# *Ziddunnit* ## Prologue: Instructions "Choox? Quick call with Nic?" Meredith stands from the table and starts heading towards the coat rails at the back of the hall. She's addressing her husband, Charles -- 'Choox' only to her, unless their friends are being sarcastic -- and the Nic she's referring to is Nicotine, a call with whom was their long-ago burnt parental code for a smoke. Or, these days, a vape. Charles gets up, puts on the jacket hanging off the back of his chair. There's a reflex adjustment of the alignment of the collar, his hands travel half to his neck before they realise the tie is in his pocket, then he heads out of the hall. He detours to wash his hands and soon joins Mer on a bench, outside the Blankham social club reserved for the funeral dinner. She's looking over what she squints in the dark are probably cricket grounds, not football ones. She takes a bong-calibre hit on what she has the grace not to call her rig, an intimidating near-cyberpunk, large bore e-cigarette, tilts her head back and lets out a plume of vapour more suited to a Victorian rail engine than a 44 year old mother of three. He's pulled out an equally science fiction vape, but he's more into short, repeated puffs. He's a year older, and does something long hours, high-earning in company audit and consulting, incomprehensible and/or pointless to his friends, and, as he at times idly wonder, maybe himself. Much less serious at home than he is at work. She's a science teacher, and for her it's the same, or the other way round, depending on class and period. They're only central to this functionally, Charles being the oldest friend - they met in year 6 - and the executor of the will. She was in the same high school, year below, and they had started dating, officially after he left school, though really a year sooner. The pair are often referred to as a single unit by the others, as together they operate a kind of distributed cognition only seen in couples of that seniority. And even then, only in some. "I'm not asking you to tell *them*, I'm asking you to tell *me* when you're *going* to tell them", says Meredith, hammering the points. She was, after all, explicitly mentioned in the will as the executor's ==auditor==, tasked with making sure he saw it through. She like how Billy wrote that this would happen anyway, but he was putting it in writing to make sure she knew he very much wanted it so. The dynamics of their couple were always plain for their friends to see, though hearing them laid out by a solicitor reading a will was a first. "Tell them what?" Enters, or actually exits, the hall, an actual Nicholas, except in many of his circles no one calls him that, but Tur, short for Turbler, his last name. He doesn't smoke, nor vape, but he has a ==phone call== to make, a habit, if not nearly as bad, certainly as consequent. He's over from the US for this, and much as it's good to see the old gang, the jet lag is killing him. He's a year older than them, and hasn't seen them in the flesh since his wedding to the American woman responsible for his expatriation. Met the gang year 13. "Billy left something for us to do. Charles is to tell you." Mer says. Charles snaps "I don't have to. It's conditional. 'if there is doubt'. There's no..." he takes a small puff. "I don't accept there's doubt. Actually, doing this would *create* doubt." Mer has already had the argument, when Charles did not want to even take the letter, so she knows no good can come of re-hashing it. Instead, she can now make an actual demonstration. "Let's see!" She says, noticing and hating the 'let's find out' science teacher in her voice. She turns on the bench towards Tur, and the oversize down jacket she's wearing over her *not-slutty* black dress (black dresses falling, for Mer, into two distinct categories) squeaks on the bench's back wooden slats. "Do you think Billy killed himself?" "MER!" The shout is paternal, outraged, as if protesting in the name of decency itself. Tur and Mer pointedly ignore Charles. "I dunno." Tur spins his basketball player frame, leans his buttocks on the back of the bench. "The one I knew would've. But then I left, what, eighteen years ago - haven't kept in touch much with him in the interim." He pauses, then quickly adds "Wish I had, now. Obviously." There's a beat, but just as Tur's about to start again, the door wooshes open, and since they all turn to see who's opened it, Zoe, seeing them, takes a single step forward, throws her arms out, cocks her hips and freezes the pose: "Damn right, bitches - it's the Zoo!" She walks up to the bench "Hey you! I'm glad you came up!" she says, hugging Tur. She twirls around the bench, plonks herself down with theatrical relief, then proceeds to pull out a tobacco pouch, skins, and filters, the parapharnelia of the smoker who likes her vice to also involve arts and crafts. "Hadn't you gone electric?" Charles offers, extremely keen for the previous conversation not to resume. "Oh, I had, I've had to switch to smokes to get off the vape." Zoe deadpans. Zoe was also in the same year, and, for year 11 and their sixth form, Billy and her were this across-gender best friendship so rare and so loaded in teenagers. A lot of will-they-won't-they, but they never did. They just liked getting stoned and talking shit together. They both liked that they made each other laugh. "Very good" Charles offers a chuckle he hopes doesn't sound as forced to the others as it does to him. "Not. Joking." She absorbs herself in her craft. Tur is watching the stars. Charles is watching Zoe fashion a regulation 6mm-gauge roll-up as perfect a cylinder has can be made by hand, finding, in this, cause for some fascination. Mer is watching her husband. "You guys were talking about how he jumped, right?", Zoe pops the cig at the corner of her mouth. Mer and Tur explode in laughter and released tension. Charles is looking pale; he starts stammering: "But she's like Tur, when was the last time she saw him?" He squirms on the bench, wishing he'd brought his coat. "Old Billy would have jumped. We all know that. Actually, I think we can now safely say we're all fucking surprised old Billy managed not to jump for long enough to eventually mature." He gets up, not sure where this latest comment really came from, or as he realises is what truly worries him, how long it had been in there. "Turn into New Billy?" Asks Tur. It's unclear if it's a quip or an actual question in his tone, so he only realise after he's not sure how he meant it. "Who... fell-question-mark?", he upspeaks, realising in the moment it sounds like he's deriding the option he was trying to endorse. "It doesn't matter whether they're wrong or not. That's clearly *doubt*." Meredith softens the latest because she knows there's no point aggravating her beloved husband now she's once again, simply led him to have no choice but concede. This is a purely practical consideration, not a concern for his ego. Zoo is somehow already halfway through her cigarette, so she parks it at the corner of her mouth and starts rolling the next one, though when given the choice she immediately takes two filters and two papers out, berating herself as she'll end up smoking three instead of two had she done that in the first place. Whatever. Special occasion. Tur thinks he can see the Big Dipper, which would make the North Star riiight behind this branch up.... here. They both know a Charles and Mer confrontation, like many a tantrum, simply needs a bit of time, and never causes much meaningful damage. As far as they've witnessed. Tur's job's in operations in a hotel chain in the US. Or maybe a chain hotel in the US, this surely matters a lot, but not to them, so only he knows. Zoe, for her part, has zigzagged between jobs in art and jobs in media, although she does not necessarily think them distinct fields, it's all pointless pretentious wank or the best-ohmygod, you need to hear about that- bestest depending, largely, but not quite solely, on her mood. Or as she calls it, 'euphemism for hangover'. "Could the two of you tell my husband to grow a pair, and do his duty as executor of Billy's will?" She's come to think of this kind of masculinity questioning as the 'Lady M move', though doesn't quite realise she only wields it at a specific intersection of the balance of the conversation, and her degree of fatigue at this point in time. But she's definitely wondered if her phone, or the systems behind it, have found a specific pattern. "Fine." Charles is doing is mock-strangled *if-you-must* tone which is recognised only by his wife as the start of one of is sulk-to-charm turns, before the next sentence signals it to all. "It's a lot of responsibility, you know, Mer, a pair of balls", he says in a chagrined, dignified, near statesmanlike voice. Straining under the weight of the responsibility. "...more like the electrocutor of Bill's Willy!" heckles Zoe. "...erector?" offers Tur. "...Thank you! I knew there was a better one. More like the *erector*... \- Zoe, please." Charles's ==deadpans== in his best boardroom tone. He pulls an envelope out of his jacket inner pocket. This sobers him instantly. "Billy..." A pause, he takes a deep inhale and lets his right big toe worry what has just become a hole in his sock. "Billy had some specific instructions if there ever was doubt as to whether his death was an accident or ..." the pause is microscopic, imperceptible, deniable, even, as he often pauses before the last word of a sentence for emphasis, but he has been preparing for the word, preparing to get it out fluently and now he is even worried, truth be told, that he may have rushed it out "..suicide." He then adds quickly: "A... game." "Oh my god?. From beyond the grave?" Zoe declames in mock wonder. "Jesus christ, how fucking. typical." She's started to wonder if she is hamming up the grieving resentment, maybe because of the way her very entrance has framed the interaction as a performance, she'll later further wonder, or if she has real reason to be real angry. The second cigarette is done, so she uses it to light up the third one. Burns her finger. "Cunt" She's simultaneously aware of a sense of causality, yet will remember her tongue having formed the 'c' before she burnt herself. "It's not like that Zoo. It's... a ritual." Mer is conciliatory. She's read the letter. It is fucking typical, she agrees, that part is fair enough. "A *ritual* ? He's left *instructions* for his friends to do a *ritual*? What, jumping off a cliff wasn't self-centred *enough*, was it?" It feels good to let the venom out, whether it's deserved or not. "Don't say that. We don't *know* that." Charles says, not looking at Zoe. He is starting to feel the cold without a coat, and stand on each leg shaking the other to warm up. "Sorry to interrupt." says Tur, a finger up. Zoe turns round, gives him a sorry look, then realises the tears are coming. She turns back and buries her face in her hands. He shoulders quake. Tur turns around, takes a knee. Wraps his harms around her "No, but, Zoo... I thought it was possible, but then I learnt he walked this path, like, weekly, or near as, and that... I mean it's gotta be an accident, right? He was all right, as far as you all knew?" Meredith puts a hand on his arm "Boo, you're getting ahead of the thing. That's the point. I called it a ritual, cause it'll act as one... an activity, if you prefer, Zoe. Something to do. He's left us instructions - suggestions, I guess, it's up to each, but, if we want to help each other resolve the question, he suggested we take turn each putting in secret estimates" "from -100 to +100, with the negative being deliberate." offers Charles. "Obviously he specified that, dunno why not simply 1 to 10." "..because 1 to 10 is actually 9 levels. Also which way is ten? Let's follow the rules properly if we're doing this." "*rules*" scoffs Zoe. "I know, ironic, right?" says Tur. "..and then the most extreme votes each put forward their case, first to go drawn by coin flip. Then round-table discussion, Then we do the secret estimates again, repeat until we reach consensus." finishes Mer. "I mean you weren't wrong, Zoo, it is typical Billy." There's a silence, and Charles now regrets having stood up only to let Mer actually deliver the thing, and it feels weird to read the letter now, so he simply holds it towards Zoe, who puts her face back in her hands in response, then to Tur, who picks it up eagerly. It's a quick read though, and Tur is already asking "okay, but then... I mean does it mean we go back in there and go 'hey, who has doubt Bill fell by accident and would like to play high school debate club about it in the smoker's corner?' Are we gonna involve everyone?" "Oh, right, yeah, so what you're holding is the really the pitch page. There are a couple of page of further clauses in appendices" says Charles. "This is so dumb" says Zoe, not entirely without tenderness. Charles and Meredith look at each other. "This isn't dumb, *you're dumb*", they say simultaneously. "He did call it" says Mer. "Not a hard one though", points out Charles. "What?" Zoe is confused. "Billy left a clause that if you are - not just anyone, but you personally, to call this dumb, we needed to respond this." Says Meredith. "I've not spent as long on the appendices as Charles but this one I do remember." Zoe's eyes are wide and shiny. "You are joking" "uh-uh, look, top of that page. forty-seven" Charles is holding out the printout. "'47. If Zoe, at any point during the process, bracket, to be understood as spanning disclosure to consensus, close bracket, calls any aspect of it dumb, she must be told "This isn't dumb, *you're* dumb' - this is d.. daft... what a.." "Keep reading", points out Charles. "'... she must be told 'this isn't dumb, *you're* dumb, ideally by as many people as possible, this clause benefiting from advance distribution to other participants left to the executor's discretion." She reads in increasing disbelief. "oh, so he's trolled me from beyond the grave, that's... cunty" she felt like she was going to say 'cute', but it came out different. "What else has brostradamus forecast? She shall be wearing black? Fuck you, this is anthracite!" and very much *not*-not-slutty, thinks Meredith before she's even noticed. "Seriously, keep reading." repeats Charles. "This is Billy. This is why there's pages of that. And pages." Zoe sighs, resumes: "'and, since I am sure Zoe will sooner or later want to check this clause herself, I love you, Zoo, but this is not dumb, *you're* dumb.'" She looks up from the page. Notices everyone looking at her. expectantly as if she should be ... what, *pleased?* "So this prick, this... selfish little dick thinks that it will recomfort me to read this after he's done... that?" There's the kind of silence that feels sticky, as if it's difficult to move from. "To be fair, he did forecast that you would cry, that Tur would do something cute like say sorry to interrupt or look at the stars, that I would end up organising everything like a teacher, and that Charles would have, and I quote, 'one of his *nervous shits*'." Mer un-sticks, somewhat skillfully. "What?" Charles is outraged. More for lack of having spotted this himself. "87 - last page. " Charles is checking "Yeah, I guess I kinda zoned out in the last pages. He also wrote we'll likely be outside because of all the vaping." "Ha!" Zoe feels vindicated. "I'm smoking, screw your divination." She flicks a V at the sky. The sky doesn't react. Tur remembers he did not get an answer: "...so do we need to go back in there and recruit anyone with doubts as to whether this was an actual accident? I don't particularly fancy making the pitch to his parents...." "yeah, so, of course... *of course* he thought of *that* too", Charles makes a vague gesture "I mean, yeah, there's no limit to how many doubters we can find. The plan..." he is not liking the word, so tries again "the design... the *intention* is to do this once, in person, with a limited group, then put the instructions up on the memorial website, along with our consensus probability and final stance. Then anyone with doubts - which, and I want to register this explicitly, will include people who weren't doubting *before* they see it there - can engage in the g... the process." "How limited?" Zoe is inventoring the contents of her tobacco pouch. "Can we get another smoker? I didn't stock up for an evening of deathly debating." Mer elbows her "silly cow." "Again, not joking." She realises the limiting factor is likely to be filters, not tobacco; she could roll them conical, to maximise volume, which reminds her she could even go with the 2-skin, L-shape design, something she'd last rolled when she was, like, sixteen, and that even Billy had superseded with king size papers. Still, if we're doing a night of high school debate club, suicide edition, with the high school friends of the high school stoner kid, feels appropriate. "I think the four of us is what he would have... " Charles dodges the cliché, but by barely a hair. ".. had in mind. He's listed a number of people who shouldn't be included, so, Tur, you wouldn't have had to make that pitch to his parents anyway. He's also listed those who *must* be involved, and, well, no surprise, this set is just us four." "Right, let's do it, then. First, I need a piss, through" Tur says. "And I need to fetch my coat." Charles starts walking towards the door. "I need a drink." Zoe gets up and joins them. Meredith is still on the bench, right arm over its back, turned towards the others. She lets out a double plume of glycol vapour through her nose. "I need..." she pauses. "What I need is Billy back, but failing that, a drink's the next best" "Vodka and tonic?" asks Zoe. The double is so heavily implied it does not deserve voicing. "Sure. Easy on the tonic." --- ## First Round: whisky Minutes later, and they're all back by the bench. Coats have been fetched, Meredith has gotten a beanie hat out of her many coat pockets, and dons it. Tur, first back, remarks it's not the one she had on this afternoon. That's just because she's got so many pockets in there, she replies tapping her great big down coat. There could even be a third one in there, want her to look? Why doesn't she go look for the other one to start with, Tur could do with it. "But you've got such a head of hair, still, unlike, you know, *some*..." Mer remarks. Her hand goes to her hat pocket, pulls the beanie out, hold it to Tur. Charles is wooshing the door - it's the hairs at the bottom scratching the metal scraping mat, somehow making the whole frame resonate, on a surprisingly low frequency. Psychoacoustics and the rush of sound from the hall do the rest. It gives each of their entrances, which appositely are al, exits, an odd dramatic, flair. "Let me remind you it is a SIGN OF HIGH TESTOSTERONE!" he protests. Jokingly. Well. Half so. "Not the only thing, dear" Mer pats the bench next to her. Tur, on the other side, rolls his eyes. Charles goes to sit by his wife. *woosh* "Don't go to the Zoo, cause the Zoo's coming to *you*". Zoe had been preparing that one for the last minute. She's holding four plastic goblets and a can of Schweppes. She hands the former around, cracks the latter open, and hands it to Meredith. "Why, thank you. You really shouldn't have " "Shut up, *teach'*", Zoe produces, with a slightly fumbled flourish, a litre bottle of Smirnoff from the hood of her coat. Hurrays all round, although sombre, respectful ones. "Catering is a racket. The booze is bought for the night, so the leftovers at the end become the object of *mucho* shennanigans. Guy let it go for a *fiver*, cause he had a whole 'nother one, and no one's boozing much in this party." "... so he'll have to crack the other one and can then shennaningan *that*. It's stocked by the bottle", says Tur. "My Arturo... *genius*!" Zoe flutter her eyelids. Serves up. "None for the men, good lady" Charles raises a hip flask. "You didn't" Mer objects to the affectation, not the alcohol. "Only at funerals That's why it's black", he takes the manner of an alchemist pouring the Whisky. Mer persists: "They have whisky at the thing. You don't need to bring your own." "This, you philistines," Charles is swirling the liquid, a glass in each palm, warming in it up "is a *single malt*." "... and may it find a spouse soon. I don't give a shit, Charles. We get into an accident, what do you think the paramedics are going to think?". The first thing which comes to Mer's mind. This whisky shit again. Today out of all days. Charles is undeterred. An unimpeachable mark of status, is, by definition, unimpeachable "I know what they'll think once they smell what's in the flask." "Gi'it?" Zoe holds out a hand. Charles won't pass it, because then she'll drink some without letting the nose develop over the glass. But he holds the flask through her nose. Zoe sniffs. She'd just spilled vodka on her hands, and in general faces her booze, but in the night's cold, the scent is like a golden boxing glove. She winces, but there's pleasure in her face too. "Wooo... you sure it's not going to melt the plastic glasses?" "Well, obviously, that's not ideal, but if the alternative is a swig from the WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING?" Charles eyes widen as Tur tops up the goblet with Indian Tonic. "What? I'm not drinking neat whisky." Charles mouth is moving, but no sound comes out. he puts his glass carefully down on the bench seat, and stretches his arms rigid along his sides, opening and closing his hands. He is telling himself to roll with it, but he just needs a moment. He should have explained. "'snot whisky though", starts Zoe, "It's a *single malt*!" joins Mer and they collapse in silent giggles. Sniffling ones, as regards Zoe. "It works though" Tur has made ample space in the goblet again. "Try it" His hand initially starts for Charles, but he's visibly not ready, so he diverts to Zoe. She takes the glass, observes the colour, positions the glass under her nose holding it by the base, makes a show of wafting fumes, inhales loudly, takes a sip. "Don't forget the clacks!" Mer eggs her on. Zoe clacks her tongue loudly a couple of times. "...could be easier on the tonic." Zoe, verdict rendered, passes the glass to Mer. Drink for this is my blood. Mer is charmed : "no, seriously, it's good." She takes another sip. Hands the glass back to Tur. Empties the contents of her own into Zoe's already low one, then holds it to Charles. "Usually, I don't really like Charles's wh-malts, but this really improves it". She waves the glass. "Make me one, husband." Charles can sense an out when it is offered, picks up the glass. He realises he should have sulked just a couple seconds more, because Mer adds: "The bitterness really sets off the *peat*". Charles smiles and pours the rest of the can. "I'm making only four to one, just to take it *easier*. Also, we're out." He throws the can at the bin, misses by a foot, walks to pick up the can. Bins it. Zoe thinks it's typical, being so focussed on supplies of tobacco and liquor she's neglected filters and mixers. The limiting factor. Always think of the limiting factor. "Well that's good, let's do a round, then get more." Mer has produced pens and paper from the coat. There's even a ruler in there. Pockets of different sizes, cut out of jazzy fabrics - offcuts of the Arts department at School, sewn on the inside lining. Bless their textile programme. The ==back one can carry her lapto==p. "So we write down our guess in secret, and then reveal once everyone's done it." She folds her paper. "Hold on, I need to think about this" says Tur "What, you mean you haven't?" Charles, shocked. Although this proves his point. "You see? This is what has induced doubt." "Right, cause you think we wouldn't, ever, have talked about Billy's death with Tur? like maybe even tonight, otherwise? I mean without this?" Mer counters. Charles starts answering, but Zoe holds her hand towards him. "Tur, write something, anything, it doesn't matter, let's reveal, they're already going ahead" Tur shuts his papers in between his palm "I got it" "I mean technically we're arguing about something else." Charles hears himself: "not better, i realise saying it." A pause. He remembers he is the executor. "Alright. Let's see them" Zoe: -100 Mer: 80 Charles 100 Tur: 0 "Wow, that's uninsightful. So what now, do I have to fuck Charles, or kill him?" Meredith is quick acting as the numbers clerk for Charles: "This puts as collectively as 20, an average on the misadventure side, with the largest range possible, so, further from consensus." Silence. She scans their faces to catch their gaze "You do remember that this ends on consensus, the goal is consensus, guys". More silence. Zoe shrugs. Tur squints towards the cricket pitch, this being clearly not directed at him. Mer continues: "I'll say it now, Zoe, Charles, that I do not think your score genuine, you just want to prosecute, and defend the charge of s... of a deliberate fall." Charles look pained: "I thought you were going to say we're with 20 points of each other, which given the range, may as well be consensus." "Whatever", says Zoe, "who speaks first?" Charles pats his pocket. "We flip a coin. I don't have one. Who's got a coin?" They look at each other. Shrugs and moans of contactless, digital, the year it is. Mer says "I have tokens, hold on." She produces an unbranded, unflashy poker chip, but clearly a poker chip nonetheless. Charles has gone from astonished to frowny: "Is that a *poker chip*?" "Not to the kids I use them with. This, my best beloved, is a *totally terrific token* indicating five units of whatever we may want to consider." Tur interjects: "Are you back teaching the little ones, Mer, then? I thought you taught sixth form?" Mer's head spins, because unless it is materially impossible or dangerous, she will look into the eyes of the person to whom she is speaking. Which, by the way, unsettles Charles to a great degree, so she's learnt not to do it as much with him. "Still do. They wanted to make me head of maths, turned it down, said I wanted to reduce my hours further, they begged me to keep staying two days a week, so I said let me choose the second one, and do it at the Junior school." "It's the same on both sides." Charles is looking at her wife like he's meeting her for the first time. He oftens finds himself doing that, which has just as much to do with her as with him. "Oh no, with the Year 13s, this *is* a... general chip. With which we play a..." She takes a look to Tur, then Zoe, as she lands the quip "probability game, entirely of my devising... called... Shmoker." Charles is looking serious. Like it's the funeral of a man who's long, but not always, considered him his best friend. The other way round was only approached as a one-year tie in Year 8. "Only in the revision weeks, in May - most of them are eighteen. No Money is wagered, pride is more than adequate currency, for teenagers." Charles shakes his head. "Now's not the time, Mer". He takes what Mer recognise as a patience-breath. @It's the same - the chip is the same on both sides, how do we flip with that?" "Oh. No." Mer lowers her shoulders in dejection. "What ambiguity have I wrought." The drama kid comes out. She doesn't go often go into full performance, but she's tired, and somehow, feels the instant could be stretched with further levity. She starts patting herself. "If only we had some sort of... Technology..." "Can we get the *fuck* on, please?" Zoe still doesn't know which side of the fifty/fifty chance of going first she likes the least. Mer shades one side of the chip in green marker pen. "Here. Green for heads. I'm going to flip it, Zoe, you call." She flips the coin "Heads" says Zoe The coin lands, in front of the bench. Mer picks it up by the edges, brings it to the light "it's tails. Charles?" Charles sits down on the bench. "I think I'll let Zoe go first." He tilts his head towards Tur "Come sit down too. Let's hear it." Tur does. Zoe, sole left standing, refuses the obvious and walks towards the back of the bench. The three rotate. "I just need a minute, I'll come to the front when I'm ready." Her voice breaks on 'I'. The minute turns out to be twenty seconds. Zoe strides back to face the bench. "I just wanted to be careful to not have that come out too mean to him. But he wasn't happy. Billy, was he?" The others say nothing, look at her. "I mean I can't know for sure, " Mer is writing something down on her paper. "Like we can't ever know, but we all remember how he was. Sure, he'd changed. But some darkness, it just never... never... leaves..." There are sobs in between the words, she clenches both fists, raises them in front of her face, and she's grimacing "Tur, hold me" - in a whisper. Tur is out of the bench in an instant "Bear for the Zoo!" and bear-hugs her. Zoe sniffles against his chest. Soon, taps him twice on the shoulder. Tur lets go. "Thanks, Tur. You're sweet" and she taps him twice on the cheek. "you can sit down now." He does. "And it's also, like... this letter, come on. Actually, I was fifty-fifty before it, but the letter quickly seals it for me. Who does that?", she makes gigantic air quotes and her voice drops a fifth "uh, just in case' - come on guys." She's looking into their eyes for acquiescence, but, without anything like a reminder of the rules, or even any meaningful knowledge of them, they know they need to let her speak, completely ==uninterfered with.== So a bit of time passes. "Are you done?" asks Charles "Yes" Zoe sounds much less confident now. "No, wait no, also, come on." She reflexively pats herself for her rolling kit. "Like, an accident? Carelessness is not like him either. So here. Who he was, what we know of him, and don't come tell me that there isn't somewhere in you that's like when you were fifteen, or even twenty-five, in his case." She is itemising on her fingers. "So, that's one. Two, the letter. Who the fuck does that but a fucking headcase." She hears herself "I don't mean it like that. He was... broken, I don't know. He was suffering, right? I'm not making this up, we all know it. And, third point, what we know of him also goes against the accident hypothesis. He wasn't careless. An accident is dumb. But a suicide, that's dumb too. Now, a suicide, made to look like an accident, to everyone but those who knew his pain, that's Billy-clever." Long pause, but it's clear she's not done. "The kind of clever that's gone all he way back around to deep, deep dumb." She realises she's grown hoarse and she can't see much because of the tears and her mouth is as dry as her nose is stuffy. "Thank you. Try the veal. Remember to tip your waitress." She sits back down on the bench. Drained, but, she realises, relieved, like she's manage to sick up a bit of dodgy meat. Charles gets up: "I'm going to leave a minute - -Yeah, that's smart" throws back Tur, uncharacteristically snapping at him to even break the silence for this. Mer is hugging Zoe on the bench, offering reassuring mutterings of the you did well, you were brave, you got it all out. "It makes sense, right? I'm not crazy?" Zoe is struggling to roll up because her fingers are wet with tears. "Gimme a puff on your vape, I just can't...*fuck*", she's sobbing again. Starts putting stuff back in the pouch. Out comes the steampunk locomotive. Charles doesn't waste the moment, and goes towards a nearby tree, unzips, and relieves himself. He'd been focused on this pitch since he'd read the letter. Hadn't expected to have to deliver it right after... that, although it was obvious all along. Good points. Valid points. That's the point. That's the... poison. That's good, he should include that. But this doesn't invalidate any of his, now well rehearsed, pitch. Time to boardroom them. But toned down, like... say twenty percent. On the bench, they're ready too. Opening argument from the defence, one of them thinks. "Okay." Charles slaps his hands together "Zoe, I hear your arguments." He looks at her. She smirks back. "I mean, I have made your arguments. I think we've all thought that as soon as we found out the details, right?" He remembers they're not going to bounce back his balls. "Right. I makes sense. But then, consider this." He takes an unwittingly practiced quarter turm, right leg leading, and starts pacing. Paced pacing. There's a rhythm. "For the parents, the whole family, I don't know about you, but I got the pretty clear impression they're not even *thinking* this to be deliberate. I mean Billy's death." He's fluffed it. The 'this' introduced distance, and his correction did not, necessarily, help. He's three steps out, turns around. "I mean, Billy's death, ultimately, hit us all hard - because we're the ones who knew the most about the darkness," a beat, he stops moving. His hand goes up to his face and he touches the tip of his right knuckle to his lips, looks up, as if searching for words "the... suffering, the brokenness." He is just using Zoe's words, though, but that's fine, that works, roll on. "So we were all thinking this before this letter. But they weren't. It is safe to say that, although we have all lost Billy, they are less..." He notices his wife is now making notes on a pad - not the one from which she served the paper, but another, larger one. This woman. "... tormented by the loss. Right." He's decided to drop the interrogative and simply punctuate. He's reached the other side, turns back "So. With the material facts being the same, different people will have a completely different experience." He pauses. This is not a fumble. This is naturalistic. He's taking them through the thinking. "I mean, obviously everyone's experience of grief is different. But you see how different people can have different *categories* of experience... right." He is delineated air boxes with his hand. "Just based on knowledge. On information. That's kinda weird, when you think about it." He is back in front of them, turns to them, "So, although we don't know what happened, let's see. If he killed himself. And yeah, of course, he could have killed himself, not just that day, but at any time in the past, what, 30 years?" He's lost the composure of his argument, but recovers it. "If he killed himself, they'll all go one labouring under a helpful lie. I don't know that the value of knowing that truth is to us, or even to them." He has been making a series of shapes to his 10 o' clock, and now pivots to hand-gesture the other side. "Whereas if it was an accident, then we would have made our lives un-necessarily more difficult by choosing to overthink something that is pretty clear cut to a neutral observer. Or a legal one. This will be ruled misadventure. Everyone in there has no doubt about it" Charles waves towards the hall, but th==e walls hide any doubts within it==. Mer is writing furiously on the pad, Charles finds it difficult not to have the benefit of eye contact in these situations. "He left us one of his dumb puzzles, so we could have this conversation, and okay, I will also admit, I am actually glad we're having it, come to think of it. Mer, I'm glad you've made me do the thing. Here again. I know. But my point still stands: we shouldn't let that poison our image of him for the rest of our lives by convincing ourselves of a harmful falsehood." He's looking for assent in their eyes, Meredith finally looks at him. There's pride in her gaze, but also caution. "We can argue the material facts of the case in round table, but I just want to point out this - it's not even a material argument for the accident option. It considers both possibilities, and, because *if* ", he lifts a finger, and Tur thinks of that engraving of Socrates ".. if it was an accident we'd be making ourselves needless harm by choosing to consider it could be a suicide. Just because of this possibility, I would rather not contemplate it." Charles stands, palms open towards them. His hands fall back down. "You done?" Zoe calls. She sounds cheerful. "I'm done" "Well done. Come sit down." She gets up and sits on Tur's lap. Exagerrated Ooof, but Tur notices the lightness of her body, with worry. Charles sits down. "Also, he didn't 'leave us one of his dumb puzzles'. *you're* dumb." Zoe adds. Mer raises a hand, Zoe slaps it. Charles gives them a patient-father smile. "Could we recap the material facts of the case?" Tur asks "just, like, just so I'm clear." He's not sure how to put what comes next "I feel you guys know a lot more than me." Mer slaps his knee, and the coat squeals against Zoe's "Yes, but not now, because I'm ready to put in a new bid again, we might all as well do. This only ends when the numbers agree, so let's move the numbers." She gets up "Also, let's get some more tonic, and I need a wee. And a think. Round break everyone, back in five minutes." She's fully flipped into Miss for this last one. --- ## Interlude: Material Facts Four minutes later, Charles and Meredith *woosh* the door open. Charles walks straight to the bench. He's holding a tumbler. Made of glass. His heart glows with joy. He could definitely taste the plastic in the last one, although the whole scene left an aftertaste, so it was hard to tell. It was his first time using plastic glasses, and the vape had his nose shot. The waiter-guy wouldn't let a glass go, and then when he showed the flask, explained the tragic singledom of the malt, the guy offered him a free 'Whisky'. He guesses this is what it says on the label. Preceded by 'Tennessee'. He shudders. Catches himself. Could he taste it, or was it made up? But isn't everything? How come tastes, and values, all these axiological - and often normative - systems, were always part social construct, part hard nature? He was glad he spotted Tur in his... cocktail mixing, because if he'd finished on the plastic glasses, Mer would have spent the evening proving that this was demonstrably false. She'd have worked out the diffusion, the sensitivity of the tastebuds, olfactory receptors, volatiliy of the plastic, and then concluded by something dickish like 'No, I'm sorry, you're right if the glass was 97 degrees Celsius and the whisky had sat in it for a day, taking a 150mL slug, you'd be 50% likely to taste it.' She was getting on his nerves tonight. Catches himself again. It's not really about whisky, is it? or about Mer? Meanwhile, Mer is in front of the door. She's noticed the woosh - and the sweeesh when it closes back, and there is something profoundly offensive to her acoustic intuition that bristles *this* small, on hard metal grating, could make a sound so bassy. She wooshes, then sweeeshes once more. If she didn't have the sound of the hall coming in, she could go *woosh* "this winter. Four childhood friends" *sweesh* Cut to Billy and Zoe, aged 16. 'You're dumb. -yeah? You're face's dumb -your mum's face's dumb" *woosh* she could go on. Billy would have riffed on that. She always was the funnyest, and he was only third to Zoo on his own, but together they were funnier that the fun of their parts. Hmm, no, not that, this sounds like we were fucking. She feels a deeper sadness realising an occasion she'd only contemplated in idle alternate lives reverie had now irretrievably foreclosed. She's walking back to the bench. Sits next to her husband, who is clacking is tongue, albeit much more quietly than Zoe. He's in a pose she's about half sure he's lifted, maybe not consciously, that's the worst, from a whisky advert. A leg crossed in a debonnair way that makes the trouser leg hitch just right to show off the funky sock - she glances at her husband's feet. The more sombre the suit, the funkier the socks. She realises the pose is natural. It's the *socks*, the very idea of the socks he's lifted off the ad. Started with a single pair, and then slowly replaced his plain black, grey, dark blue, tartan ones. All made sense now; so much was coming to light. She was shocked of the triviality of the thing, and the out of proportion sense of revelation she was getting out of it. A sense of mixed concern and wonder that there are still things she doesn't know - doesn't *see*, about her spouse. She's brought back a large bottle of sparkling water, and will skip the drinking for enough rounds to get the sense of how many rounds they're going to be. She will have to ask Choox about the socks. But not tonight. Instead she says "Got a glass for your *whisky*, then?" Charles returns, reluctantly, from his journey of the senses, visions of the scottish highlands, peat bogs, dark, old, old, wooden casks. "It's not a *billy*" *fuck.* They look at each other. A beat "Anyway, this time I told the waiter-lady we need to mix medication for a baby." There was only one baby, the one crying when he was asking this, having cunningly put away not only his coat, but also his jacket, even rolled up his sleeves. He'd even considered adding a stain when he saw a pat of butter, but drew the line. It was nice to play a.. what, spy? Just be clever and game the system, however marginally, no harm caused, no ill will. The corporate auditor's walled garden of impish rogueness. He will want to wash it before returning it discreetly if the hall is still open when they finish - or whenever they get their bags if not, in that case he'll have to go back for the car flask and the tumbler. It was a joke present, still in the 'break the glass' box but it was claimed to him the flask was filled with something aged twelve years and Japanese. He knows he will not mention this in front of Zoe, because he sees the joke she will make. He doesn't know that before the night is over, the glass will break. They are both aware, although it was never voiced, that they came out of the wall at minute four, within a handful of seconds. But only Mer remarks to herself that Tur is way off the agreed time when he comes in. "'yello'" He decides against sitting with them, so goes to look at what turns out to be an ideal sized bucket at the edge of the lawn, both big and rigid enough to be flipped, moved, and sat on, if it hadn't contained a dozen cricket balls, about filling the bottom layer. How many balls do these people use? Tur walks back to the bench. Charles is looking at him, shaking his head. He thought the same and had a look already, back from his piss. Then both, a glimmer in the eye, exhale in mock disappointment "...balls." Tur starts: "So, you guys were all 'material facts', they said he walked the path weekly - like in the service, which come to think of it feels... I guess deliberate. did he not - " -We can't discuss this unless everyone is present" Charles shakes his head. Tur thinks of asking, how many cricket balls do you think they use in this place, have you seen the size of this bucket, but thinks better of it. "Sparkling Water?" Mer has cracked open the bottle - the water, it turns out, is more of a commodity, and this evening, was being given away, for sake of lighter pack-up. All above board, all she had to do was deploy her best parent-facing polite charm. "I've got myself a beer" says Tur. He jiggles a bottle of something mexican-branded, between thumb and forefinger. "no lime?" Mer, not looking up from filling her goblet. Tur shrugs. Mer looks up. "No, this is where you take a sombre look, and with hint of reproach, say 'Meredith, it's a *funeral*" Tur laughs. Mer is so happy that Tur came down. Tur! She hugs him. "I missed you, you should come back more often" "I know!" Tur doesn't have much reason to come back, though. Christmas with Mum in her post-downsize flat, so far, is not nearly as fun for both as flying her to the Twin Cities. "So how's life? Is the -" *woosh* Zoe's heart doesn't seem in it this time "The Zoo is ..." She breaks into a yawn, stretches. "...tired." She walks up to Tur. "Beer? Nice. No lime?" Tur looks sombre, stares earnestly at Zoe: "Zoe... this is a funeral. Not *Whetherspoons*" Meredith smiles slyly, pretending to look at her shoes. Mission accomplished. Nice tag too. Zoe is not amused, but chilled. "This is exactly what Billy would have said. It's like I know it's funny, but my brain recognises Billy before it recognises funny, and so it's making me sad." "Oh, Zoo, I'm sorry. It won't show with all the sadness you have already." They go in for the bear hug. Meredith turns on the bench. "Zoe, my doe, you know I love you, but we're not allowed to discuss" a pause "...this unless we're all here, so imagine how we feel when you come back at" She opens the coat, pulls out a pocket watch. Tur's eyes widen - that's what the chain is for! He wishes his kids had a teacher like Meredith. Though maybe they did, they must show a different side to the parents. He could think of a couple of candidates. maybe? "...the *nine* minute mark on an *agreed* five minute break?" The emphasis on the breach of contract, of trust, a teacher reflex. "What can I say, Arturo is a skilled lover." This, inevitably, completely deadpan. Because Zoe. Meredith's face blanches. She *is* joking surely. Zoe walks towards the cricket grounds Charles start, "okay, so material facts, Tur, he did walk this every week. Would call me from the walk, sometimes, at some point we had a sync hike." "Tragic centrist dad hour!" shouts Zoe. Charles continues, entirely unfazed "They had to mention it, because when you're in the circles where they know he's fallen off a cliff, you may as well give them this information. This happened on a Sunday, the day he does it, usual time. Whether he jumped, fell, or was pushed. I guess this is technically a possibility, but there's no motive for murder, it happened on a regular walk." Zoe has found the bucket, upends it. The dozen cricket balls spill. "Balls!" She genuinely expected it empty. it seemed so light for its size. She performs a theatrical shrug, brings the bucket back and flips it in front of the bench. "There." Zoe finds Mer staring blankly at her, so she winks back at her. Charles is licking his lips. "Tur" "hm?" "Trade you your beer for a 5-1 single malt and soda water." Tur looks at Meredith: "Is the water cold?" Charles feels his jaw clench unvoluntarily. "Off the ice bucket", she answers. "Sure." One mixes the drink, both do the trade. Mer, next to them is still chewing something over that needs spittin out: "You *are* joking, right? "What?" Zoe was just about to ask something about the inquest. "You didn't fuck the waiter-guy, did you?" "Jesus Christ, Meredith" Zoe, 3 dB louder, genuinely offended "No of course, I didn't" she does the quotation marks sign with her fingers, apes the voice of a nasal moralist "fuck the waiter-guy". His name is Arturo,by the way. I know you teach at a private school, but staff have *names*, you know." "In a certain era, you would've". Meredith will not be cowed. "It's a legitimate question." "In a certain *occasion*, I would have. I'll make sure to ask Arturo when's his next wedding, crash it during the quiet hour. But not at Billy's wake." Meredith says nothing, because the only thing she can think to say is "you're such a fucking slut", and she doesn't want to say that. "Nine minutes, Mer?" Zoe feels incredible agency in batting Meredith between the image she has of, and the hope she holds for, her. I don't need either she thinks. "Seriously. I know how to judge a man. You would have been lucky to see me back inside of half an hour." The agency is in shocking Mer. Mer's face lights up "Oh wow, maybe he and Charles should have a chat, then. See if there are tips to pick up". Billy once pointed out to them that the banter between all five was artfully cruel, something he saw as only being possible because they'd developed a collective adaptive technique of knowing when the point has been made, and moving on, redirecting, lightening. Zoe's always found this to be even less effective than the usual passive-aggressive issue raising in making any almost impossible to raise constructively. Also, fucking exhausting. Charles face stays composed "I'm sorry, my wife is a teacher and she blocks everything in ten minutes slots" Charles says this last word receiving his wife elbow gently in the ribs. Then, in the perfectly performed mixture of sadness and emotion. "If it's a Sunday and school holidays, we get a double." Zoe snorts a surprised laugh. She missed these two. Sh==e'd not lost touch with them as much as with Billy,== they were fun to hang with, what happened? "The trick is to think of gross stuff, Choox", offers, splendidly unhelpfully, Tur. But this is not nearly as splendidly unhelpful as what is to follow, as he puts his hand to his chin and mimics an insight "Mind you with Zoe no need, maybe you wouldn't be back inside of 30 minutes either" Zoe breaks into tears. "nonononon, no, Zoo, sorry, that was a shitty thing to say, I don't mean that you know that" he wraps her in his arms. "Now look what you've gone and done" says Charles. "Oh, don't guilt trip him," but Mer is not particularly on Tur's side. "He's a simple soul, easily influenced by the political atmosphere of his adoptive country," she's just against Zoe on this. The remark though, spends a minute working his way through Tur. Zoe realises she's having this weird uncontrollable, yet entirely performative crying she sometimes does, because she's perked up, tears gone, at the mention of the unmentionable. She can feel Tur tense around her, but gradually. As if his body was slowly reaching a consensus on the exact degree of outrage to offer. "Fuck. you. Mer. not cool." "Your words." "My wife is in a facility" he cannot even bring himself to say the name of the agency. "And yet here you are, regressing to your teens and bullying of Zoo. Who's famous for calling female journalists ugly, again?" Charles leans in between them "Don't blame me, I gave to the campaign" His standard, but increasingly inappropriate, glib response to any mention of American politics, especially in Tur's presence. He'd been the one to reach out when he fundraised for the campaign. Which, then.... This wasn't the night to go to another bad memory. They'd told him. All of them. The arc was clear to the four back home, from election night. Both he and his wife were undesirables, but they would come for her first, then, in time, for him, is how Billy himself put it. This is where he'd said something about the electorate being easily seduced, not such a bad situation, then Charles had shrugged and said 'People like Coldplay and voting for the Nazis', which they all laughed at, Mer adding "...Jeremy" in a pinched, nasal voice. He didn't really get that last bit, but he add seen Charles comment as an endorsement of his, in a way. Not as the seduced people having accidentally put in, like, actual, death-squad-Nazis. But maybe everyone, always, throughout history, has always thought that. Right up to the moment the boots kick in their specific door. "That's got nothing to do with that. I'm regressing, because the last time we were all together, with Billy we were" Tur delivers all of this, shaking his tall frame in indignation, increasingly loudly, but is stopped in his tracks, needing to calculate. It would have been his wedding, so... "... twenty-seven." "This dynamic right now feels very *seventeen*" proposes Charles "Billy may has well have been fucking seventeen when he was twenty-seven." spits Meredith bitterly. Zoe, forehead flat against tur's broad chest, whispers "...cunt." There's a moment. That is, science says, about three seconds. But they feel like more. Maybe they are. "Is she asleep?" Charles asks in a stage whisper. Tur open his arms and Zoe emerges, she pushes hair out of her eyes, re-adjust the layers of scarves to which she has been adding every visit back inside. Not hers. Just scarves from the cloakroom she'll return, although one will be stained. The cloakroom. Its warmth. It is so cold out of Tur's arms. "I'm OK." she says, to no-one in particular. Suddenly she is looking intent, and turns to Charles: "Material facts, material man. Where are they with the inquest? What do we know? "They always release the body quick, so nearly nothing" Charles feels happy to be able to help. He's tapped the solicitor, sounded the parents, although obliquely, and completed that with internet research. . "Okay, so when a death like this happens - violent, sudden deaths, mysterious circumstances... -mysterious!" Zoe pours some vodka in what a part of her, largely unknown to her, hopes to look like a witch at her cauldron. "this may be the actual legal term, actually. I dunno. So, fishermen report a body down a cliff, could be accident, suicide, murder." -muuuurrrrrder!" Zoe cackles. Most foul indeed, she thinks. She cracks open a can of diet DrPepper, which sprays over all of them to some degree, but mostly on her lap. "Tragedy!" she exclaims "You know, it's funny. Coca-Cola started as a legit 'tonic medicine', back in Victorian times" Charles stops to ponder if they call them that, in Atlanta. He continues: "But now, it's really only DrPepper that dares be basically fizzy cough medicine" Charles does no like the smell. He continues: "Anyway obviously, they release the body as soon as possible..." "... the... body..." Zoe pours the fizzy cough medicine into the vodka. The crow she hears caw is probably her imagination. "Yes." Charles's tone is firm "Billy's body. So we could bury him today, Zoe". By the end the tone is cutting. "Hey, hey, leave her, we all grieve differently" Mer is on this immediatly like it's a classroom injustice. Instant, polite, correction, do not let it escalate. She's been injecting some teacher craft in their usual social manner, but this is not a child, and she initially thinks she won't even ask him to "Apologise", but it's out before she can stop it. "You're right. I'm sorry, Zoe, this was uncalled for. But the point is this was today, so they've taken a tox screen, but we don't know the results", He looks at Tur. "Want your beer back at no trade cost?" "tell me" "drink up, I just want the glass" He now doesn't understand why he thought he wanted more that half of a bottle of beer. He guesses this explanation is very much a single malt moment too. He takes his last hit of vape for the duration of the drink - he's still respectful of the malt in that respect, then takes a swig of beer. Swills it round his mouth. May as well be saline. He hesitates to spit it out as he passes the bottle to Tur. "You can spit it you know." Charles does. "Why wasn't *this* in a bucket of ice?" "It was in a bucket of water" Tur shugs. Looks at the label. Mexican-branded would be too kind for this, actually. A Latvian marketing exec's idea of Mexico, maybe. Tur feels glad he can now have a drink he's sure to take slower, because he sure downed the second half of his malt and soda fast. "The fact they were able to release the body quickly tells us a lot, but of course not nearly enough. Still, plenty of medical stuff ruled out, although plenty left in. We know the tox screen's going to come back with cannabis, but we don't know if he was under the influence at the time." "Can't they tell? how long since his last one?" Zoe's question is a science one, and directed at Mer. "Nah. It's like... you remember at ours, that New Years Eve, when you had one toke off one of Billy's joints?" "oh, *vividly*" Zoe was the archetypal stoner girl in high school. Big flared trousers, hoodies. But somehow, and it was hard to say if this was down to Zoe herself, or the general social dynamic in the year and the school, somewhat of an outcast. Billy was the archetypal outcast, weird and smart, weird because smart, but somehow, also to his surprise, somewhat of a stoner. All four would acknowledge it to be equally disputable whether it was something in him, or the social dynamics of the school, that drove him to it. He'd arrived, after midnight, finding her on the balcony, smoking, he'd finished working on something they knew better than have him say more about. we counted down in the tube, he'd said. "He was stone sober when he came in, right?" Mer continues Zoe did not know that. Billy, as she remembers, picturing them on the balcony, always gave the impression of being only partially, shiftingly, present. Not 'half-present', much more than that, say 80% most times, 90% when he was paying attention, but even fully focussed there was always a little something.. there which wasn;t... here. In her memory, he's blurring like a double print photograph. Billy has offered her the first toke of his first spliff of the first day of the year. She was drunk, and lonely, and happy to see him, and wanting to return to their moments together on what they thought at the time as 'their bench' in the park, so she'd accepted eagerly. This was in an age where they'd grown distant and she felt like re-connecting. "he'd told me a micro-puff, I remember now". she realises she'd occulted this detail from this memory. at this point she hadn't smoked since her very early twenties, if that. And, obviously, not since. "he'd told me" Her voice modulates down "Zoo, this is not our homeopathic, hemp-scented cigarettes of year 11. I have at least three of these a day, had for a long time. I didn't roll this to share, the medicine is calibrated to this patient's tolerance, yes?" She doesn't tell them, as it comes back to her, how he added "tell me you're not too drunk to understand. micro-puff. Repeat.", and even less, how she'd had to concentrate to pass that particular test. "But you'd had a big puff, yeah?" She'd stared right in his eyes as he held the match, saw his hand reach for her as she overtook not the micro, but the milli, already, but she held up her hand and went to a high calibre one, and then even managed to inhale a bit on top to push it in before collapsing in coughing. "...and it destroyed me, I know, so what. why can't the figure out if he was stoned?" Zoe is not the most patient of students, though Mer never voices the thought. He'd watched her takes that theatrical toke, took back the spliff, and parked it on the windowsill, and said. 'We need to go and see Mer and find you a bed.' She was too drunk to even protest at what she in part construed as a father figure putting her to bed for some transgression she'd had trouble putting her finger on 'I;d go on my own, but if I leave you alone with this I fear the worst, and it's bad luck to put a spliff out after one toke. can't have that.' "So that was at, what, say 1 am. Now, three hours later, round 4am, we watched that film, remember?" Mer is lining up stepping stones to the learning objective. "*Two Stoner Men Go To The Fast Food Restaurant*!" Zoe exclaims. "Yes, oh yes was that the same night? that was the best time we've had together in ages." "That was the best time you've had when we've been together, I think you mean" Mer is not sounding bitter, just factual. "So that was three hours later. Imagine I'd taken your blood at this point." "did you?" "no, but imagine the concentration of THC in your blood, it's three hours after one toke on one of Billy's joints, yeah?" "yes. that would be... small, I guess" "if it were booze maybe, THC doesn't exactly work like this. Still, this evening, Billy came in sober, then smokes two of these over the next three hours. He wasn't impaired, watching this film, was he?" Zoe shakes her head. "But you see how, just mathematically - he's a regular user, he's had two joints to your one toke, his blood level would be higher." Zoe snaps her fingers "right, of course, duh. So you can't figure out if the person is impaired just from blood levels. 'cause tolerance" Which, in a way, she realises, is an argument she uses to drive when technically over the limit. "'xactly." Mer has led the student to an insight they, as always, held all along. It just needed dusted off, framed, and put under the slightest amount of light. She thinks, somehow, of germination. "He spoke to his father roughly an hour into the walk, if going by his usual schedule. Sounded sober, not depressed, nothing irregular." Charles lines up another fact of the material persuasion. "So the dad says" interjects Zoe. "Zoe PLEASE." Charles shouts the last word, and bangs his fist on the arm-rest. "I'm sorry." He composes himself. "I should have make this explicit: we have enough unknowns that we need to take evidence at face value, otherwise this just induces more unknowns." He turns to the others. "If we start casting doubt on every little thing, we are just re-injecting the possibility of suicide, which I like to think we are trying to rule *out*" "...or *in*" Zoe counters. Charles pivots back to face her "Doesn't matter which way we're ruling what. If one option requires someone to be in bad faith, but the other doesn't, we favour the option that doesn't... Mer, help me out." he snaps his fingers, spins them, as if to invoke the phrase he's tryingg to recall out of thin air "... 'multiply assumptions beyond necessity'" Mer, at hand. "... precisely. Occam's razor. The most defensible argument is the one that relies on the fewer assumptions of this kind, particularly if they're presumed less likely than the alternative." "You said an hour into the walk, how long is the walk total? " asks Tur. "I looked it up on a map. Says 4 hours, but I know he'd walk it in three." Mer has been looking at this with Charles: "his body was found down from the bit where the actual cliff edge is closest to the path, which two thirds of the way in", she states. "So he j.." the others all turn to look at Zoe "... met his fate... an hour after speaking to his dad? That'd be enough to get high smoking, definitely. And be on the come-up of something you ate." "that's the lower bound" Charles, one finger up. Socrates, thinks Zoe. "The soonest he could have is an hour after the phone call. The latest, is much harder to establish. We know he never arrived. So we can't exactly find a witness to tell us *when* he didn't arrive." Tug has a point to make "Do we think him walking slowly, or backtracking, is an un-necessary assumption?" "Fair point. But still an hour does not let us rule out drugs." Zoe interjects: "This is Billy. Was. No one was expecting to rule out *drugs*. That's the one sure thing to rule in, right?" "Actually no," Charles said "he didn't smoke on these walks." "the one he called you from." "is Billy behaving differently when he didn't necessary, as a hypothesis?" Mer laughs "Ha! how would we know. This is pointless. I don't think we're going about this right. I don't think this is the message." "What message?" Tur and Zoe, simulteneously. "Well, him, leaving these instructions, for us, this is a message, right.", Mer "....from beyooond the graave" Zoe, predictably. "Seriously, Zoo. If there is doubt as to whether... that applies to circumstances which call for enquiry - do NOT say 'mysterious', Zoe, please". Zoe stops before she's started. Mer continues "He knew that. Finding the actual truth is the job of the inquiry, he wants us to find consensus." "Are we happy with consensus about falsehood?" asks Charles "I thought you were the one making the pitch for a comfortable falsehood." Mer is surprised. "I was, yeah, am. That's why am I asking. Come join me at the 100 mark." "No way you're 100 now, are you?" "I'm not, that's true." Charles considers pulling out the wad of appendices. "I don't know how much we can discuss scores this before a formal round." There's a long pause here. Everyone is figuring out how their score has changed. "Before we vote, I have points to the speakers of the previous rounds" Mer starts. "Wait, before you do that. About the enquiry." Charles raises a hand "what? it's not much use to us now is it?" "Actually, it's almost nearly the exact other way round." Tur moves invisible blocks with finger tips.. "we are... a lot of use... to it.... then?" Puzzled looks all round. Charles gets up. "Zoe, swap seats" Zoe stands, waves an elaborate flourish to present the seat "You have the bucket." She goes to sit with Mer and Tur, then adds "don't go kickin' it now." Charles clears his throat. This is the announcement within the announcement, the one Mer could not audit his appropriate executing. The one he's figured out from the appendices, and internet research. "Okay, so we all agree murder isn't really on the table. Could be the case, but with no motive, we're talking about an arbitrary pusher. Seems unlikely - not necessary as an assumption. Typically Coroners' inquest worry about murders disguised as accident, right? mys... suspicious circumstances" He glances at Zoe, but she gives him a zipped lips gesture. "suicides disguised as accidents, now you're looking at life insurance fraud, right?" Mer slaps her forehead. "oh, fuck, sure - how come you did not mention this the other day." "Didn't know then. Now I do. Checked with the parents. No insurance. Which scans, right? not really an insurance kinda guy, our Billy." Tur: "but that's a material fact." "'but' what do you mean 'but'" Charles confusion is palpable, in a reversal of their typical dynamic. "Well, he had no *material* reason to disguise his ..." a pause. "hypothetical suicide as an accident." "this is not the point I am trying to make" Charles "Sure, but mine is that he may have... what's the opposite? immaterial reasons? metaphysical?" Zoe: "Social reasons. There's a social reason to not want your suicide to be known as one." Meredith raises a hand "although if someone had a social reason to fuck with their grieving friends' heads and have your accident known as suicide, that would be Billy." "This not the point, guys, I'm not mentioning the insurance because of this. I'm mentioning the insurance, because this would be the only party asking the Coroner to consider suicide. The evidence is all circumstantial, but in cases like this - again, Occam - there has to be a reason to consider suicide." "Finding the truth, not enough of a reason for the English legal system?" Zoe stops "Okay, actually, this does sound like the English legal system." Charles sees a chance to bring them back to his argument, which still holds, much as he is now willing to settle on a lower percentage on the misadventure side. "This is back to what I was saying. Sure, some people care about truth for truth's sake. Even when it hurts them." He eyes Zoe more pointedly than he wanted to. "But in the collective, unless someone is after the truth in the case, then coroners are perfectly happy presuming misadventure. What I mean by this is that unless someone explicitly asks the inquest, they'll likely conclude misadventure within a month or two." The others look at him. "Which is quick - but leaves us time." "Leave *us* time?" Tur, puzzled "Where do we fit in this again?" "You said it: we will be a lot of use to the enquiry, then." "...what?" "Well, we need to finish the game. And then make our findings public. Along with the rules. Others can then play." "not really a game. How do you call something which has rules, but isn't fun?" Zoe, snidely. "...workplace?" asks Tur. "a...framework" offers Mer. "I like that." Says Charles. "Anyway, the point of the initial run of the framework, what we conclude, is that, ostensibly, if we find in the negatives, or even below a threshold of positive - that is, for misadventure, we have a moral duty to ask the Coroner to consider suicide. That's also true of any players after we make our conclusion public, though they would have to make the case quick." "oh fuck," says Tur. "So. not doing that." "obviously, none of us want to do that, but, well, we have to." "fuck moral duties!" Zoe, in a way captures her philosophy in three words. Perhaps the one which brought her and Billy together in the first place. "I mean a moral duty to *Billy*, Zoo. This was, explicitly, in the appendices. Something like 'if there is a call to ask the inquest to consider suicide, you and I both know my parents will not do it." "I thought we were presuming good faith from the parents?" Zoe Meredith has had quite enough: "not everyone values truth to the sociopathic degree you do, Zoo - -hurtful- -there's a difference behind the good faith of reporting your son's mental state in a phone call, and deliberately asking for a shitty legal process to be stretched out, asks you and plenty more to testify, only to find out one of the worst possible things about your son." She feels she needs to modulate it, so adds "is all." "Not the worse possible ?" asks Tur "No," says Zoe. "We've established the worst thing would, apparently, be if his son was fucking me." Zoe is doing the deadpan thing again, but there's a sob choking at the end. "I'm bored of this." She reaches in her coat pocket for pen and paper. "Let's vote." Charles gets up from the bucket: "I believe Mer had some points for the speakers. Mer, the bucket is yours." They swap seats. "Thank you, Choox." She flips back a couple of pages in her notepad. Zoe: "Fuck me, Mer, that's a lot of notes" Meredith raises a finger: "writing is the externalisation of cognition." "Sounds like the two sides of your problem right there, Mer" Mer does not raise to the bait: "actually my first point is for you, Zoo. You said an accident is not like him - careless. I agree he is not careless. Doesn't mean we can make an argument against an accident from character. Accidents happen. To everyone." "some people are accident-prone, though" "but even those who aren't have accidents too. People under-estimate how often seemingly freak coincidences and occurences will turn up in their life. You wouldn't say that if he'd been run-over by a bus, would you." "Fair, I grant you that." Says Zoe. "I'm not arguing from reason, just I'm not thiking of Billy as a accident-kinda-guy." "I don't think that there are types of people by coroner's verdict" Tur points out. "I dunno." Zoe points to herself "Suicide," then Meredith "Murder" Mer interrupts: "If you're foreseeing these having the same perpetrator, you don't want them in this order" Zoe points to Charles "Misadventure", then to Tur, "... open verdict" Tur, slightly taken aback: "why'd you have to say it like that?" "Its the verdict which comes up when I've gotten away with murder!" she stage-whispers. Meredith has her hand up: "children please. I have the bucket." She has their attention. "Second point." She flips forward a page, looks for the item. Charles sees his opening: "Meroo, darling." Meredith looks up. "I am sure I speak for all of us when I say we appreciated your diligence in record keeping..." Mer rolls her eyes, because he's doing that conciliatory tone that indicates the old feedback sandwhich. "I sense a 'but' coming". "...*however*", Charles emphasises, "It may be simpler if you prioritise them, focussing on these that are likely to change our scores - narrowing the range." Meredith is making a face he knows to be a rare one. The one when she's realised the imminent hosting from petards she's been deploying. Charles continues: "Which, as you've reminded us, is the whole point. You wanted to go to the next vote quickly, but catching Tur up on the facts was needed. " Mer is now looking dejected. Zoe looks at Charles admiringly, glad to be out of the firing line of a couple pages of teacher feedback. Tur can count five of the spilled cricket balls maybe 6, unless this is a ... what, toadstool? sprinkler? "So," Charles lines up the landing, "best beloved, joy of my life, apple of my eye," Meredith throws him a glare that could strip paint. Slight wobble on approach, back on track. "Which of these are likely to influence our vote?" Tur, quieter, to Zoe: "are we calling them votes or scores?". She shrugs. They have been known to start side chats during especially tricky confrontations between the married couple, just to have plausible deniability as to their awareness of any loss of face from either. They, too, are picking up on the body language. Meredith is glancing at her notepad, flicking through it back and forth: "all, or, I suppose, none, depending. I can't know what's going to change your scores, right?" Zoe, quietly, to Tur: "scores. Let's go for scores." She suprises herself finding her paper and pen. Crosses out her -100, then louder: "I'm ready". "Yeah," Tur exclaims, willing some energy into the proceedings "fuck it, let's do it. Off the dome." Charles mouths 'sorry' to his wife, but she is not unhappy to see things moving along. ## Round 2: Whistly McWhistleface T: -100 Z: 0 C: 20 M: 50 Mer is shocked. How did she end up top proponent for for the accident? She seeks refuge in mental arithmetic. As often. "Average is " she squints. Maybe water this round too? "-7.5? Range is 150, so that's better." "But we've slightly shifted towards suicide." says Zoe "Or not." Charles will not have any of that, thank you. "Two for the accident, one suicide, one in the middle." He looks at Mer, and feels some satisfaction to point out: "the mean has moved, the median is the same. We're just less... confident, Mer and I." "Whatever", Tur says, all out of patience. "Flip me." Mer has the chip out, flicks it spinning :"Call- -Heads! ... it?" The token has landed on Meredith's lap "Green - it's heads. Tur?" "Yeah," he says, getting up "I'll go first." They swap seats. "Okay," he starts, but quickly stops. Starts again: "I call shennanigans." Tur drums a quick tatttoo on the side of the bucket, between his legs. Charles has his leg crossed and sock visible. Zoe is sticking two rolling papers in an L-shape. Mer is looking at Tur so intently it unsettles him. He quickly looks away. "It's what Zoe said, actually." He's lined up his thoughts a bit more. "I was 50-50. I mean zero, right?" He avoids Mer's gaze. Charles is unreadable. But Zoe gives a tiny nod. He continues: "But the letter, this whole business, having played a round." He realises this has not felt exactly playful: "... a round ... of the framework." This sounds more appropriate. "He is clearly fucking with us from bey..." Zoe has looked up from her non-spliff and locks eyes with him. "... fucking with us post-mortem, I mean." He contemplates the implications. "I don't berate him that." A pause. "I mean. I guess we're fucking with ourselves. Or each other." He realises he's getting choked up. "Mer, could I have some water?" Meredith fills her own glass with sparkling water again, takes two sips and passes him the glass. "Ta." Tur takes a sip. "Like, okay, this..." His left hand, index towards the ground, draws two counter-clockwise circle "...exercise is as good or as bad as *we* make it, I get that." Mer, who so far has solely been looking at Tur's expression, makes a single note at the bottom of a busy page, circles it. "so it's not mean spirited, but definitely a... trick. Tricky. Trickster-ey." Another pause "He was into this stuff, right?" He swallows another sip "...his riddles, and puzzles, and paradoxes..." A longer pause. "Wasn't he always saying maths are literally mind games?" His tall frame is almost crouched on the bucket, giving a sense of packed energy which is simian, mixed with a jet-lagged exhaustion all too human. "So, he has left us one. Which means he knew of at least the possibility of mys..." Zoe, who's just finished licking the seam of a terrible looking smoke, looks at him, and winks "...circumstances. You don't do thing like this for the possibility of misadventure" Mer jots something down. He doesn't realise he's recognised, even upside down, a capital 'I'. "I mean, yeah, sure, *insurance* is doing things for the possibility of misadventure." He sees Mer cross the note she just made, and feels some satisfaction. He relaxes, straightens his back, is even about to attempt to mirror's Charles leg-cross when he feels the upended bucket wobble under his weight. *Better not.* "But planning for the possibility of a misadventure-suicide unknown scenario, this speaks to intention of suicide." He sees met makes another note. Squints. A 'p' ? "These instructions... that's a riddle. The 'consensus' we're meant to reach is the guess. I think he wants us to know what he's done." He stops, then his face changes. He snaps his fingers. "That's it! He knew all the stuff Charles said about the inquest, how it would pan out, the way he's disguised it, unless we..." He stops, hit again with the momentousness he felt when the idea first came up. He looks at his friends. "Unless we, his friends, decide by consensus we need to publicise it, cause the coroner to look at it." Zoe has lit the sad cone, and he feels deep, deep kinship for her. He's missed her. He adds: "Which, unless there's any material evidence likely to come to light?" He looks at Charles, to which the question was squarely aimed. Charles gives one shake of his head and signals for him to go on. "sounds like it'll end up open verdict. So you see, Zoe, I'm in good company." Zoe is smiling through a cloud. "He may even have engineered it for that too - that way, everyone can keep believing what they prefer, but he's asked us to decide whether to give them the *choice*." Tur finishes the water. "And I guess I didn't fancy the..." he takes half a second to recall "...moral duty, but this is my real vote - not just to speak." Tur looks at Charles. "Like, I think this should be our consensus." He stops quickly adds "..internally. He did it, he wants us to know. What we do with this knowledges up to us." There is a long, long silence. Tur stands up, picks up a cricket ball off the ground. Nods at Meredith, who gets up. When they pass each other, she hugs him. Tur sits down and Zoe wraps her arms around him, quickly squeezes, lingers. Eventually lets go. She sniffles. Meredith sits on the bucket, and pulls out her phone. She lets exactly one minute pass. Mer knows the importance of not trusting your own clock when it comes to leave students the time to digest information, or, as is her case now, prepare an answer. She was not expecting to vote above Charles for misadventure, but is not unhappy to have the floor. She re-arranges her argument to better speak to Tur's statement, and soon the minute is over. First, though: "I need to cor..", catches herself "to complete the record. Starting by telling you what my husband was up to last weekend." She manages to load the latest with innuendo, in spite of the circumstances. Charles is rolling his eyes. "We went to the reading of the will." Meredith says, "oh, by the way, Tur, just in case you're imagining the instructions are his suicide letter..." Tur is frowning. "like he left them to the solicitor, then went to jump off a cliff, no. It's not like that." Meredith stops to take a breath, there is, it seems, too much to say at the same time. She gestures towards the bottle of water. Zoe leans away from it, letting Tur grab it. "The special instructions were left when he did the will, three years ago." Tur passes Mer the glass. Charles raises his hand "Which is also when he moved there and started taking this walk." Charles lowers his hand. Meredith takes a sip. "Anyway - so consider that. Oh, and he has also left four sealed envelopes, to be open depending on the inquest's verdicts. " Tur raises his eyebrows at Charles, gestures palms open towards him, silently miming his reproach. Charles raises a hand. "Charles," says Meredity, "wants to say that these were not material facts of the case itself, but of the meta-case. The framework." Charles lowers his hands, his eyes wide. Unexpectedly very close. He pulls down the corner of his mouth, eyebrows raised, nodding his approval. "Anyway," she nudges a cricket ball with the tip of her left shoe "When Charles learnt he was going to be in charge of liquidating Billy's estate, such as it was, he couldn't just *wait* for the solicitor to give him the key, he had to drive there and check out the van." Charles hand has shot up "Which he will tell you is not breaking and entering, because Billy'd left us a copy of the key, just in case - that one case so far was going to move the van to another parking spot when he was abroad." Mer's tone changes as she realises the magnitude of the transgression, outlining it for the others. "And maybe it is not burglary, but that is still interfering with evidence for the enquiry." Charles hand is still up, and he is shaking it, his face reddening. "Particularly given what he's done". She raises her voice the tiniest fraction "Put your hand down, Charles, you had the chance to volunteer this information yourself. You didn't. And then you lower your score and gave me this platform. So no, you wont tell them yourself, not now. That ship fimly sailed,*buddy*" Charles, defeated, lowers his hand. "My husband was, of course, very curious about the content of Billy's computer, and thought himself capable of breaking into it." She slows down, savouring - but not liking herself for the savouring, the gap between setup and punchline in her husband's cockup. "But when he didn't enter a password in, like, ten seconds, the computer wiped itself." There is a single second of silence, and through it, the implication of this last statement proceed in the mind of Tur and Zoe, from zeros and ones all set to zeros, to files erased, to the anihiliation of most of the digital aspect of their friends life. And then, everyone but Meredith starts shouting. Meredith noticed that Tur started first, from the pitch, but Zoe and him near-simultaneously piled onto Charles, who's ignoring them, but shouting at her. She scoffs a single exasperated response to her husband, and leaves, by her internal clock a minute, so in reality no more than the four seconds it takes her to pull out the whistle. Tur takes a second to realise the deafening alarm is coming from Meredith, and immediately recognises a whistle he doesn't recognise from any of the many sports he has played, red and oversized. The pitch is different. So's the timbre - buzzy like an over-overblown woodwind. He has time to contemplate this as Mer empties her lungs fully through the loathsome item. Meredith gasps for air. A feeling of cotton wool, ringing in everyone's ears. "Children." She intoned in a conciliatory tone. "I think we need a break. And a snack." They have heard her, but come to think of it, she has never witness the pacifiying effects of - she allows herself a smirk - Whislty McWhisleface on grown-ass adults. So she gives them a minute. "Husband, fetch me some cheese." Mer thought she put enough levity in it, but then even she finds it hard to tell, on account of the cotton wool, so, adds "Please." Charles is twirling his pinkies into is ears and swallowing, opening his mouth like a landed fish. He gets up, and looks around the company. Zoe finds he looks like a lost little boy. "Please," Meredith adds "and, also... now?" This is thrown with a rising terminal, just to soften the blow. Charles sighs, walks, *wooshes*, *sweeshes*. Mer waits three seconds, leans forward. Zoe and Tur lean in reflexively "Do not give him any shit." Tur takes a breath in, and starts voicing a single vowel, when Mer cuts in "I'm serious. You cannot berate him harder than he berates himself." Zoe pats Tur's thigh. "He'll tell you in a minute. I don't think he's wrong actually, which is why you are finding me pretty chill given the..." she shakes her heard "... you know. Actual crimes." The two on the bench sense the moment is over. Everyone straightens up. Mer stands up: "Let's take five. I need to check if the girls have texted." She looks at Zoe: "Say ten", looks at her watch "say we're all back here at quarter to." Zoe is up in a flash: "...quarter to!" starts towards the door. "You do have a watch Zoo, yes?" Mer calls. Zoe opens - woosh - the door, with the other hand raises a middle finger towards the sky, facing Mer, and shouts: "Quarter to!" "Tur", says Meredith, "stay with her please." They both get up. ## Interlude: Plausible Deniability Charles and Mer, predictably, are the first ones out, sharing a plate of cheese and crackers, which, Charles remarks to himself, hit the spot. There's even a bit of relish - or is that chutney? He passes a napkin to his wife. She senses something, twists on the bench, locates the bottle of water, pours what's left of it evenly into two glasses, gestures to Charles, who gratefully takes a sip. "Thank you." He says. Takes another sip: "Bit dry." Mer starts to say something, but holds a finger up. Takes a sip: "'s the oatmeal ones." Charles leans over the plate in between them on the bench: "But if we spread an even layer of chutney, to moisturise, and pair with..." the tip of a plastic knife is hovering over the plate, pointing to items in his selection, in turn "...the stilton." "Isn't that relish?", asks Meredith. She feels something which leads her to check her watch, telling herself she is doing it to check her sense of time, not pass judgement on her friends. It is, she is satisfied, but not exactly surprised, to find out, exactly quarter to. But barely thirty seconds later, it's woosh, the couple turns on the bench, and see Tur holding the door open for Zoe. He is carrying a blue plastic bag. She is carrying a champagne bucket. "Shennanigans!" she says, presenting. One, she only now realise, of Billy's words. The bucket contains six bottles of Mexico-via-Latvia branded beer, each wrapped in a frosted sheet of kitchen roll. Zoe walks to the capital-b-bucket, sits on it, sets down the lower-case-b-bucket in between them: "When Tur got his room-temp beer, with Arturo telling us no more ice, I asked if he minded keeping a bottle or two in the freezer, wrapped in wet kitchen towel, until I came back." She hands bottles around. "I did say 'a bottle or two', but he's such a sweetheart." She flutters her eyelids. Everyone is holding an unopened bottle so looks are exchanged until they all converge on Meredith. She makes, quite unaware of it, a couple of clicking noises, then her hands come out of the inside of her coat with a blue comma-shaped tool on a black lanyard. "Really," Charles says "Meredith? Chemistry reagents sealed in capped bottles, is it?" Mer is uncapping their bottles, one after the other. She's tutting "Now, mister moralist, let me tell you I am as outraged as you are here." She finishes with her own bottle, held between her legs. The cap flies but she catches it with her other hand, paying little notice to it. "Can you believe that this is swag for a teaching agency, handed out as a 'flashlight'?" She squeezes the blue comma, a single LED shines on the lawn, quite brightly, stretching the shadows of the spilled balls. "Plausible deniability..." Charles picks up the thing from her wife's proffered fingers. The agency is named after a Shakespeare character. He has a sudden crafing for these mixed chocolate, raisin and caramel confectioneries - are there some with honeycomb too? "Is any other kind worthwile?" Mer asks. "Appalling." She's invoking her inner Zoe to deliver the latter precisely on the middle of the sarcasm-earnestness line. Tur is holding his bottle up as if in toast, and asks "No lime?" just so he doesn't take a first sip if some is forthcoming. Zoe nudges him in the ribs with her elbow, and voices something precisely on the middle of the sob-scoff line. They clink bottles. Drink. "Right," Charles begin. He's had the time to regain his composure and marshall his arguments, and the cheese has been helpful too. "I owe you an explanation." He stands up "Zoe?" He takes the Bucket. Moves the beer bucket, cautiously, out of the reach of his nervous legs. "It is pretty much as Mer describes." He sees Zoe make a face. "But the first appendix, in the letter, is Billy telling me if there is doubt, I will want to check his computer, and he wrote his password." Zoe's face changes. So does Tur, more slowly. "So I did what I think you would have done. especially since he seemed to be hinting, without saying it out right." His face lights up "...giving everyone plausible deniability, that I ought to see to that *before* the authorities." He takes a sip on the beer. It is better cold. "Also, uh, I think we'd established it is a matter of months, but the van keys 'just in case', Mer?" Meredith nods. Charles says: "That was about three years ago too. You see how, in terms of doing what." he chokes. "... what he would have wanted, this felt like exactly the right thing to do." He takes another sip. Not that much better after all. He continues: "You would have done the same, I'm sure Mer would have done the same." Tur and Zoe turn to Mer. "I let him go. I wouldn't have let him do it if I thought he shouldn't." Meredith shrugs. "I wouldn't have gone if you thought I shouldn't", Charles says, "goes without saying." He pauses. Picks up his chin in his thumb and forefinger. "After all, I do not do anything without the knowledge and approval, if not outright instruction, of my wife." He sips on his beer and smiles "Crimes included." Meredith goes to kick his shoe, almost slips off the bench. "Okay", says Tur "so he, what, engineered for you to wipe his drives?", then, inspiredly adding "with plausible deniability? Like have you do it without telling you to, without you even knowing it would happen?" "See", Charles says "I thought that. But then, we all know how..." he's looking for the *mot juste* "consciencious Billy was with privacy and information security." This raises smiles and a scoff from Zoe "...paranoid, more like". "'It's only paranoia if you can't prove it'", intone simultaneously Tur and Mer each in their own impression of Billy. "Still," Charles says, "this had ratcheted up a notch in the past year." Zoe holds her hand up: "How can you know that?" "Oh he's right", Meredith says "When we pieced it together, Charles remembered that thirteen months ago, we came for lunch, he started his computer, and this was not the same setup. You explain it." "DIfferent password screen, not countdown", Charles says. "The self-wiping system appears a recent innovation." Silence. "I mean", Charles says, "I dont think the coroner's cyber-unit would have had any more luck with that. More likely someone'd boot it up and wipe it, a lot is on the element of surprise." "At the same time," Mer continues "Charles tells me could have worked around it, if he'd known in advance, which, if I am willing to grant him that, also means maybe coroners are a bit smart and proceed without needing to know in advance, assuming this kind of thing?" "If it was murder," Charles says "I told you, maybe but -" "Charles!" Tur shouts. All look at him. "No one cares about that. Doesn't matter. " This has stopped Charles, so Mer slides something in "The point really is that whether it was us or the feds", on this choice of word, Charles gives her a surprised look "looking at his stuff, he clearly did not want it looked into. In fact it being wiped is literally what he would have wanted." She's looking round the bench and bucket. "Because he set it up like that. Right?" "Yeah", says Zoe "but he also wanted us to do this", she gestures round the bench and bucket around which they have been for, it seems, an eternity " and wanted Charles - so, us, right? to look at his files" a pause. "right?" "No Zoo", Meredith's tone is kind. "I mean yes, but he wanted his computer wiped more recently than he wanted it looked at. So this takes precedence." She hears herself lose confidence in the words as she says them, and to her surprise then adds "I mean if the very latest thing he did was jump off a cliff, I don't know if that rule of 'more recent is the right decision' is that..." she stops "... you know." She feels a pang of fatigue. "Sensible. After all." "Right, but, uh, I mean, also", Tur seems to be calibrating in preparation of execution. "Like. This means the whole thing I just said for my -100 can't be right, though." "What?" Only Zoe says it out loud, but the other's faces concurr. "Yeah, 'cause" Tur start. "Bucket?" Charles offer, standing up. They swap seats again. Tur has had a minute to think up how to say what he's inuited: "Okay, so we think that he did the will, and the instructions, and started taking the walk, then upgraded his computer's security without updating the instructions accordingly. Am I getting that right?" "Yup", Charles says "... would seem so." "Okay, so this means either", Tur touches his right index finger to the left one. "That he forgot about the instuctions altogether", he stops, looking for effect, noticing little, then continues, onto the next finger. "Or remembered about the instructions, but forgot about the first appendix telling charles to use the old password." "Or", Mer jumps in "couldn't be arsed to update the instructions to change the password, it's a thing, updating your will, isn't it? " "Change the password," Charles presumes the question rhetorical, "or change the instructions to be 'you will need to figure it out without my computer' ?" He is thinking out loud "Mind you, this really changes the information available. We can't know the framework is predicated on us having access to the files." He pauses. "But this was the first appendix." "How does that change your score, Tur? " asks Zoe, "like contradict what you said?" "If he couldn't be bothered to update will, instructions, he didn't care about the game." Says Tur. "Or he'd forgotten about them altogether. Or an important part as regard information availabe to the players." He doesn't get the sense that he is getting through to them. "Like... the suicidal trick I've described was the work of a Billy from three years ago, which any of these three things would confirm as different from the... " He looks at Mer "latest Billy, the one who..." he dodges choosing a verb "..whose body was found at the bottom of the cliff." He pauses, takes a long breath. "Not the same person - we're establishing the fate of the latest Billy, it", looking at Mer again "takes precendence. Right?" The others are mulling this. Zoe finishes her beer. "Is this... is this how you see it?" "There's something wrong with this reasoning, but I can't put my finger on it." says Charles. This is to him an incredibly frustrating feeling. The sense of an error in plain sight yet invisible feels very much the same, he remarks to himself, as that of a conclusion just out of reach. "No, I think I'm with Tur", says Zoe "Dunno if I was with him about the -100, but for sure, what he said was based on Billy three years ago, not Billy now." The silence which follows makes the word resonate. "I mean, Billy at the time of his death." "It's the same Billy though", objects Meredith "there's only one Billy." Charles raises a had which interrupts Zoe an Tur simultaneously starting to say 'yeah but' and says "You're arguing at cross purposes." They all look at him. "Zoe, Tur, your 'different billy' argument is relevant only because, in your view, it is the Billy-at-the-time-of-his-death about whom we need to reach consensus." The both nod. "Mer, your saying there's one billy - is that you saying we should reach consensus about the whole, one Billy?" Mer looks at him. He continues: "Or say, the slice of the whole Billy across the past three years?" "When you say it like that... I guess... " she stops. Senses something else. "Wait, no, actually, maybe I am..." She turns to face Tur "Isn't that what you were saying? The long game? isn't your whole argument looking at three-year chunk of billy, setting it all up, giving us the keys-" "I didn't say-" Tur starts "Whatever", Mer waves a dismissive hand "sure, this one you didn't, you didn't even know. But the will, the instructions. The weekly walks, Tur - you're looking at the duration, the whole three years, surely?" Tur stays silent. Mer is not finished "You're right in one thing, though, we're fucking with ourselves here. Not even with each other-" "You have been fucking with me", interrupts Charles, in his strangled aristocrat tone. It is like a dance between them where it is a matter of respect, of honour for your spouse, of batting down what she is racking up. "Yes, darling", Mer picks up where he left off, blow him a kiss. "But you and I, it's special." She looks back at Tur. "We are making this as hard or easy as we are willing to, right?" Mer looks at Zoe: "We keep going about this wrong. First we confuse finding out what actually happened when reaching consensus." Mer stands up. She's actually getting worked up over this. This is not going how she imagined it. At all. "Then you get so focused on how the coroner-who incidentally is literally finding out what actually happen, we're back to *that*, like the coroner won't do a proper job unless we clue them in, on the basis of what?" She is turning to each of the others in turn, the volume of her voice rising. "..of circumstancial fucking evidence?" She realises she isn't sure of what she just said so adds: "not even circumnstancial, but, what, anecdotal? If that?" She is getting hoarse and her eyes are filling up with tears. "Hearsay? Reputation, speculation? Like what the *fuck* you guys." The f-bomb was emphasised and it takes a moment for it to cease echoing, psycho- if not actually acoustically. "This reflects really bad on you guys... on us", Mer is sitting back down, subdued. "How instead of being an occasion to celebrate Billy, to let him leave us with something of him that is _so_ him, so" a sob "fucking typical Billy, exactly so we could celebrate him his way, you had to go treble-bluff, 'the seeming lack of conspiracy proves a conspiracy, and vice versa', as if invested of a truth-seeking mission". She takes an enormous breath in, then resume, still in a low, bitter staccato: "He's given us this. We may not want it, but there it is. He didn't do that to trap us into argueing between willfull blindness" this, pointing to to Charles, "character assassination", to Zoe, "or conspiratorial thinking" *bang-bang-bang* she hears a voice a lot like Billy's punctuate along her gestures. "Come on *guys*" . She takes a breath, catches each of their gazes in turn. "We're better than this" She clenches her fists and stares at them, on her lap. Tur put his hands on her shoulders Zoe and Charles look at each other, slightly coyed. Mer sips from her beer, grimaces, stands up. "I need water." *woosh* ## (partial) information game. Nothing is said, for a while. Charles stands up from the bucket, to sit on the bench. Silence, then one of them burps. Tur leans in, picks up a beer and points its neck towards Charles: "split it?". Charles nods. Both of them known this does not imply 50-50. Zoe picks up the last beer, then the flashlight from Tur, who's just popped the cap and taken a first sip. "She just needs water", says Charles, to no one in particular. A beat. "You know how he loved his games, about information?" Tur passes him the bottle. He takes a sip. Hands it back. "I've always beaten him at chess. And then, in, what, year 8, he's 'outgrown it'". Single finger air quotes, then his own take on Billy's voice "because everything's visible on the board... all path known in advance, latent in the board." He shakes his head "Year eight, can you believe it?" Zoe taps him on the arm: "was it 'uninteresting', or did he pick this one up later?" "You know", says Charles, "I think this may have been the schtick *for which* he picked it up." He chortles. "Anyway. When all players know everything, boring, right?" "un-intersting", sings-songs Tur on the two notes of 'bo-ring'. "Precisely. Everyone knows everything, uninteresting." He's enumerating on his fingers. "The kind of maths he did had to do with that - although, like... ", he waves a hand "in an extremely abstracted way." "Charles, please", Zoe says, "I'm going to need an extra pair of knickers and some wet wipes if you're going to carry on with the turn-on talk". Need it be specified this is deadpan? This catches Tur by suprises, and he spits out his mouthful of beer in laughter. Charles gives them a patient look, and four seconds, then: "...partial information games. A Billy kind of game. Some information in known to all, some private like in..." he smiles "have you heard of 'schmocker'?" Tur spits another mouthful: "you guys!" "Players know their own two cards, also the ones in the middle, and in a way, the object of the game is to infer other player's two cards based on betting signals." "And body language, voice...", Zoe starts. "Yes", Charles concedes "but also, no. In the flesh poker, sure, but really the game holds just as well with all the information exchanged through betting signals." "I thought we were talking about *schmoker*?", says Tur. The others look at him and he gives them a disarming smile. "I don't mean it in any way or anything", says Zoe "but it's more fun without your wife, Charles." Charles lets this hang for a second or two, then: "I know". A pause. Zoe is pouring a finger of vodka in a tumbler. Starts topping it up with beer. The men exchange looks. "That's not cool to Mer", says Tur, "It's more fun when we're not playing the game. Not her fault, she's just following Billy's instructions". "I don't know that we're not playing the game", says Charles, "we've paused the framework, but if we know Billy, there's a game within the game, or a game around the framework". "You mean he's fucking with us?" ask Zoe. Then she specifies "You mean you've identified another way he's fucking with us?" Charles stands up, seeming rather chipper, suddenly: "Well, this, my dear Zoo, I couldn't tell you, because of course we cannot discuss Billy without all of us whilst we're doing the framework." There's smile in his voice. "That's why I was talking about stuff that Billy liked instead" He walks around the bucket and starts picking up the cricket balls. "Which, I don't know about you, but I think he would have preferred, I think". He starts lining up the balls, a neat rank at the precise edge of the lawn.