Terry Newman - Detective Strongoak and the Case of the Dead Elf

The girl serving, dressed in a fetching white apron, smiled at me and shook her head. ‘Not a local,’ she explained.

‘As long as he’s left plenty of that wonderful-smelling breakbread!’

She assured me there was plenty and I stocked up for the duration. ‘You can’t be over-provided for’, has become my motto. I paid up and, resisting the urge to nibble, got back into my wagon and carried on to the north coast.

The sun was well risen over the hills before I heard the sound of breaking surf. I drove on down a well-maintained side road and soon got my first view of the sea. This was not the South Side with its oil refineries and petrochemical works that make the Bay area unfit for bathing; this was the real thing.

Large rollers tumbled in from the Big Sea onto a shoreline that mixed large sandy beaches and small hidden coves in the most tasteful manner. Wooded slopes ran down to the shoreline from the summer homes of the councillors and other High Folk. No tent sites or holiday camps here or any of those nasty work-related activities.

Well, at least it keeps the sea clean.

I followed the directions that Liza Springwater had given to me, found the beach road and drove down it carefully, mindful of the Dragonette’s springs. I spotted some buildings with a flagpole and pulled up nearby. It was busy on the strand, even at this early hour. Plenty of boards and riders were out taking advantage of the morning swell – both elves and men, and their ladies.

I carried on driving to a less-crowded part of the beach, where one lone surfer, garbed in a canary-yellow wetsuit with a matching surf cap, was slowly paddling out past the breakwater. I parked and walked across the sand dunes. At this moment I did not want an audience; even in my lightweight linen attire I felt conspicuously overdressed.

I sat on some driftwood and admired the surfer’s dexterity. A slim figure, obviously elf, with that deceptively tough, almost impossibly willowy frame that gives them a grace many other folk envy. I’m no elf expert but from the height, around the size of a tall man, I’d guess the surfer was a Higher Elf: the Lords and Ladies of the Hidden Lands. The Lower Elves tend to fetch up a smidgen shorter, are more compact, and have much more humble origins. I’ve heard it said that somewhere there are Middle Elves, but they’re far too embarrassed about the name and don’t get out much.

The elf was dancing the full length of the board, poised between the wind and water. Despite myself, I couldn’t help but be impressed. If only the whole exercise wasn’t so, well, wet.

Suddenly the surfer was knocked off the board and didn’t appear to get up. I ran across the wet sand to the water’s edge, though I wasn’t sure what help I could offer. Fortunately I was saved any difficult decision. A yellow surf-capped head bobbed up close to the shore, further down the beach, and swam the last few strokes in to retrieve the errant board. I guess those light elfin bones make drowning almost an impossibility.

‘You all right?’ I hollered across the roar of the surf. I got a nod as the wetsuited figure picked up the board and headed in my direction.

‘Mind if I have a word, son?’

‘I can think of a few, Master Dwarf,’ replied the young elfess, taking off her surf-cap and letting her long blonde hair flow before I had a chance to correct my error.

‘Sorry, lady – my pardon. It’s a bit difficult to make such distinctions with all the surf gear on.’

This got me a stony glance from those fierce sky-blue elfin eyes. Clearly I hadn’t really clocked the way she filled the suit either. I went on anyway.

‘I was just hoping that you could help me with an enquiry concerning Surf Elves.’

The sky-blue eyes turned stormy and the knuckles of the hand holding the board turned white. It appeared I had compounded my error. This was not going well.

‘If you are another quill-stiff from the press, then the words you are looking for have existed in the common tongue since the earliest ages.’

I took a deep ozone-filled breath and sighed. ‘Look, lady, I’m no scribe, just a dwarf detective with a job to do, and a bruise on his head bigger than a troll’s wart. Now, I have said my apologies, and if you accept them gracefully, I have fresh breakbread and a flask of coffee in the wagon. So if you have not yet broken your fast, I would be delighted if you could join me.’

It was quite a speech for that time of the day, and the young elfess looked at me closely before her face broke into a grin. ‘All right, Master Dwarf Detective, glad to see you are not too big to admit your shortcomings.’

I let her have that one, it seemed only fair, and matched her grin. Together we walked back up the beach to where my Dragonette was perched like some strange mutated dune insect. I laid out a rug and she threw herself down on it.

‘So, apology accepted, Master Detective. I admit these wetsuits are not exactly flattering to the figure.’ She unzipped the front of her suit, and released the more than adequate form constrained within. I was glad she had on another bathing top underneath. Axes and blood, of course I wasn’t really.

‘I am rather hungry,’ she continued, shaking loose her hair and sending my blood singing. ‘So I will join you and your provisions. However, I am not sure whether I can be of any assistance. Contrary to appearances, I am not a subscriber to the Surf Elf philosophy.’

I mused over that one while I fetched the provisions from the wagon’s trunk. We set up breakfast on her board and for a while just munched on the light, fluffy rolls and sipped coffee, whilst we took in the ocean. I had to admit it was some sight. Sky and sea of a blue they just cannot quite replicate in house-paint colours, sand like dusted gold and gulls soaring like spirits freed from the Necromancer’s Pits, crying out thanks for their liberation … or, more precisely, just their desire for some breakfast.

‘Good breakbread,’ I said finally.

‘Yes, from Delores , if I’m not mistaken. Best breakbread on the Peninsula.’

‘Know the region well, do you?’

She wasn’t fooled by my mock innocence. ‘Back to work already, Master Detective?’ she said, her eyes still fixed on the ocean. ‘Don’t I even get a chance to finish breakfast?’

I looked her over surreptitiously. My work did not lead me to mix with elf folk much. My clientele was mainly at the opposite end of the social spectrum. One thing I had noticed, though, was how different, and yet how very much the same they were – especially the ladies. Some had curves that would make a tree blush, but others, well, here was this tall, fair, blue-eyed lass with pipe-cleaner arms, every bit as elf-like as some twilight enchantress. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve not got a fey fixation like so many of my kin, but neither am I made of stone. I’ve read all about those tricky scents they give off, but we’re all mortal. Or, rather, only some of us are, I reminded myself.

‘Right, sorry, your ladyship.’ I knocked the ball back into her half. ‘Let’s just finish breakfast, then I’ll go drown myself. It should be easy. We dwarfs swim almost as well as some elves surf.’

‘That last wave was just bad fortune,’ she cried, defensively. ‘If I had not been distracted by the sight of an overdressed dwarf, in a cheap linen suit, walking down the sands, I would never have lost my balance.’

‘Now that I object to,’ I said, butting in. ‘This suit is by Gaspar Halftoken, and was hand-cut by at least a dozen gnomes!’

She gave me the full-beam elf smile for the first time, and I felt something go fluttery inside. ‘Gaspar Halftoken! In that case, Master Dwarf, I am very sorry. It is a fine suit.’

‘And the name is Nicely,’ I said, handing her a card, ‘Nicely Strongoak.’ She took the card and examined it closely. Satisfied, she replied: