Week 5: Clues

As the waitress poured the last of the sparkling water at the other side of the table, Peter surveyed the guests one last time. There was a lot of silver hair and more women than he had expected. And Americans.

They had a private room in a semi-swanky restaurant and they could hear clinks of celebration and happiness from the other side of the wall.

Raymond Zilli spoke without warning. Everyone listened.

“You all know why we’re here. And let me say it’s an honour for me to be around this table with you. I just wish it was under different circumstances.”

The table muttered agreements.

A young American man, who Peter didn’t recognise, piped up.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you Mr Zilli. I just wanted to say that.”

Zilli looked embarrassed, for himself and the youngster, and didn’t respond. He just looked around the table, half raising his glass of mineral water and said,

“Right, let’s get to work.”

They all shifted in their seats.

“Who’s first?”

Peter realised nobody had made Zilli leader. He just assumed he was. Everyone else did too.

Right on cue, the young American took the floor.

“We’ve been using a lot of cell phones. Texts, missed calls, that kind of thing.”

“How obvious” from under the breath of an accented woman at the far end of the table.

“Well at least we’re fucking trying. Who the fuck are you anyway?”

“Agnes, Agnes Neilson”

Peter couldn’t help smiling. The young American must have felt like a total idiot. He certainly looked like one.

He took it well though, to his credit.

“Miss Neilson, hello, I’m a big fan, I didn’t know you were coming.”

She nodded, blushing.

The young American sat back down and the meeting was back to square one.

Zilli resumed his unofficial role of chair.

“You were talking about cell phones, Zach”

That was Zach Jones? Fuck he was a younger than he thought. He must have started out when he was a teenager. Peter’s standing in this group (and his own head) was diminishing by the second.

Before Zach could respond Benny McCabe jumped in. Everyone knew Benny but nobody thought he would show. His presence added an old world gravitas to proceedings but his opinions probably wouldn’t add much.

“He was saying they’ve been using phones a lot. Text messages, missed calls, deleted numbers. I’ve seen them. Very clever but not original. We were doing phones and communication plots on Matlock 20 years ago. I came here today to let you in on a secret that I can’t believe you haven’t figured out on your own.”

Well this was certainly unexpected.

“Original clues are gone. Dead in the damn water. Used up on Matlock and Murder She Wrote. What you see on CSI Middle-of-the-Road is simply regurgitated. Vomit”

The room was stunned into silence. This was supposed to be a sharing of ideas type meeting.

“The crime series as a concept is dead ladies and gentlemen. I suggest you learn to write sci-fi”

And with that the starters began to arrive.