Murderers are everywhere. Oh, yes. Everywhere. What’s more, it’s a fact. They are guilty of many crimes, many more than is broadcasted on television. Why? Because they are stealthy. They take revenge, hide the evidence, and move on. This way, they ensure that no one can find the evidence to prove that they did what they did. These murderers hide in plain sight, attacking when they are least expected to.
Are you scared now? You should be because it is formidably sinister. But you shouldn’t go to bed tonight petrified of the fact that you may be living next to a villain. As it happens, there is a group of people who are just as stealthy and those pesky murderers. They risk their live again and again to save ours’, but they don’t take the credit of it all. It’s just too daunting to imagine a 7-year-old child wanting to join the ESCOD.
The ESCOD. It sounds weird, but when you realise what they do for us, you won’t be laughing. It stands for The Extremely Confidential Organisation of Detectives. A society fit for only the sharpest, most trusted group of detectives, who track down every last murderer to make sure that they never do what they did once before. It is, hands down, the most secretive society on the planet, and this is where all, and I mean all the problems, started.
Ms Sweden Lapis, former senior detective of The Extremely Confidential Organisation of Detectives, lived in a monumental house on the edge of a cliff. Her toffee brown hair went perfectly well with her hazel eyes, and with that bathrobe of hers, no one, not even her closest clients, could recognise her as the former senior detective for the ESCOD. She retired 4 years ago, due to lack of trust and the immense pressure of growing hate forming like mouldy fungus on rotting vegetables. In the time of retirement, Ms Lapis enjoyed life to its full extent without rumours and suspicion. In fact, she enjoyed it so much, she forgot about the ESCOD. So when Ms Lapis received a letter of plea from her late office requesting her to come out of retirement and attend a meeting to discuss some new cases, she was aghast. Mainly from the fact that they had managed to find out where she lived, but also because they had the nerve to ask. Did she still resent the ESCOD? A little. Okay, a lot. Was she going to attend the meeting. Of course.
Dressed in her most formal black dress, she practised her ‘serious look’, masking her nervousness with a haughty look worthy of Draco Malfoy. Just as she steadied her hand to turn the doorknob, a voice came from behind her. “Hey, Miss. Right over here!” Ms Lapis turned her head and screamed her head off. In her house, her living room, a gaunt looking man stood before her, his malicious grin suggesting that he was thinking of something evil. “I promise you one thousand dollars if you don’t attend that meeting there,” Ms Lapis shook her head. “I must-how – that – it- that was my personal letter! Besides I must, so if you don’t mind, get out of my property immediately.” But the man smiled even more maliciously. “Oh, we haven’t even introduced ourselves! My name is Silas, and I am telling you that if you go to that meeting, you will regret it. I can help you get on the right side!” Excitement rose in his voice.
It took Miss Lapis only a second for her instincts to kick in and to realise that a criminal had broken into her house. “No! I know who you are. You’re on the wrong side, and that kind of person has no authority over me!” Silas’s grin vanished, replaced first with a look of surprise, then a sneer of pure hate. “Very well, then. So be it. Drop the chains!” he called to nobody in particular, and just like that, the ESCOD’s former senior detective was bound.
Meanwhile, far away from the reach of Silas, the city of Sydney had become a bustling metropolis. Many people were stalking off to work, most of them in their pyjama pants (which had become the latest trend, though it was not a very good fashion choice). Conversations mingled with the sound of drills from the newest construction site, drowned out by noisy screech of an incoming train. In the midst of the chaotic morning, nobody would have seen two people, walking side by side along a cobbled path.
Well, not walking. The taller of the two, presumably the mother of the shorter one, was dragging her by the ear into a small alleyway. “What were you thinking? This is the third time this month that you have been suspended from school. I have to go to work as well, you know!” The taller woman hissed. “I wasn’t thinking mum! I reacted to my instincts.” The taller woman rolled her eyes and sighed. “Since I still must go to work, I’ll call your father to pick you up. Now do something useful for once and wait at that café.” With that, she left her daughter to walk to the café.
But it seemed as if that girl had other plans. As soon as she was out of her mother’s reach, she put on her jacket hood and dashed to the nearest supermarket she could find. Unfortunately, outside that supermarket was the ESCOD headquarters.
It seemed like a blur at first. All she remembered was having a cape thrown over her head and being dragged into a tunnel of darkness. She recalled wondering whether she had turned into Alice and fallen down the rabbit hole, but what she saw when her floor turned solid was nothing wonderland-like at all. It was an office, a living room and a library all mixed into one remarkably large space. It appeared not to be underground, but somewhere on the ground. “Where – ex – excuse me sir, I’m not supposed to be here. My name is Violet and-” Her words were cut short. “Do be quiet, Miss Lapis. It would be appreciated if you talk only when addressed to and participate only when asked to.” Violet let her mouth open and close for a few hundred seconds, trying to find the right words to say. All she could manage was: “Yes, sir.”