Secret Satan is a seasonal murder mystery in 24 episodes. When one of his work colleagues is murdered with a Secret Santa present the office Christmas party, Linus Sweet decides to try and find out whodunnit. At first it seems like the answer lies in their office's version of Secret Santa, which they call Secret Satan. But as Linus investigates, he begins to unwrap more mysteries. All may not be as it seems. In fact, this might not even be just a murder mystery, either.
“Sweet!” Balls was standing in the door to his office hissing at me melodramatically, as if that way no one else would notice. This did not work. In fact it made him even more noticeable than usual, “Sweet!”
“Balls wants a sweetie,” said Lem under his breath.
“Richard?” I said, “How can I help you?”
“Get in here,” he said, waving me into his office.
He closed the door behind me and leaned in, his eyes wild.
“I’ve had another card, from you know who!”
“Have you?” I said, trying to sound surprised, which would have been easier if it hadn’t been me who had sent it, with Soo and Edie’s help.
“I’d like to get your take,” he said, and he went behind his desk, turning his monitor round to face me.
There was a cheery snowman, dressed in a scarf of brand secondary palette colours, there were the snowflakes made out of the logo reflected around different vertices, there was the ‘A MaryMeadeMarple Christmas to you all!’ header graphic, and then, underneath:
“Happy Christmas - although probably not for me if you’ve got this, because it means I haven’t been there to stop it going out and that means that I’ve been got rid off. Or they’ve finally come to their senses and put me away. Haha.
“And it probably means you still don’t know how they’ve done it. If it helps, I can tell you this. I’m pretty sure someone is dealing out of the office. There are drugs right here in the building. Do something about it. Get a move on. Tony.”
“Well, that certainly does sound like him, doesn’t it?” I said, which it did. Edie was pretty good at her job, it turned out.
“He signed it ‘Tony’,” said Balls, pointing, “That’s his name.”
“Yes, Richard, yes it is.”
“Talk to me,” said Balls, “Strategise, what do we do?”
“Tony thought there were drugs in the office,” I said, trying to sound as if I was thinking on my feet, “This is good.”
“No, it’s bad,” said Richard, “Drugs are bad, Sweet.”
“Yes, obviously it’s bad in the larger scheme of things,” I said, “But it’s good for us right now. Radu’s gone and we had no real evidence against him, nothing but our suspicions, but if we could find actual drugs hidden in the office, we’d have actual, well, drugs in the office. Evidence.”
“A search!” said Balls, starting for the door, “We’ll get everyone to empty their desks.”
“And also let whoever is responsible know that we are onto them and give them a chance to dispose of whatever they have,” I said, “No, we have to do it in secret, wait til everyone’s gone home.”
“Yes, good, long term planning,” said Balls, “I like it. We wait.”
And wait we did. Balls spent the day sitting right by the glass wall of his office, peering out between the slats of the venetian blind at us all, a manic glint in his eye and I spent the day trying very hard not to laugh at him. Every so often Lem would send a picture to his office printer and he would jump in shock, the blinds rattling to shouts of “Ed Balls! Why is Ed Balls printing!” and “Who is Richard Nixon? Why is he here!”
Just as they had all been uncharacteristically early for Radu, the team now stayed unprecedentedly late for Balls. Every so often someone would get up and leave the room and the nose would reappear between the slats only to disappear with an audible snort when they came back with yet more tea.
Finally though, the rest of the building was already mostly empty and Allie got up, picking up her bag and giving me a conspiratorial wink and I was alone in the office. Balls’ office door jerked open.
“Are they all gone?”
“All gone for now,” I said, “Listen, you’re the senior one here, you’ve got the authority. I’ll keep watch for them coming back while you search, ok?”
“Right, yes, let’s do this!” he actually pumped his fist.
I moved to the end of the desks, where I could see down to the lifts as well as back towards the kitchen. I was looking at neither of these things, of course, I was watching Balls rifling through Radu’s drawers. He pulled out a box of fancy teas from Selfridges.
“Sweet!” he held it up to me.
“We need to put things somewhere safe,” I said, “In your office - put it in your office.”
He disappeared for a moment and then came back out to start unsorting all the papers in Soo’s in-tray.
All the lights in our building are motion controlled and with a sudden ‘clunk’ the lights just beyond our office went out. Balls stood up and stared at them.
“Sweet?”
“It’s just the motion controlled lights,” I said, “They’re turning off now everyone’s gone.”
Then the lights in the hallway in the other direction went out, then the ones in the kitchen, the ones over the big table for informal meetings, then the huddle spaces and the coat racks and the stationary cupboard: clunk, clunk, clunk, the distance disappearing into shadow. Until all that was left was Richard Balls and I, standing isolated in light, surrounded by the piles of books and knick-knacks that Balls was flinging to floor from Ned’s desk.
“Sweet!” He had a pencil case.
“In your office,” I said, “Anything suspicious.”
He scurried away again and hustled back to start sorting through Lem’s baffling collection of DVDs. Why does he, why does anyone, actually own a DVD of ‘Santa Claus the Movie’?
Clunk. Balls’ head snapped up. There in the distance, down by the lifts, a figure, dressed all in black: black sweatpants, black hoodie. Balls stiffened. Clunk in the other direction: a figure in the kitchen, another man in black. Clunk by the filing cabinets and standing there, perfectly still, another figure all in black, hood pulled down over the face, hideously sinister in the banal office surroundings.
“Sweet! Sweet! It’s… him.”
Then, all at once, at some unheard signal they all moved, lurching towards us and Balls moved too, like someone had just told him there were free drinks for staff in the lobby. He didn’t say anything, he just took to his heels, sprinting for the backstairs. I have to say, I was quite impressed, he had a surprising turn of speed. I could barely keep up with him.
We made it through the doors and echoed down the stairs, and then out through a door onto the floor below.
“Find security, Sweet!” said Balls, “They must be around!”
But there was another figure in black, racing towards us down a corridor, and Balls took off again, racing between rows of desks, little flurries of post-it notes peeling away from screens in his wake, making a havoc of countless workflows.
Finally to the lifts, jumping in one and jabbing at the ground floor button.
“He’s flipped,” said Balls, panting, “Gone rogue. Come for me. It isn’t safe here. We’ve got to get out.”
He didn’t even need the final figure in black waiting for us on the ground floor as an inducement. The moment the lift doors opened, Balls sprinted for the exit. I stood in the lift and watched him swearing at the security gates as he fumbled with his pass in his panic and then finally he was through and out and he was gone, out into the rainy, glittering night time streets beyond.
For my part, I took my time. After all, everyone else was going to have to change out of their Radu costumes and if I got to the pub before them, I’d have to buy all the drinks.