Statement 2b - Surrey Police Headquarters

[Mr. Handy]

Are his emails available?

[Snapper]

"Right you are, my China. Let's have a look at your email and your saved photos. And what is this 'Flowers Fields'?"

Those are Skipper's priorities: Email Saved photos and video Flowers Fields references.

[jp1885]

Chichester's emails are largely confined to mundane work related matters, interspersed with forum notifications from motoring websites. There is also an email from a particular video-sharing site stating how his comment on a 'Loz' Drivez' video has been reported to the moderators and removed pending approval.

Saved photos and videos are, predicably, of fast cars and the occasional glamour model.

Searching for Flowers Fields brings up something possibly more useful. Photos of flower gardens and Holland's tulip fields aside, it appears that there is a garden centre nearby with that exact name. At least it is listed in a local business directory as such, giving an address just off the A286 near Grayswood.

Any further investigation with the laptop will require a few more hours' work or the services of a communications & data specialist.

[Mr. Handy]

"Shall we check out the car now?" asks Jordan.

[Trivun]

Finally, Izzy thinks. Something concrete.

"I'd have thought the car would be at the leisure centre still. Although, might be worth sending someone over there with the keys from Chichester's body, so the others can investigate if it is still parked up there," Izzy says, mainly to Sgt. Dhillon. Simple logic dictates that Karl drove to the leisure centre, and since he died there, he obviously couldn't have driven back.

"Might be something in his garage though, so still worth a look. And then we can check out this 'Flowers Fields' place. See if our stiff was a regular there."

Normally she'd refrain from using terms such as 'stiff' to describe a deceased individual, but Izzy doesn't feel particularly charitable to this particular corpse.

[Snapper]

Skipper is feeling rather chipper that his cyber-larceny skills have at last found the hopefully appreciative audience they deserve.

"The lock-up! Let's have a butcher's. With this specimen, there's got to be something exciting innit."

"Place your bets for what's in the lock-up. You too, Sergeant. Winner gets a free beer tonight down the nuclear. I'm going with weird, kinky sex-toy."

[Trivun]

Izzy gives Skipper a cheeky grin.

"You know what? I'll take that bet, but... one condition. I win, you're buying mine and Alice's first drinks."

She thinks about the possibilities. Wouldn't be too unexpected to find some kind of fetish stuff in there, after all, Izzy's seen similar, and worse, in other lock-ups during her time with the Met. But given Karl's apparent lack of partner, and overbearing masculinity complex, she doubts it's anything sex related.

"Might be a boring answer, but I'm willing to bet we'll find more of that stuff from Flowers Fields. And probably a load of car magazines and copies of Nuts and Loaded."

[jp1885]

While Sgt. Dhillon makes a call to have Chichester's car keys sent to Leo and co., you head down to the garage.

Disappointingly, it is not a fully kitted-out sex dungeon, or whatever it is your salacious minds have conjured up, but an empty space, bounded by plain breezeblock walls,

What little shelving there is lies devoid of tools, unless car shampoo and wax can be classed as such. Clearly the area was used to store Chichester's pride and joy, but not to maintain it.

However, what you do notice is an all-too familiar vestigia - very faint, but there nonetheless - the smell of tropical flowers, the feeling of strong sunlight and the chirruping of exotic birds or insects.

[Mr. Handy]

Is the car itself here?

[jp1885]

No, the garage is empty.

[Snapper]

Skipper doesn't hesitate with Izzy's gambling condition. "It's a deal, the bet is on," he answers with a brief flash of unexpected gallantry. (Or possibly gambling addiction.)

However, the actual lock-up is not playing ball. "More of an anti-climax than my last date night," is Skipper's considered judgement.

"So, if the spray is a spray-in version of Bilbo's ring, anyone else besides me wondering if perhaps it was actually meant for vehicular transport? As in, you spray it on your wheels and turn your pride and joy into a 'ghost car'." (Air quotes.)

"Except, then maybe the stupid creep starts using it on himself too. To pursue his vendetta against all woman-kind for daring to say sod off. But it's not what the instructions on the packet say. And makes his brain melt."

[Trivun]

"Damn. Guess we're buying our own drinks, then."

See, this is why Izzy doesn't normally gamble. Although her dad does like a flutter on the horses every now and then.

"You know, if I keep on getting that same scent of flowers everywhere I go, I'm going to take up smoking just to try and get rid of my sense of smell. More to the point, you think there's something in these ghost car reports that the Sarge mentioned earlier? People putting that stuff on their wheels and racing up and down the tunnel?"

It makes sense, she supposes, but not quite the same 'ghost car' that she's heard of before. Reading back through the Folly's recent records, that one was a lot more homicidal...

"Not sure why the stuff would cause HTD though. It usually happens because a practitioner is drawing too much from their own body when casting a spell. Or a powerful magical event happens nearby, and I mean extreme. Assuming the bottle was a sort of spray-on invisibility cloak, the magic would be inherent within the liquid already, there's no reason to suggest it would cause an extreme secondary event that led to the damage in his brain. Otherwise we'd have corpses turning up all over the place of people who'd used the spray on other cars.

"The more likely cause would be either Karl cast a spell himself and overloaded, or there was somebody else there who did the same thing and was more able to withstand the damage. First one seems more likely though, we've not seen any evidence yet that someone else was present."

Izzy is careful to not mention too much about "weird bollocks" in earshot of Sgt. Dhillon, of course. Even if she is vaguely aware of Falcon activities...

[Snapper]

"As a matter of interest, is there any way to check that this Loz Drivez bird is OK? Do a door knock sort of thing. Just make sure she's safe."

[Mr. Handy]

"Good idea," says Jordan. "We should ask her about Chichester anyway. Then we can check the car itself, which probably is at the leisure center. I think this stuff may be responsible for those reports of ghost cars, but it doesn't exactly strike me as safe to race invisible cars. It would be hard to avoid a collision."

[jp1885]

So, what would you like to do next?

[Trivun]

"Probably a good idea, but depends if she's local. If she lives halfway across the country then there's not much point doing a welfare check over some dead misogynist running his mouth."

Somehow Izzy doesn't think that Loz Drivez is the key focus to worry about. Besides, a uniform under Dhillon can handle a simple welfare call.

"I'd say it's time to visit Flowers Fields."

[Snapper]

Skipper grunts noncommittaly. "Folly's paying the bills, so I'll go wherever. I am having visions of the late Chichester using his Harry Potter invisibility-cloak-juice to go and strangle this girl, though. If a couple of Met uniforms were able to go knock on her door, make sure she still has a pulse, I'll feel happier."

"Meantime, let's go see the gardening centre. I could do with a new cactus." Skipper looks like he has reservations says no more.

[Mr. Handy]

"Yes, that's probably our best lead," says Jordan. "The stuff seems to have come from there."

[jp1885]

Sgt. Dhillon nods.

"Flowers Fields it is - I've never heard of the place, but Haslemere Garden Centre is on that road, so I guess it must be close by."

"Oh, Lauren Hewison's in Shalford - not too far away. She's got form - she and her brothers were right tearaways when they were kids, but she's come good since she got on the internet. We get a call to her workshop now and then - overzealous fans usually."

"Look, if we're heading off, we'd better collect your friends - my guv'nor told me to keep an eye on you all, so I wanna keep you together."

[Mr. Handy]

"Good idea," says Jordan. "We should compare notes anyway."