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.
Do you know what a glitter bomb is?
It’s a practical joke whereby a letter or a parcel is packed with glitter so that it explodes out when opened, covering everything, including the person opening it. It’s often used a trap for thieves and people opening and examining boxes and envelopes that don’t belong to them, because it’s essentially harmless but still surprising and, more to the point, intensely irritating.
Glitter is a sparkly, magical thing until you have tried to get it out of carpet. Or hair.
There are various ways to make a glitter bomb. Real nerds often use actual small explosives or pneumatic systems to launch the glitter, but that’s possibly over engineered. One common way is to fill a balloon with glitter and then blow it up enough that it will fit in a box. Then you push a nail into one side of the box, taping the balloon to the other side, so it’s safely not touching the nail. Then you use considerably stronger tape to attach the balloon to the flap of the box that’s directly above the nail. That way, when the flap is pulled open, it will pull the balloon with it, away from it’s fixing, forcing it against the nail. The nail pierces the balloon, the balloon goes pop. Glitter everywhere.
There’s a much simpler way to make one, though, one you can fit into a card, actually. You put the glitter in a little tissue paper package then you wrap a paper hinge around it, sticking it to either side of the tissue envelope. Then you stick the hinge in a - I don’t know, Christmas card or inside the opening flaps of a box of fancy tea from Selfridges - sticking one end of the hinge to one side of the card and then closing the card to stick the other end to the other side.
It’s important to just glue the ends of the hinge to the card, because that means that when someone opens the card, the hinge will snap up, pulled taut, pulling the tissue paper apart and springing a great cloud of glitter everywhere.
That was the design Lem used, for instance.
Although we didn’t use glitter in it.
I had been betting that Balls would be so unsettled by the hordes of Radu’s chasing him around the building the previous night, that he would not return until it was actually light out and there were plenty of security actually on duty.
Which there were, largely because we had called them.
After all, we had all arrived early that morning - so early that a rational observer might actually be suspicious, but unfortunately none of those worked for Mary Meade Marple -to discover that, during the night, someone had ransacked our work stations and thrown our belongings all over the place. We even suspected that some things had been - say it in a shocked voice - stolen.
I mean, surely only someone with a security pass could have done it, right? Security would surely have known if someone had broken in; alarms would have sounded. It had to be - even more shocked, if such a thing were possible - an inside job.
Perhaps we ought to alert HR as well, don’t you think? Since only our desks had been targeted, it felt like it was probably someone on the team or who knew it. In fact we might all have an idea who.
Yes, the freelancer who worked here was recently let go and yes, he was a bit erratic, that’s true, but that’s not who we were talking about. Ah, here’s HR, they could tell we’ve already actually made complaints.
It’s our boss, you see, Richard Balls. Yes, that man did just call him ‘Dick’. That’s how high emotions are running right now, we’re all very anxious and upset, aren’t we, Lem?
He’s been behaving really weirdly, our boss, that is: strange mood swings, weird suspicions. We’ve been trying to humour him - Linus, particularly - but he’s been unsettling us all. Frightening, actually. Really paranoid stuff, accusing us all of terrible things. Did someone mention drug induced psychosis? I mean, I don't know anything about that, but he’s been very jittery, talkative, emotional. Using the toilets a lot.
Well, look, no one wants to cast aspersions. It’s a very fraught time for us all, you know, what with… yes, that. Awful business, just awful and everyone deals with these things in their own way, but that’s why - it is a difficult time, for everyone, and this doesn't make it any better.
Honestly, if you were to ask us honestly, we would say that we would want him to get help, wouldn’t we? Help. He needs… wait: is that him?
“Mr Balls, can we have a word, please?”
“What’s up? What’s up? The mess?” Richard Balls looked like he’d slept in his clothes. His shave was patchy and there was a little bit of toothpaste encrusted in the corner of his mouth. “We’ll get cleaned away, squared away. Got to have neat workstations, I tell them, it’s a sign of respect. Tidy desk, tidy mind.”
“There’s been an intrusion into personal property of your team, Mr Balls,” said the woman from HR, “Possibly even some property…” she lowered her voice, “...misappropriated.”
I admired the way that even in such trying circumstances she managed not to use any actual plain language. I wouldn’t have wanted to make a direct accusation to Balls in his state, either.
“Well, that’s very, that’s very serious,” said Balls, wild eyed, “That’s a serious accusation that we shall have to take seriously.”
“I wonder if we could take a look in your office, Mr Balls,” said Guiseppe from security, “We need to check every area that might be affected.”
“Yes, yes, of course,” said Balls, “Yes, that makes sense, just let me, just let me check some things.”
And he abruptly pushed past them and dashed into his office, slamming the door behind him.
I’m mostly sorry that we never got to see the glitter bomb in action. Security and HR blocked his door, debating who exactly had the authority to enter the office of a manager of Balls’ rank, so all we heard was the noise. It was a wonderful noise, though, a guttural howl, a noise of senseless despair but was an edge of relief to it. A man who had finally found his paranoia founded, his panic justified, only to realise what that truly meant to him.
It worked, at any rate, Lem’s glitter bomb worked. At that wordless shout from inside, Giuseppe wrenched the door open and we saw how splendidly it had worked, Richard Balls standing there, his face pancaked with white powder, a mist of it floating about him, the sour taste of cocaine on the air; his eyes and mouth wide, shocked, black, empty holes in the centre of it all.
I’m not sure he was even capable in that moment of trying to explain what was going on, and when security took him by the elbows and walked him from the room he went meekly with them.
The rest of us were told to take the rest of the day off, to not come back, in fact, until after Christmas. HR evidently thought we all needed the break, not knowing that we had all just had the best Christmas present we could have wished for.