"So is it called a tweet or a twit?" I asked, as Robin attempted to teach me the mystic art of 'Twitter.'
"The posts are tweets. You are a twit." Robin replied. "Now click confirm and then reopen the Twitter app."
I exited my email's on the fancy smartphone and then reopened the Twitter app. My twitter page appeared, and revealed I had an egg on a red background. "Does your egg hatch and become a twitter bird if you get lots of stalkers?"
"They're called followers, Gabriel. And no, it doesn't. Now, you see the magnifying glass?"
"Finally, something I recognise!" I exclaimed and clicked on it. A keyboard rose from the bottom of the page. "What do I do now?"
"Type in Robin Greenhouse." Robin said.
I did so and her face came up. "Eurgh. Why would I want to have access to more than one of your faces?"
"For that, I'm not following you. But you still have to follow me."
I was too distracted by the first twit, sorry- tweet- on the menu. "Hashtag Indy Ref? Since when was Indiana Jones a referee? Or is it that the Black Keys style of music is being given the red card? I hope not, because- after Franz Ferdinand- they're one of my favourite bands."
"Indy Ref is the Independence Referendum. You know, the big thing where we get to thwart the English after 300 years of tyranny."
"I assume you'll be voting no, then."
She glared at me. "Did you see the Big Debate?"
"What, Salmond Versus Darling? Aye, I watched it. I almost considered voting Yes, due to the amount of self restraint Salmond showed. The temptation to end every sentence 'Darling' must have been overwhelming. Oh, hello darling."
"'Oh, hello darling'? Why would Salmond say that?"
"I think he might have been talking to me." Rachel said, coming in with her bag hanging at her side.
"Good conference?" I asked her.
"Yeah. The English scientists were a bit gloomy, saying it was the last chance they'd have to enter Scotland without a passport, but over all it was quite good."
"It'll be a no vote." I assured her. "I bet you ten pounds."
"If it's a Yes," she replied, "we may not be using pounds! I read the article, by the way."
"What, the Chris Hoy Corpses?" I asked back.
"Yeah, but they changed the name to not annoy Chris Hoy. It's now called, 'Cupid's Knife.'"
"That is awful!" I exclaimed.
"Hang on a second." Robin said. "I didn't think you'd worked that one out yet?"
"Oh yeah, I worked it out ages ago. I thought it was rather obvious to be truthful."
She scowled at me, and snatched the paper from Rachel's hand, flicking to page eight. If you were to do this, you would find the words Rathbone Investigates in arched writing, with my face by the R and Robin's face by the final S. Underneath were the words Cupid's Knife in big letters, then below was a block of text describing our adventure. Robin read it allowed. "It wasn't for the first time that I and Robin had found ourselves out in the early hours of the morning, accompanied by Inspector Lodsbury of Strathclyde Police, investigating a multiple murder. The crime had taken place opposite the Chris Hoy Velodrome, scene of the Commonwealth Games, in a small family owned cafe. Ambulance services had shown up within five minutes, pretty good for the tourist stricken streets, but they'd been of no help to the daughter, the only person who'd survived the barbaric attack. I would advise you to stop reading now, should you want to be spared the image that haunted my dreams for the next few nights." Robin stopped reading and stared at me. "You are far too overly dramatic."
"You're telling me!" Cried Rachel.
Robin ignored her and continued reading. "The corpses numbered two, the father and stepmother. The father had a powerful stab through his neck, and the stepmother had a powerful stab to the liver. It was easy to fall into the mind set that the culprit was a big man, and the shatter of glass from the window was certainly suggestive of this theory. But this almost certainly wasn't the case.
"As usual, the Human Element of the case was the closing point. Inspector Lodsbury, of which my old readers will know I've nicknamed Lodders, read his notes from the distressed daughter, who'd rung the ambulance, after she'd unfortunately found the body. Inspector Lodsbury read, 'She came down when she heard her stepmother screaming. She found her father choking up blood- through the wound in his neck, and her stepmother with the knife still in her liver. The stepmother ripped the knife out of her liver, and that just encouraged the bleeding.' And that, 'She kept babbling about how her stepmother was so small she had to stand on the fathers feet to kiss him.' Now, I know we don't show Holby City till after the News nowadays, but it doesn't take much knowledge to know that taking the knife from the wound isn't a good idea, and why did she babble about the standing on the fathers feet? Well that was because, inside her catatonic shell, the daughter had worked out how it was done, and was intending to tell us.
"One of the things I noticed about the fathers corpse was that there were strange imprints on on the front of the ankles. These imprints were much like when you press your fingernails into your hand, and that's why it fitted beautifully with something Robin said. The toenails of the stepmother. They were long, but painted lovingly, like she was trying to distract from the length. And that was what gave it away to me. At some point during the night, the tourists outside had got so drunk they'd ended up smashing the front window of the cafe. Father and stepmother had come down to sort it out, and boarded up the window. Then. stepmother for whatever reason, stepped onto his feet as if to kiss him, then stabbed his neck and stepped away as the blood splurged out. He fell back, but her long toe nails had left an imprint in the front of his ankles. Not thumbnails on the palm, but toenails on the ankles. But then how did she end up being stabbed? She took the knife and stabbed herself. As a theme that seems to be developing a lot in murders recently, the murderer felt guilty and stabbed herself. Presumably she thought, having stabbed herself, she wouldn't have caused enough damage, so she drew the knife out, screaming as she went and causing the suspicion of the daughter. I didn't have a motive, but we soon found one- the cafe had spent far too much money on the Games, and then didn't have enough to replace the window. Also, it was an awful cafe, so they hadn't made much money from sales. In the end, I guess she blamed him and, begin the furious stereotype that Scottish women seem to conform to, she decided to kill him. I was invited back to the cafe, which has reopened due to the daughters efforts, and am pleased to report it is a reformed venue, but I doubt many who read this will be encouraged to go there, as a history of betrayal, lost love and the occurrence of Cupid's Knife hangs a terrible emptiness over a cafe's customers. The End." Robin finished, and then added, "I hope you didn't write that last bit. It was awful."
"I can successfully announce I didn't write it." I replied.
"Good." Robin said. "Because if an English man read it, he'd really hope it was a Yes Vote."
Rathbone and Robin will return at some point in the near distant further, although whether or not they're going to be Independent when they do is another matter altogether.
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