IC - 7 - The House - Everyone

[Mr. Handy]

After calling someone to come collect the cat, Jocelyn speaks into the radio again. "Now that the kitchen is secure and nobody's going to slip out the back," she says, "why don't we come round the front and go inside?"

[Silver Priest]

Seeing the room is safe, Simon joins Kris inside it.

"I don't believe anyone's here. Not that surprising, all told-- our man is an expert, and given the steps he took to hide his identity, I highly doubt he left even a trace of evidence behind to tell us where he may have been planning to take Reginia. My main suggestion now would be finding his computer, should he have one, and see if we can discover anything of his recent search history, who he may have been in contact with.

If he hears Jocelyn over the radio, he also responds to her. "Quite a natural reaction to have. I myself thought I witnessed a blood moon earlier this evening. It's quite amazing the sort of biases our brains fall victim to. I suggest we get someone to look at how long the cat's been ill for. Also look around the house, see if Mr. Lewiston has been neglecting to do his dishes or tidy up after himself. Perhaps we can roughly trace how long he's fallen prey to this obsession of his."

OOC:   If Simon does not have a radio he'll relay these thought to the rest of the group when he can.

[Mephistophilis]

OOC,Simon can hear over Kris's radio and speak to the others over that radio when Kris lets him, I'll assume he did unless Philulhu says otherwise

Bates replies over the radio, 'Yeah, come round, maybe you can help me with something.'

Jocelyn and PC Holmes, the latter carrying the manky cat, make their way to the front of the property. The AFO directs them inside the house to the front room. The curtains are open and the lights are on, shining out into the street.

The front room itself is sparsely furnished with a television, matching beige settee and armchair, and a glass side table. Over the original cast iron and tile fireplace hangs a clock and on another wall there is a red electric guitar mounted.

Sitting on the beige settee is DS Bates talking to a South Asian woman in a muted shalwar kameez and headscarf. Jocelyn reckons she is in her late fifties. Coming in on the middle of a conversation it is difficult to figure out what she is saying as she has rather hesitant English, but she seems to be quite upset and is repeatedly asking something like 'You find George? Is George alright?''

When the lady sees the cat she reacts in horror, 'Oh, poor Starbuck!'

Simon and Kris,I can describe what they find upstairs if Kris has nothing else specific he wants to do

[Philulhu]

Kris sighed heavily and lowered his baton. For a moment he thought he’d seen something in the corner of the room but it was just a shadow...

Simon chattered away next to him as Kris took stock of the room, then he turned abruptly and walked back onto the landing, pushing open the other doors to see what’s inside the rooms.

[Mephistophilis]

Kris and Simon look into the second bedroom at the rear of the house. It has only a freestanding wardrobe and a double bed and nothing else of interest.

Walking into the third bedroom in the middle of the house they see it has a single bed with a desk pushed up against the wall. The desk has great dents and splinters in its surface. Sitting on the desk is a home shredder, a laptop with a smashed screen and keyboard, and the remains of what appear to be a hard drive and a mobile phone. There is a sledge hammer propped up against the desk.

In the corner there is a plastic bag filled with tiny pieces of shredded paper from the cross shredder and a scattering of undamaged documents on the floor.

On the bed there is a Bible, it is creased open with a ribbon bookmark down the centre of the page. Beside it is a battered paperback.

[Philulhu]

Kris held up a hand to caution Simon to remain at the threshold while he took a closer look. Kneeling down, he looked across the floor to make sure there were no tripwires to catch out the unwary.

Satisfied that it looked clear, he moved over to the desk to examine the remains of the laptop. ”We’ve found a laptop,” he said into his radio, “Has anyone got the number for PC World’s tech support?”

He sighed and beckoned Simon into the room, and turned to look at the Bible and paperback on the bed.

Spoiler:

Spot Hidden, Looking for tripwires, etc. I’ve presumed there aren’t any... (40%) - [dice]0[/dice]

[Mephistophilis]

The Bible is a fairly old looking leather bound copy of the King James Bible. The bookmark is in Exodus 11-12.

The paperback is a well thumbed copy of 'The Book of the Passover Angel'. The briefest of skims indicates a cheap paperback printed by a vanity press, about 200 pages in length, the first two chapters seem to be reprints of the books of Genesis and Exodus while the third chapter is written by the Reverend John Balfour and is titled 'Kenyan Revelations', a fourth chapter seems to be an appendix for the third.

Simon picks up the Bible and reads a passage from Exodus 11:5, 'And all the firstborn in the land of Egypt shall die...', he shudders involuntarily and for a second has a panicky feeling, the sensation that there is something moving in the periphery of his vision, something shadowy and malign.

As quickly as the sensation comes over him it is gone. Obviously the coincidence of Jocelyn's talk of the plagues of Egypt and then reading the same section of the Bible has affected him for a moment.

[Mr. Handy]

"If anyone can recover data from the laptop, it's MI5," says Jocelyn over the radio. "It'll take time, though, which is in short supply, but I'll arrange for them to pick it up and get started working on it." Once she has done this, she greets the South Asian woman. "Hello, I'm Jocelyn Leigh. Perhaps I can be of help. Do you live here?"

[Silver Priest]

"I should have known," Simon sighs when he sees the smashed computer. "Our man is sharp. Or was, I suppose."

He picks up the bible. Briefly glances around before he berates himself for it.All this nonsense was getting to him.

"Interesting. Seems as though Lewiston still kept up with the Reverend's work." He looks through the book quickly, curious if Lewiston had underlined any particular sections or quotes that held importance to him.

[Mephistophilis]

As far as Simon can gather from a brief look at 'The Book of the Passover Angel', Balfour and his church believe that the end of the world is coming and that it will culminate in a return of the plagues of Egypt ravaging the world, sparing only the faithful. This belief seems to have come from some kind of revelatory experience he had in Kenya.

Perhaps surprisingly, nothing is underlined or otherwise marked.

Simon,To get anything else out of the book you'll need a more detailed study which will take several hours

[Mephistophilis]

Jocelyn greets the woman. Her English is very poor and difficult to understand but it seems she is Lewiston's next-door neighbour.

Jocelyn,It is going to be difficult to talk to her about anything beyond very simple information. Jocelyn doesn't recognise the language she's speaking in except for a few words. She could roll a combination of Idea roll and Arabic (need to roll under lowest) to identify it

[Silver Priest]

Simon pockets the book, intending to study it later. Technically he supposes he should give it to the police, but he trusts his own abilities far more.

[Mr. Handy]

Jocelyn has no idea what the language is. It's clearly not Arabic, the only other one she knows. "When did you last see George?" she asks the woman.

OOC,Idea/Language(Arabic) roll (31% skill) to identify the language: [dice]0[/dice]

[Philulhu]

While Simon skimmed through the book, Kris checked out the wardrobe for any further clues.

[Mephistophilis]

The woman manages to get across that she last saw George early on Thursday. And something about the cat, perhaps that she was feeding it. When the woman stops talking in English and lapses into whatever her first language is, Jocelyn thinks she might recognise the occasional word but isn't sure where from, Farsi perhaps.

Kris looks in the wardrobe and finds nothing of any interest, there are a few old coats and empty boxes.

[Philulhu]

”I don’t think there’s anything else in here,” said Kris said to Simon. “I’ll just check the bathroom and head downstairs.”

As he headed out of the room, a thought occurred to him and he scanned the ceilings of the upstairs rooms, looking for a loft hatch.

[Mephistophilis]

Kris sees loft hatch over the landing but it seems painted over and probably hasn't been used in some time.

There is no bathroom upstairs, presumably it is downstairs.

[Mr. Handy]

"Has George had any visitors?" asks Jocelyn.

[Mephistophilis]

The woman looks baffled at Jocelyn's question.

[Philulhu]

Kris extends his baton and pushes against the loft hatch until the paint begins to crack. Satisfied that no-one could have been up there for a while, he heads downstairs to report to DS Bates.

He joins the others in front room, where Jocelyn is trying to talk to an older woman, without a lot of luck.

OOC,Is it a language Kris recognises? He has Hindi to 40% - [dice]0[/dice]