Seven Deadly Prepositions

Recently we ran a Missing Parsons bounty hunt on Facebook. The winner was Jane Arthy, with Scott Black coming a close second. Jane’s prize was a personalised blog using her name and five words of her choosing. The words she chose were Equidistant, Giggles, Fire, Shit and It.

We’ve written a short story with them in the style of a badly written cop thriller, set in the beautiful Lake District where Jane grew up. (Normal Missing Parsons bloggage about America, roads, music, roads and America will resume next time.)

Seven Deadly Prepositions

June 2009, Cumbria, England

Devastating fires had been raging across the North West for weeks. The first razed Dove Cottage in Grasmere, the home of William Wordsworth from 1799 and now a museum and art gallery dedicated to England’s finest poet. The fire had started in the early hours of the morning in Wordsworth’s study, quickly spreading to the next-door dining room – once host to Thomas De Quincey and Samuel Coleridge – and with it ripping through the heart of the cosy community which had treasured this corner of English literary heritage for two hundred years. The cause of the blaze was a mystery. So were the letters O, U and T scorched ten feet high into a corn field behind the cottage.

When the second fire hit the headlines three weeks later, residents and lovers of the Lake District could scarcely comprehend that a second landmark of such immeasurable literary significance had been snuffed out in precisely the same way. Brantwood House in Coniston, home of renowned Victorian poet John Ruskin, had succumbed to a blaze which for five hours during the night of June 29th had turned the surface of neighbouring Coniston Water a sinister shade of orange. The following day, a horse in one of the nearby stables – thankfully saved from oblivion by the quick response of Keswick Fire Brigade – was found with the letters O and F branded onto its flanks.

So when another incident destroyed the home of world famous children’s author Beatrix Potter, and the word ABOUT was found carved into its blackened remains, Ambleside Police had no difficulty in connecting the crimes. Detective Simon Sweeney, newly promoted to Chief Inspector after ten years protecting his Cumbria citizens, could find only one interpretation. This was a war on words.

March 1984, Ambleside, Cumbria

THWACK!
The ruler recoiled with a twang, leaving a noticeable red mark on the back of five year-old Jane Arthy’s hand.
‘If I hear you finish a sentence with a preposition one more time young lady, you’ll get more than a ruler across the back of the hand! Wordsworth never left sentences dangling like that and I’ll thank you not to either.’
Jane tried to hold in the tears. This wasn’t the first time a grammatical slip-up had earned her a thrashing from her mother. Often, as today, it would happen just before bed. As she curled up under the covers and tried to sleep, the back of her hands would throb for hours into the night. Simon Sweeney didn’t get a ruler across the back of his hand … and he had a lisp. Jane hated Simon Sweeney.
‘But mummy, the other children at school don’t get punished for finishing sentences with a preposition. At least none that I can think of.’
THWACK!
‘You’re doing it on purpose! And besides, none of the other children at school are the daughter of the English teacher! I will not tolerate this kind of behaviour from any child of mine! Now just you sit and think about what you’ve done while I go downstairs and fetch us a book to read before bed.’

She wasn’t doing it on purpose, really she wasn’t. In fact poor Jane wasn’t even sure what a preposition was. She knew that prepositions were usually short words, but that not all short words were prepositions. It was terribly confusing. ‘It’, her mother had told her, was a pronoun, not a preposition, so to end a sentence with ‘it’ was perfectly acceptable. Ending a sentence with ‘of’, she had just learned, was not.

Mrs Arthy returned clutching a book entitled ‘Bush Fires in the Australian Outback: A History’, and sat down on the bed beside her. They had read the book together before. Jane never understood why, when her friends heard tales of princesses and castles and unicorns, she was forced to endure her mother’s fascination for all things Antipodean.
‘But mummy, what did you bring a book to read out of about Down Under up for?’
Silence, then a pulsing of the veins in Mrs Arthy’s neck. She tried to form a response to the question, but was too consumed with rage to take in what she had heard.
‘Say that again.’
‘Mummy?’
‘Say. That. Again.’
Jane winced. She knew she had said something wrong, but she wasn’t sure what. She opened her mouth to speak. ‘I said, what did you bring a book to read out of … about … Down … Under … up … for?’
Mrs Arthy had never heard so disgraceful a sentence in all her life. Dangling prepositions were the most heinous of grammatical crimes and this sentence had not one, but SEVEN prepositions dangling from the end of it – a sentence uttered by her own progeny.

The ruler rained down on the back of Jane’s little hands for what seemed like hours, each lashing delivered with a screamed preposition from her grammar-obsessed mother.

Out … THWACK!
Of … THWACK!
About … THWACK!
Down … THWACK!
Under … THWACK!
Up … THWACK!
For … THWACK!

This appalling incident was later pinpointed by psychological profilers as the precise moment when a five year-old’s confusion turned into an obsession with fire, prepositions and English poets, entwining them in a way that years later would terrorise lives and literature. For it was then that Jane Arthy transformed herself from a happy, innocent little girl into … the Arthonist.

August 2009, Cumbria, England

Detective Sweeney idly flipped through the case file for what seemed like the hundredth time that day. He had three barbecued historic buildings on his hands, three apparently meaningless words scribbled on scraps of paper all over his desk, and a headache. He was no nearer to finding the perpetrator.
‘Get me a map, Black,’ he demanded.
Detective Sergeant Scott Black had been Sweeney’s friend, confidant and drinking partner for all of their ten years together in the force. They had been through everything; the theft of the tombola float from Rydal village fete, the lead flashing that went missing from Saint Mary’s Church in Bowness. But their friendship had been tested to the limit when Scott was passed over for promotion and saw Simon made Chief Inspector ahead of him.
‘You know where they are. Get it yourself,’ said Black. ‘Inspector.’
‘It’s Chief Inthpector Thweeney to you Black. And leth of your lip. Jutht get me a fucking map.’
This was all he needed. A direct challenge to his authority – from his best friend and closest colleague – on top of the affront to his reputation from whoever was starting all these fires. This case was the toughest he had faced yet. Coming so soon after promotion, he had a lot riding on it.
‘Okay, okay,’ said Black, winking at the other officers as he rifled through the filing cabinet, ‘don’t get your knickers in a twitht.’

Sweeney’s lisp had been the bane of his career. In the testosterone-fuelled environment of Ambleside Police Constabulary he was rarely cut any slack, and promotion to Chief Inspector hadn’t helped one bit. Insubordination was one thing, but the relentless teasing about his speech impediment made his blood boil. It had started with bullying at school – the cruellest teasing of all – and hadn’t let up since.
‘Detective Thargeant BLACK!’ he exploded.
‘Please, call me Thcott,’ winked Black, playing to his colleagues once more.
‘I will not tolerate inthubordination in my rankth! Now give me that map!’
Sweeney laid the Ordnance Survey map out on the table and placed coloured Post-It notes, each bearing a single word – OUT, OF and ABOUT – over Grasmere, Coniston and Hawkshead respectively. As he did so, he repeated the names to himself. ‘Grathmere – William Wordthworth, Conithton – John Ruthkin, Hawkthhead – Beatrickth Potter …’

Then it hit him.
‘Good lord, Black,’ he whispered, ‘look at that …’
Black leaned in, looked at the map and scratched his head.
‘Look at what?’
‘The crime thenes, they’re all equidithdant from here!’
‘Equi-what?’
‘Equidithtant, Black! The THAME DITHTANTH from here!’
‘Aaah, equidistant …’
‘That’th what I thaid! The perpetrator is right under our noses … in Amblethide!’
Sweeney took a pencil and a piece of string. Pushing a drawing pin through the map at Ambleside, he tied one end of the string around the pin and the other around the pencil. Starting in Grasmere, the scene of the first fire at Dove Cottage, he connected first Coniston and then Hawkshead. They formed a perfect semicircle around Ambleside.

Sweeney took a deep breath. Continuing the line created by the makeshift compass, he drew the pencil on through Newby Bridge, Crosthwaite and then Brigsteer. Then the line passed though Kendal.
‘Oh. My. God.’
‘What?’ said Black, scanning the map for what Sweeney had seen, ‘what?!’
‘Kendal.’
‘What about it?’
‘John Cunliffe lived there!’
‘Who?’
‘John Cunliffe …the creator of Pothtman Pat!’
‘Postman Pat? Shit it. Let’s go!’

When they arrived at Kendal Post Office they were shocked by what they saw. An inferno raged from its thatched roof and the windows were blackened and blown out by the heat. Greetings cards and stationary were strewn all over the pavement. Hearing maniacal giggles from behind a Royal Mail van parked outside, they approached slowly. On the other side crouched Jane, laughing maniacally and holding a can of yellow spray paint. The word DOWN was graffitied across the side of the van. She looked up.
‘Well, well … if it isn’t Simon Sweeney.’
‘Jane? Jane … Arthy? Is that you?’
‘My name isn’t Jane any more Simon. I am … the Arthonist!’
‘Thorry?’
‘This is the moment you’ve been waiting for. You’ve found me. I am the Arthonist!’
‘Are you taking the pith out of me?’
‘I’ve been taking the piss out of you for years, Thimon. We all have.’
Sweeney’s blood started to boil. This was too much. He reached for his truncheon.
‘Thith is where it all ends, Jane. It’th been going on for too long. Far too long.’
Looking down at the charred detritus at her feet, Jane reached for the nearest thing she could find: a ruler. This was too perfect.
‘But I haven’t finished yet Simon. I have three more prepositions to go.’
She drew back the ruler.