IQ 157 [ON HOLD]

Chapter Three

1) What do you do when you protest?

2) How often do you go away?

3) Why does Mr Lanton, your father, have access to your accounts? (Miss Lanton)

4) Clothes.

"Four questions!" exclaimed Tony slamming his hand on top of the notes page Eula had ripped out and handed him. "Only four! And none of them relate to the victim! 'Clothes'? What does that even mean?"

"That's enough Matthews!" replied Wilson, looking through the mirror in booth four at Troy Gravens. He was toned, with a light tan and short, black hair. "Eula, can you do the interview?"

"WHAT!" roared Tony, standing up and pointing at the door, "Seamus or I normally do them! She's not trained properly! Plus she did the questions!"

"Matthews, if you can't be quiet I suggest you remove yourself before I remove you myself." said Wilson smirking slightly but still trying to keep a stern composure. "Well Eula?"

"Yes, okay." Eula said, "So long as Seamus doesn't mind."

"He doesn't." said Seamus walking through the door at that moment, "Is she doing both, Ezzy?"

Wilson scowled at her nickname, "Yes, I think so. We'll start with Master Gravens here. Seamus will sit in with you just in case it all goes wrong." Eula nodded and left the booth, picking up the file with photos and information in, followed by Seamus.

She walked into the interogation room and sat opposite Gravens, with her back to the mirror, while Seamus took seat by the door.

"Good morning Mr Gravens, I'm terribly sorry to have pulled you away from your job but we have a few questions to ask you about your son James."

The moment she said the name, Gravens' eyes iced over and the deep marine blue paled a shade. "What's he done now? Did he run away again? Is that why I'm here?" He had a noticeable Texan lilt to his voice.

"No," Eula paused, thinking over what he'd just said, "I'm sorry to tell you that your son was found, dead, in the kitchen at St. Hermione's school." She flopped the file onto the desk, opened it and placed two photos in front of her so that Gravens could see them, one of the whole kitchen and the other, a close up of the body. The previously confident and self-important aura surrounding the man completely shattered.

"D.... d.... dead?" tears formed around Gravens' eyes as he took the news. Eula smiled sadly.

"Mr Gravens, I have have two simple questions for you, if at any point you need a moment, my colleague and I will leave you to yourself, but I must ask you these questions."

Seamus watched in awe as Eula convinced Troy Gravens into talking. She really was something else.

"Apart from the obvious, what do you do when you protest?"

Gravens sniffed loudly, "We are paid... by groups, companies..... or other organisations to protest against a non-ethical issue. I have been tied to doors, cars... even a dog once, in order to achieve a compromise... between certain people.

"Okay, and how often do you go away?" Eula asked softly.

"It changes, sometimes two or three times a year for a few months." Gravens' voice was well held despite the tears crawling down his face. "Helena organises flights, hotels and things like that."

"Thank you sir," said Eula, gathering the pictures into the file. "We just need a word with your wife before..."

"Partner." Gravens' corrected quickly.

"Partner," agreed Eula, smiling to herself, "Yes, we must speak with her before you leave."

He nodded meekly and Eula observed as tears rolled off his nose, into his lap.

~

"Miss Lanton!" roared Eula, completely loosing her cool, a few strands of her raven hair falling out of the bun at the back of her head, which Seamus had developed a habit of poking. "I'll ask you one last time! Sit down or I will be forced to arrest you for obstruction and violence towards a police investigator!"

Seamus remained in his seat beside the door, trying desperately to a straight face as the two women continued a stare-off. The interview had not gone well. Miss Helena Lanton was at least half a foot shorter than Eula and had pond-water brown eyes which stood no chance against Eula's steely silver eyes that were currently a swirling mass of dark grey as her anger grew.

The pair had walked into the booth, Tony and Wilson into the recording room, and Helena Lanton had started screaming at them, claiming it was all her husband's fault and that he was to blame for what had happened to their son. Seamus didn't fail to notice that Miss Lanton and Mr Gravens had different titles for their relationship and that Lanton was quick to blame her other half.

When Seamus pulled himself out of his thoughts he was astounded to see both women now sat at the table, Lanton looking quite dejected, whilst Eula held a controlled look of triumph.

"Now, I have a basic understanding of your protesting, but exactly do you do?" asked Eula coldly.

"We fight against ethical issues, or non-ethical depending on the party hiring us." mumbled Miss Lanton.

"Okay, and how often do you protest?"

"When we're needed."

"Alright, and one last question, why does your father, Jeremy Lanton, have access to your accounts?"

Helena Lanton looked extremely scared and then confused. "Well, he doesn't. Why would you ask it like that?"

"Thank you Miss Lanton, that's all I needed to know." Eula gathered her things and left the room.

Tony had watched both interviews with a mixture of jealousy and admiration, the latter only made his annoyance stronger.

~

Seamus had written a few notes on the board and Eula was spinning around on her office chair, whooping as she went, Tony scowled at her from his own desk as she did so.

"Well that was one of the most badass things I've seen in an interview recently!" laughed Wilson, striding into the office after seeing the Lanton/Gravens couple into a London taxi. "Much more interesting, the boys keep things calm whereas you, well, I don't know what you do."

"She gets answers?" suggested Seamus.

"She gets lucky?" added Tony, as Eula popped her tongue out at him and squeezed her eyes shut.

"Anyway," said Wilson, clapping her hands together, "what did you want to show me, Matthews?"

Tony pulled a news article onto his computer screen. He struggled for a bit trying to get it onto the projector screen. He gave up and Eula jumped off her chair, staggered as the dizziness hit her and skipped to his desk. She lent around him, her hands flying over the keyboard and mouse and within seconds the article was on the screen.

It took Tony a few moments to open his eyes and register what she had done. He couldn't get the smell of Eula's vanilla perfume out of his nose. He shook his head and cleared his throat. The article on the screen showed a picture of 'Principle Lanton' outside St. Hermione's. It was titled "St. Hermione's secret genius". The article described the glass trophy that Mr Lanton was holding. Someone in, or associated to, the school had won it but it was being kept very hush hush. No one outside the school knew who won it or what it was really about. It was a fairly uninteresting article, if Seamus had to be honest.

Tony pulled up the other article beside the first, about a small burglary at St. Hermione's. At four o'clock in the morning, someone stole into the science labs and took three iMacs. Again, sort of irrelevant, Seamus thought.

Eula however was reading the first article with a deep look of concentration.

"Care to share your thoughts, Eula?" asked Wilson, who had watched Eula's face as she read the article several times, instead of reading them herself.

"What if James Lanton's killer-" she paused, twiddling her thumbs and engaging in an intense staring contest with the stapler on her desk. "-what if the killer, won that award. James Lanton may have known and written it before he died to give us a clue as to who killed him? What if his killer's IQ is 157?"