[Completed] A U.S. expatriate is cast into a rainy, foggy corner of Europe. He went there on the pretense to work on his research, but he actually wanted to put as many miles as possible between himself and his ex.
The university he works for has fo...
The thing on Art's plate looked like a leg—a potato-sized lump of meat with a bone protruding from one end. It rested in a pool of sauce.
A lifeless limb in a puddle of its brown blood.
"I have warned you," Sven said.
His colleague was sitting opposite Art in the lunchtime noise of the institute's canteen.
Carefully, Art poked the leg with his fork. The meat was soft and yielding. "It does look like leg."
"Pull the bone." Sven's blue eyes sparkled. They, and the snowflakes whirling in the large window behind him, were the only things Nordic about the dark-haired Swedish physicist.
Holding the lump stationary with the fork, Art seized the bone between finger and thumb and pulled. It came free easily—a bone stick with blunt ends—someone must have stuck into the meat.
He turned the bone between his fingers. "Not a leg. Fake."
"Yessir," Sven said, "it is nothing but a burger-cum-bone."
Art tapped the bone against the plate. It made a ringing sound. "Burger-cum-polymer-bone, I'd say."
"Right, that's what they call a Pozharsky steak." Sven grinned.
"Okay..." Art shrugged. The thing was bizarre, but he was hungry, so he put the bone to rest at the edge of the plate, reached for his knife, cut a piece of what looked like tender burger-muscle and placed it in his mouth. Its texture was grainy, its taste salty. He swallowed. "Is this a Tavetian specialty?"
"No, I don't think so." Sven shook his head. "The canteen at Stockholm University serves them, too. It may be a pan-European delight. Or a secret joke of the university chefs."
"I hope they'll serve something different tonight, I'm invited to a Tavetian pre-Christmas party."
"Sounds intriguing," Sven said.
"If you say so..." The thought of the party or the Pozharsky muscle—or both—made Art's stomach tighten. "I'm nervous, though. It's my first Tavetian party."
He had never told Sven, nor any other of his colleagues at the institute, about the murder. It was easy to write about it to Dan, on the other side of the globe, but a completely different matter when sitting face-to-face with someone you saw daily, someone you worked with, someone who might see how the whole thing had gotten under your skin.
"Tavetian parties are like parties anywhere, don't worry." Sven loaded his fork with rice and delicious-looking chicken curry. "Small talk, food, and drinks—and the more drinks you have the larger the small talk becomes. It turns into large talk, you see. There is just one thing to be aware of..."
"Yes?"
Sven was chewing while pointing his fork at his wristwatch. He swallowed. "When will it start?"
"At six, they said."
"Okay. You see, if they say six, they mean six. Not sixish... not cum tempore... It is six o'clock sharp." With the last word, he stabbed a piece of chicken.
"Anything else I should know?"
"Bring something." Sven directed the skewered meat towards Art's face.
"They told me I shouldn't."
"They lied."
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