“The man in the dark blue suit” Photo-Episode A, pt.1

“I can’t understand why in movies the corpses are discovered in normal working hours, while we are always called at the crack of dawn. They told me to choose crime reportage, they told me that it would be fun… ,“ Daphne nearly soliloquized as she was cozying up on the passenger seat.

“Good morning to you too. Maybe because crime never sleeps,” Jacinth replied with artificial bombast.

“Yes, but I sleep,” she had mumbled with a frown before she took the coffee he offered her, “Good morning,” she added in a slightly more cheerful tone as the car began.

“What a person to growl at. Mister not-only-am-I-on-time-as-always-but-I-had-also-time-to-take-breakfast-for-us can’t empathize with my pain.”

“You mean the most important meal of the day,” he replied with a smile on his face, but without distracting his attention from the road.

The clock on the dashboard showed 6:12, 2/2/2022 and the city around them was still sleeping, immersed in the freezing silence of the first hours of an ordinary Wednesday of February. Empty streets, houses and shops with their windows shuttered, parked cars in a row with murky panes of glass covered with dew and all of these in the yellow light of the still luminous streetlamps.

The truth is that, although he didn’t admit it to people around him, Jacinth had a weird love for these hours, the transitory ones, the “nearly-hours” as he had named them in his mind. Shortly before the break of day and shortly before the sunset, when it is neither day nor night, when the sky is not merely azure, gray or black, but you need a color chart to describe it. He loved the “nearly-hours”, because he had exactly the same feelings for himself, a “nearly-person”. Nearly good at his job, nearly beloved by his friends, his family, his love affairs, nearly close to his goals but never achieving them. A moving catalogue of nearly successes, nearly emotions, nearly occasions and nearly opportunities.

Daphne and he worked together for a little more than a year. Despite how different their personalities were, it was clear from the beginning how much “they were of one mind” (even if he hated this phrase). Someone -the secretary or the company accountant, he was not sure about it, Daphne may remember it better- had told them that they seemed to complement one another. “We don’t complement one another,” she responded, “We don’t lack anything that needs completion. Yet he is one of the few people, whose presence not only do I tolerate, but I also yearn for it.” She has never needed to ask him if he had the same feeling, because she already knew the answer anyway. She was a journalist and he was a cameraman, two of the lucky apprentices that the small and medium-sized local TV channel decided to keep after the completion of their internship. “Not of the lucky ones, of the capable ones,” he was hearing his mother’s voice in his head correcting him.

In any event, they were considered to be “nearly-newcomers”, so they were assigned to do all the stuff that the others-the old ones- would rather avoid doing. A similar incident took place today, at around 5:45 a.m., when the telephone rang and they were told about the dead corpse that was found in the woods just outside the town.

“We need someone to go there so as to have live streaming for the morning show,” Daphne imitated in a sarcastic way Mr. Nick’s voice, “What does he mean someone? As you call me at dawn it is clear that you don’t need sooomeone, you need me!”

“It is very likely that he doesn’t remember your name. For example, he called me Jacob. I prefer it to Jake that he called me the previous week. Could you check the exit?”

By the crack of dawn, they had arrived. They parked at the trailhead of the forest, put on their hats and gloves, bleated about the cold, and started walking. Counting upon the location they had been sent, they should simply follow the trail to the glade. If it wasn’t for their noses that had turned red by the cold, Jyacinth’s attempt to remember if he had fully charged the camera, Daphne’s thoughts on how she should address the newscasters/hosts, and if the incident that had led them there was even slightly pleasant, they would have possibly noticed the unearthly beauty of the scenery that surrounded them. While approaching the small pin on their cell phone’s map, they started to hear voices and notice the distinguishing blue lights of the siren, flashing somewhere between the trunks, a sign indicating that a patrol had managed to get there.

“Who kills a person and leaves him in the middle of a glead?”, said a voice.

“Somebody who wants us to see what he’s done”, Miriella Panagopoulou responded, the one in charge of the homicide department. “Well, well; welcome”, she added the moment Daphne and Jyacinth emerged from the woods, “The time will surely come when I find out what connections Nikos has in the department, having his reporters always come first. Anyways, Kostas, that one wearing that inconspicuous green scarf, has brought a flask of coffee, in case you want to drink some; and most importantly; stay out of our way. We will soon inform you”

Before they managed to react, the coroner’s announcement of the time of death made them glance away, towards the middle of the spot fenced by tape. And they saw him…on the ground, face up; there laid a man. He was wearing a dark-blue suit, had curly brown hair, he appeared to be tall, slightly muscly, and above all he looked like he had come to the bizarre decision to lay down. Nothing about him and even around him resembled a typical crime scene. Neither blood, nor torn-out clothes, a sole body on the frozen ground. They had, indeed, faced again corpses, as it was part of their job, but they always felt a quiver piercing them and their heart sinking. It was something different this time though; it could be the frigid atmosphere, the silence surrounding them, the unnaturally natural presence of the man, it could be all or maybe another thing, which made them feel like time had stopped. Daphne was the first to pull herself together.

“We don’t have much time until the broadcast” she said without being sure whether she addresses the people around her or herself, “We must get ready!”

Slightly annoyed, Miriella, after sighing, beckoned Kostas, the officer who had brought the coffee, to walk up to them. “You will tell them only what they are allowed to know” and stepped away to make a call.

Jyacinth’s attention was still drawn to the man in the dark-blue suit. He managed to retain only a few scattered phrases from the briefing. It seemed that the corpse was discovered around 4 o’clock by a couple, who had taken an after-midnight walk in the forest.

“We now call it ‘walk’ “, said Kostas winking at them and pointing with his head to an evidently shocked young couple, who were testifying a few steps away.

For the moment, there were scarce, next to nothing clues or leastwise, this theory was preferred to be shared with the Press. Daphne struggled to draw forth more information, her efforts though drew a blank.

“No questions to witnesses are allowed… No, we are not aware of his identity… No, it is too early for the cause of death to be specified”

He also indicated where they could stand with the camera – far enough, in an angle which blocked the possibility of them acquiring some footage of the fenced spot – “That’s enough, I have to go back to work” he added and started to walk away.

“Hang on”, Daphne shouted, “Do you want to be in the broadcast?”. She played her last card. She had a theory of two existing categories of people; the ones that pretend to be on the phone the moment they see a reporter, so that they will not be bothered, and the ones who will hang up the phone, even to their boss, solely to have some screen-time. She bet that the officer belonged to the second category, and at the same time knew that she would elicit more clues, more easily while he would be preoccupied with how he looks on screen. She was not wrong…

TO BE CONTINUED…

#PHOTOEPISODES

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