours

Swan

Dear Jo,

Thank you for your thorough investigative work and your concise summary of your findings.

Like many of these cases that I look into, the unfortunate victim seems not to have any enemies or motives for the ending of their lives. Miss Johnson can be placed into that category.

She started the design company with her friend and business partner from leaving university, five years ago. The business is thriving with no financial difficulties or rivalries, and their resent departure into internet sales is making steady profits.

Miss Johnson and Miss Wright were good friends with similar interests that converged into setting up the company. They had a grant to set it up as well as ready cash from their individual savings. Neither women had personal issues with each other; in fact, I have several statements that tell us they were like sisters.

I don’t believe that Miss Wright had anything to do with this death; your findings confirm this. I agree that this wasn’t a ‘crime passionnel.’ Again, there were no rivalries here. Their love interests, both men, were firm long term relationships, sharing holidays, hobbies but not each other.

The next step is to look at the environment and the irregularities surrounding that day.

Can you venture to Knight’s Quarter and ‘acquire’ a plan of the office suites and statements from Mr Brown and the Samson’s. I’m sure you know what’s needed. I will be deciphering possible weapons that could have been used in Miss Johnson’s death.

Yours

Swan

Dear Jo,

Sorry for the delay. I was just collecting some information together on our next case. I’ll let you read through it and give you the privilege of naming this one.

This case involved a woman called Miss Johnson who ran a soft furnishings design company, with her business partner, Miss Wright. Miss Wright found her laid on her back, fully clothed in her office. She stated nothing seemed to be missing.

Miss Johnson died from asphyxiation but a murder weapon has not been found. There is neither motive nor suspect for this case. But we shall prevail where the traditional investigation has failed.

The office suite is situated in the Knight’s Quarter. Five people had access to the office suite: Miss Johnson, Miss Wright, Mr and Mrs Samson, who were contracted to clean before office hours and Mr Brown, the security guard for Knight’s Quarter.

The only unusual facts, according to Miss Wright, are some lapses in her habits. She always wore a string of pearls on a Monday (the day she died) and these were missing; when she entered her office, she always wedged the door open and made a cup of tea. The door was closed and no signs of a drink prepared.

The coroner stated she was strangled and that no other markings were found on her body apart from a strange, red circular mark on her neck, approximately 27cm in diameter.

I would like you to scrutinise the newspaper and internet articles surrounding this case as I look into some background information of Miss Johnson and some of her close associates.

I very much look forward to hearing from you shortly.

Yours

Swan

Dear Jo,

You are correct in thinking that Mrs Partridge did not merely slip and fall and thus receive some inexplicable blow to the eye.

All in all, your deductions were correct. Well done. I will, however, tell you exactly what happened, according to my assessment and those of the coroner.

Mrs Partridge was a fit and healthy woman of forty. On her return home, it was mid-afternoon, just starting to get dark and she used the back door as was usual. Maybe struggled with key in the lock with one hand so threw/dropped her rucksack up against door. It’s not hard to imagine her being a little frustrated, being tired and cold, wanting to get in the house. Eventually the lock became free.

She heard something, though, above her and looked up; maybe water dripped on her glasses so she removed them and looked up again as the noise sounded out. Little did she know that the weight of the bag would cause the already melting, four foot icicle to dislodge from the guttering. Indeed, it fell and penetrated her left eye socket, causing a seizure, bleeding and death. As she fell, her glasses were discarded and the icicle spear broke off as she made contact with ground, leaving a shard imbedded in the cavity. As she lay undiscovered, the frozen shrapnel melted all but a trace of the weapon that drained and dripped off her face and froze on the path.

An unfortunate accident indeed.

To answer some of your questions I have worked on many strange cases of a similar theme, not all shrouded in death, might I add. I’m afraid to admit I do find the morbid rather exciting though. You say that you are more than happy to work with me so I feel that now the preliminaries are out of the way, we should begin on a new case.

Yours

Swan

Dear Jo,

Great, you’re still interested.

There’s just the matter of a little test. Did I not mention that? It’s not a trick. I need to check out all my recruits’ abilities. You may think you’re up to the job but this is whole mind thinking; using logic and creativity.

Mrs Partridge left her house one January morning at 7 o’clock. There’d been a recent spell of snow and lower than usual cold temperatures of minus9. She left the house, dressed appropriately for the cold weather. She wore duck down boiler jacket, over layered clothing, thick woollen socks in Magnum boots, fleece glove liners under ski gloves and a woollen hat. She had a small rucksack stuffed with her personal items.

When she saw the black ice on the slight incline, she decided to leave her car where it was parked, outside her house, and walked the 2miles to work. The weather had improved, as predicted, and though still cold, midges were seen hovering over shrubbery.

For Mrs Partridge, the day was uneventful until she reached home. She was found laid on her back, on the paving, round the back of her house. Unfortunately, she wasn’t discovered till the next day when the postman dropped off a parcel. She was dead.

She’d received a penetrating orbital trauma from a foreign body resulting in temporal lobe seizure, arterial trauma and brain ischaemia. Apart from some bruising, from her fall and seizures, there were no other injuries.

Her rucksack was against the unlocked, closed door where the key was in situ. She wore glasses but these were found by the door.

There was slight ground frost overnight and no ice formed apart from a small area near her head.

It was concluded that Mrs Partridge’s death was an accident. The foreign body, which would have been heavy, with a sharp point and smooth edges, was never found.

Ponder if you will, the Case of the Fallen Bird, (as I like to call it). What conclusions do you make of this case?

Yours

Swan

Dear Jo,

I most sincerely apologise for my error. It is one that went unnoticed by you but I assumed you were male. How could I have made such a boob, I mean your name is female, Jo, or Josephine as you have informed me, and not Joe as I thought.

Thank you for your quick response. You tell me you’re intrigued by my name so I will tell you.

Family tradition goes that an ancestor, on my mother’s side, was a Native American. She wanted to name her first born in ‘the way of her ancestors;’ after the first thing she saw after my birth, something like that. I like to think she was at home, by the lake, when I was placed in her arms, and she glanced briefly at a wedge of swans that had taken flight. Hmm. Nice, but not the truth.

I was born a week early. It was a surprise to Mother but not to those around who thought my birth, in the kitchen, no shock at all. She was always fidgeting; she couldn’t sit still. Mother had been preparing the Sunday roast at the time and true to her word, she turned to look, and what she saw was a large, yellow, box of matches on the kitchen table. The makers? Swan.

As you can see, I’m far from conventional, and nor shall I be, unless called to be so. My ways may be strange but they are effect.

You are correct in thinking that meeting face to face will only be in extreme circumstances. Do not destroy or file our letters, but rather keep them in bundles in the PO Box; they are pieces of evidence, our security. Yes, I do require that you acknowledge an unwritten contract of trust, that you fulfil our mutual contribution to the mission, no matter how long it may take. It is a commitment, but one that’s worthwhile.

Yours

Swan

Dear Jo Brady,

Thank you for considering this mission, solely on the word of our mutual friend, Eddie.

Firstly, some ground rules before you agree to anything.

You may think letter writing to be passé but I believe the act or art of writing to be more truthful; it focuses the mind more than typing on a key board and pressing send.

I admit to being a technophobe. This stems from my reluctant adoption of paranoia; an extreme form of awareness. I trust the word but not the type. I believe in the post but not email. Phones, be they landline or mobile are tricky; I don’t want to hear that Eve’s dropping in (pardon the pun) with her Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. It may be slow, but the forgotten grandparent of communication is my bag.

I have tried and tested my theory that our future correspondence will not be tampered with if we follow certain rules. Use tradition letter writing stationery; keep it light weight, (standard stationary weight 80gsm will do), bulky mail could be tempting a rogue sorter to seek out money. Also, extra stamps have implications other than cost.  Use C6 envelopes with one A4 paper folded twice. Write on one side only and no A5’s please. Follow this and we’ll have a nice, neat postcard size, unassuming letter.

We MUST use the designated PO Box addresses to avoid OTHERS accidently opening our mail or becoming suspicious, and of course it will appease any worries I may have about the security of this mission.

Who am I? I sound like an advert for Debrett’s. I will introduce myself next time. As you can see, I’ve run out of space.

Yours

Swan