A Murder Shall Commence.

Chapter 1

"Allie?" Isabel asked lazily, one horrifically windy autumn/winter afternoon as we lounged idly in our sitting room.

"Mmm?" I asked, rolling over, as I had been lying flat out on the sofa.

"Susan takes a half sip of cider, and I, see death" my sister read, from the newspaper sprawled out in front of her.

"What?" I snorted, shuffling vaguely upright and staring at her.

"It's a complex crossword!" she explained. "Solve it!"

I rolled my eyes, trying to brush some of my wildly tangled hair out of my face.

"Where are the commas?" I asked her, sucking my lip thoughtfully.

"After cider and after I" Isabel replied. I rolled again onto my back, thinking.

"How many letters?"

"Seven."

"Right" I mused. "Susan takes a half sip of cider, and I, see death...Well, a half sip could mean half the word, so we either have blank-cid, cid-blank, er-blank, or blank-er. Since 'and I' is in commas, we have to assume that means you add an I to the half of cider. See death...Wait!"

I sat bolt upright, snapping my fingers together in triumph.

"Suicide" I beamed.

"You lost me at a half sip" Isabel said bluntly. I rolled my eyes again, flopping back onto the sofa with a sigh.

"A shortened version of the name Susan is Sue. Half a cider is c-i-d, plus an extra i makes suicide, and suicide is essentially when someone sees death" I explained despondently. Isabel shook her head, writing it into the boxes. Recently, through no fault of my own, Dr. Scott had introduced Isabel and I to the world of complex crosswords, and it was safe to say, after I understood the reasoning, I was rather good. Isabel sadly, it seemed, was completely and utterly hooked on them, and was also completely and utterly hopeless. It always depressed me when she asked me to do one with her, as I usually ended up giving her all of the answers, which, as I always tried desperately to explain, wasn't the point.

"Do this one for me" my sister said, after a few minutes of silence, listening to the wind whip down the street outside. I groaned.

"Go on."

"Bake a cake with the head of flower and snake oil" she read. I groaned again and stuffed my head into a pillow.

"Allie, pleeeease!" Isabel pleaded.

"Do some of the ones you can do" I complained, my voice muffled by the pillow.

"I've done the rest."

I let out a highly unladylike snort.

"Never in all my life" I scoffed, sitting up on my front and regarding my sister heavily "have I heard something so full of trash. I'll be damned if you've done the rest!"

My sister at least had the dignity to look guilty.

"Was that the door I heard just now?" I asked, trying to change the subject as I had, in fact, heard the door. Isabel got up to answer it as I hastily re-did my hair in the living room mirror, since what had started the morning as a neat, casual low bun now reassembled something not too dissimilar to an electrocuted feather duster.

"Oh, no, we've just been having a quiet afternoon" Isabel was saying, as she led our unknown guests into the lounge. I turned with a smile, and that smile widened to a beam as I saw Fisher, and also Newham, standing in the doorway. The four of us temporarily dissolved into our couples, for greetings and other small talk.