20:38 <banana> October 16, 2021. Turn off Bury New Road to George Street and you’ll reach Rico House. It’s outside the city centre, but not difficult at all to reach by car. 20:38 <banana> Has Willie ever been to her new office before? 20:39 <VoxPVoxD> Regularly! She got a walkthrough of the site when she moved, and lately she's taken to doing one day a week in-office, with basically nobody joining her. It feels less weird and sad than working at home alone somehow, possibly from novelty's sake. 20:41 <banana> If it weren't for the people Willie had brought with her, she'd be the only one here. DWP has a twenty year lease on the building, but most Civil Service teams in the North are still remote. Some are so remote they're not in the North at all. 20:41 <banana> The offices hypothetically allocated to her team are currently piled high with boxes, plastic carriers, filing cabinets, cases and pallets of undigitised material. Reams and oodles of *information*, the city's history going back fifty years, requisitioned from City Hall under colour of labour market planning. 20:43 <VoxPVoxD> Undigitised. On the one hand, blech. On the other, there's something wonderfully romantic about digging through boxes and boxes of sheets of paper, looking for the ones that hold the secrets you want. You can't feel the truth between your fingers on a computer screen. 20:43 <banana> You have GMP files, hospitals, births deaths and marriages, frontpage archives, and hundreds of thousands of documents thanklessly recording the times a citizen had to interact with Greater Manchester; the records go right back to its incorporation in April ‘74. 20:44 <VoxPVoxD> That should be enough by a decade or so. 20:44 <banana> Finding anything in the heap would be an absolutely insane task by oneself. But Willie has... friends? 20:45 <VoxPVoxD> How did Aaron and Bob take Willie's proposal to spend a few hours digging through documents in a DWP office. Willie's promised to cook for it. 20:46 <VoxPVoxD> It might be more than a few hours, but we can work that out once everyone's in the building that only Willie has keys to. 20:47 <tom> About as well as you could hope: a reluctant <sure thing> after realizing he was about to leave her on Read. 20:50 <Crion> This is technically Aster's bread and butter...but also, usually he's getting actually paid for it in billable, not in kind. 20:51 <tom> He's there, anyway. This might be the first time Willie's seen him show up without his stupid sunglasses. He'll flash a smile, but it somehow seems even less sincere coming from those tired, sunken eyes than beneath the mirrored lenses. 20:51 <Crion> Still, getting time to familiarize himself with Manchester record-keeping standards and practices is its own reward. 20:52 <banana> Bob and Aaron find a shitty commercial office building which has been transformed into a shity public-sector office building. It’s yellow-brown brick, standing opposite a long row of red-brown brick. Today’s rain hasn’t quite begun yet. 20:52 <banana> https://limits.thomascastiglione.com/media/rico.png 20:53 <banana> The interior has green baize walls, recently reupholstered, but the floors are just linoleum. Every office is crammed to bursting with Papers, except for Willie’s. 20:54 <Crion> Christ what an ugly city. 20:54 <Crion> "Good morning, Bob." 20:54 <Crion> "She's roped you into this too, I take it." 20:54 <tom> "Gh." Startled: "Aster, hey, yeah." 20:54 <VoxPVoxD> Resounding enthusiasm! That's what we like to see in public service. She's there to greet them both at the door with a big smile. If Bob shows up first, he gets a little hug. "Right. So the boxes are upstairs in my team's offices..." Willie's made some high-effort finger foods: meat and veg hand pies, a pizza, shortbread biscuits drizzled with chocolate... 20:55 <Crion> Aster: "How many boxes are we looking at? What's the easiest top-level division we can break them down into?" This is asked while walking up. Aster has no conception of not being at work. 20:56 <tom> Bob will take one of the meat pies. For now, he utilizes it as a handwarmer. 20:57 <Crion> Aster takes a slice of pizza and a napkin. For a man with his athleticism, he doesn't seem particularly picky about what he eats. He just seems to eat very little of it. He'll be nibbling on this for the next hour. 20:57 <banana> Many dozens of boxes, cabinets and cases. They *are* all pretty well labelled - FILINGS, STAMP DUTY APPLICATIONS 1991-1995, RECORDS HALL B. That sort of thing. 20:57 <tom> "...And you're sure we won't run into one of the office nerds, right? I don't have my cover story lined up." 20:58 <VoxPVoxD> Willie: "About 140 boxes, somewhere on the order of 300,000 pages. Full stats are in the topsheet there. Right now they're organised by department. So we have police and crime here, birth, death, and medical here, newspaper archives here, pension and dole records here..." 20:59 <VoxPVoxD> To Bob: "I don't think anyone's been in but me since the team moved." She sounds sad. 20:59 <Crion> Pizza folded in one hand, then, clipboard with topsheet in the other. 21:00 <banana> There should in theory be.. well, it’s a Saturday. There should be a security guard outside, and there is. 21:01 <banana> On weekdays, there should be up to 180 staff based in the building with a typical occupancy of more like 110 and the rest field/caseworkers. Willie’s responsible for about half of those in some sense, although the management team with whom she directly works is just a few people. They could sure help to go through this stuff if they were here. 21:01 <tom> Bob's in a button-up and jeans under his jacket. He doesn't look as much of a wreck as he feels, but it's close. 21:02 <tom> "I'm still pulling cartoon fish out of my boots, man. Next time I'll bring swim trunks." 21:02 <Crion> Aster's smile is thin. "I doubt fish have lived in that canal for some time. At least not fish you want to eat." 21:03 <Crion> To Willie: "So what are we looking for specifically? Give us a prospectus." 21:05 <VoxPVoxD> Willie's the only one who's decorated her office, even. There's a big framed print of some horses running across some scepter'd English countryside, there's some hardy plants, big infographics on the history of the DWP and the dole in particular... "So I want to dial in on the Gardeners, for a start. We've got reference images, fiscal records, a rough timeline... but I want to go into a 21:05 <VoxPVoxD> meeting with their damnees as well-informed as we can." 21:07 <VoxPVoxD> "There's also a bit more off-the-books snooping we can do... see what we can find about some of our most actionable local names, insofar as they aren't pseudonymic. Mr. Roth, for instance." Or Sergio. Or Richard. 21:07 <tom> "There's some stuff I wanna dig up too, if it's not too much a pain in the ass," Bob adds. "I was told there used to be a lot more shee- no, wait," he frowns. "There used to be a lot more sidhe in the city, then- bam, mid eighties and most of 'em are dead or gone." 21:07 <VoxPVoxD> Willie: "Around 1984, maybe?" 21:08 <VoxPVoxD> "That's when the big fracas with the current vampire government overturning the old one happened." 21:08 <tom> "...Would they do that? Just stomp all over the toon town crew for fun?" 21:08 <Crion> "I suggest we take these one at a time, as a group. One person looking up 1904 faerie-creatures while another tracks down vampires from the sixties or what-have-you is a recipe for ruining each others' sorting systems." 21:09 <VoxPVoxD> Willie, to Bob: "I doubt any connections would be that straightforward." 21:09 <VoxPVoxD> Willie, to Aster: "Sounds good." 21:09 <tom> "Yeah my stuff can come last. I just got it on my mind." He taps his temple meaningfully. 21:10 <VoxPVoxD> Willie: "I'd like to start by checking news archives for anything we can find on that park we're to visit tomorrow night. Incident reports, criminal activity, et cetera." 21:11 <tom> "Letitia said they only really needed the teens out of one part'a the graveyard. You remember?" He's looking at Aster. 21:11 <banana> There’s a daunting amount of material, but you can work as you talk. 21:12 <Crion> Aster looks up, startled. "What? ...Yes?" Did he miss something? Why are they talking about the teens now? 21:12 <Crion> He is now mildly annoyed that one focused fact-finding mission is quickly turning into four. 21:13 <VoxPVoxD> There are a lot of facts to find! Aster gets the sense that Willie's process is not as organised as his. Or as organised as she generally is. 21:13 <banana> Matching up names and records is going to be the easiest bit here, if tedious. The images Willie’s been sent by an elder vampire are less useful, unless you get really lucky with some sort of photographic record. 21:14 <tom> Sufficiently cowed by Aster's glare, Bob sets himself to the task of peeling tape off boxes and flipping through manilla folders. 21:14 <banana> For example, one of them contained a pair of scans depicting Alex Gardener, Count Salford. The canvases give you a great sense of the man, but it’s not going to be anything like what’s in these Council documents: 21:14 <banana> https://limits.thomascastiglione.com/media/Alex_Gardener.png 21:15 <VoxPVoxD> While they're doing the initial physical labour of unstacking boxes and wheeling around cabinets, Willie asks Bob: "Did Sumi talk to you about the group invitation?" 21:15 <tom> "The wha?" 21:16 <tom> "Oh are you guys invited to watch the hunter kick my ass?" 21:17 <VoxPVoxD> Willie: "Sumi extended an invitation to our entire team to attend Samhain, or at least, the public, night-city-facing part of Samhain. It was pitched as unpaid security work, but I think what it *really* is is an opportunity to network with a cross-section of the night-city as a group, put ourselves out there collectively rather than as individuals." 21:17 <tom> He manages a weak laugh at the tail of that one: "Woo." 21:17 <VoxPVoxD> "A key part of developing the business." 21:17 <VoxPVoxD> Then Willie stops talking and processes what Bob actually said. "What?" 21:18 <banana> Births, deaths and marriages are pretty easy. After only ten minutes going through register copies Aster’s already come across some relatively unimportant things... Simon Kingfisher, for example, was born in the city. Richard Haldane wasn’t - he’s from Scotland - but there’s a transfer copy here because an extract was requested. 21:18 <tom> "I'm in pretty deep now. There's a trial or whatever. You ever see Predator?" 21:18 <VoxPVoxD> Willie: "Is that the one where it's in the trees?" 21:18 <tom> "Anyway yeah, sure, I mean, if I pass I'm sure I'm in for Samhain." 21:19 <tom> "I need to find out more." 21:19 <VoxPVoxD> "Obviously you're going to pass. Don't joke like that." 21:19 <tom> He goes back to the box ahead of him, and doesn't comment on that. 21:19 <Crion> Aster just shakes his head at all of this, moving through the first boxes. 21:19 <Crion> "Unpaid security work. My least favorite kind of work." 21:20 <VoxPVoxD> Willie: "Think of it as getting a small retainer to eat snacks and mingle with strangers." 21:20 <VoxPVoxD> "...that's not much better for you, is it?" 21:22 <VoxPVoxD> While her methodology is suspect, Willie clearly has great fluency with moving between and through these huge piles of information, and is able to give Aster pretty good guidance without even thinking very hard. 21:22 <tom> He shrugs. "I'm gonna be there anyway for Mari. I'm sure it'll be boring, whatever." 21:22 <banana> Bob’s found records on deaths around 1984. Apparently, Manchester had the highest murder rate of any city in the United Kingdom that year. 21:23 <banana> However, this is also the case in 2021. 21:23 <VoxPVoxD> Willie: "Because it's open to the entire night-city, I'll also be bringing Sergio. In case people want to meet him, vet him for sinister machinations, et cetera." 21:24 <Crion> Aster: "Tricking yourself into thinking things that aren't payment are payment is how you get stuck in internships and getting 'paid in exposure.'" 21:24 <tom> A smart man, Bob is most certainly not. But he's starting to figure out Mari's people have a type. Is there anything about homophobic attacks, bombings of nightclubs, police raids? 21:24 <Crion> "...But in this instance I might make an exception." 21:24 <banana> Bob focuses in on 1984 in particular and looks for *kinds* of deaths. He finds.. gaps. 21:25 <VoxPVoxD> Willie: "When you're building a business exposure is payment. That's why it works. You can't just sit on your bum and trust that your brilliance will emanate." 21:25 <tom> What kind of gap? 21:26 <VoxPVoxD> "Insofar as we hope to stop depending on Jack's scraps or the WASC's sufferance, it requires building a client base of our own, which requires putting our names out there." 21:26 <banana> It takes some frowning, but after a while you realise these records are incomplete! It simply can’t be true that there were 6,000 excess deaths in Greater Manchester for May and then none for June. 21:26 <Crion> "There's networking, and then there's being seen as the help. 'Unpaid security work' seems unlikely to truly be the former. But perhaps I've been made cynical by having to deal with all these vampires." Aster: "As to our actual work. Richard Haldane's birth certificate is an obvious forgery. The font is reasonably close, but it's not actually the same font as is period-appropriate." 21:27 <VoxPVoxD> Willie: "...interesting." 21:28 <tom> "Well, that's a bust. There's a bunch of deaths missing off June of Eighty-Four." 21:29 <VoxPVoxD> Willie: "...that's also interesting. Not necessarily suspicious - 40 year old undigitised records have gaps like this all the time. But it is very notable." 21:29 <banana> It’s going to take more searching to be sure, but you have another negative result: there are multiple people named Alex Gardener in the fifty years’ records, but they don’t match up with what you know of the guy (‘rich vampire’). None named Ruth Henning Gardener. 21:30 <tom> ...What about reported abductions? 21:30 <VoxPVoxD> That makes sense. One assumes they're somewhat older, and unlikely to have required national insurance or a record of BBC licence fees. 21:31 <VoxPVoxD> Willie did make sure to pull one specific set of documents a bit further back than the early 80s - the birth/death notices go back to the mid 70s. 21:32 <banana> These Greater Manchester Police records for ‘84 are garbage, frankly. As well as the death gaps in April and June.. the only kind of reports of kidnappings or disappearances they have at all are for what sound like super upper-crust types. Nobody under the first quintile in income or fame until the late 90s. And don’t get Bob started on the budgets. 21:32 <banana> Actually, the budgets look weird. Any accountants here? 21:32 <Crion> Aster: "What is the dress code for this 'event,' anyhow? I'm trying to come up with what 'modern faerie tale enthusiast' sounds like as an aesthetic without getting extremely pejorative." 21:33 <tom> "It's uh, an 'outdoor masked ball.'" Bob seems unsure what that means. 21:35 <VoxPVoxD> Willie: "It's a masquerade for Samhain. Apparently of political significance to the seelie courts. One of them, a woman called Sumiya, asked me to extend an invitation to the group, so I will. Perhaps once the matter of teens is settled." 21:36 <Crion> Aster: "A costume party." A very deep sigh. 21:36 <tom> "I don't know if we make our own masks." 21:36 <tom> "I will happily make cool masks." 21:36 <Crion> "I will simply come dressed as an adult." 21:36 <tom> "Meta." 21:37 <tom> Bob rips open a new box. 21:37 <VoxPVoxD> Willie: "I'll double check on whether masks are a metaphysical rather than a social requirement. There is a sense of equanimity about the proceedings. The way it was told to me is, at Samhain all are welcome, regardless of their essential nature." 21:37 <VoxPVoxD> To Bob: "Careful!" 21:37 <tom> "The budgets for the GMP are weird too." 21:38 <tom> "Can either of you make sense of this?" 21:38 <VoxPVoxD> "I can read budgets. Let me see." 21:40 <banana> The numbers balance, not a ledger issue, but they’re weird - to figure out why takes going back and forth a couple of years, looking for the shift in pattern. Eventually, Willie spots the discontinuity. 21:40 <VoxPVoxD> "Hang on..." 21:41 <banana> Between July and August 1984, property tax receipts in the city dropped 28%. They didn’t recover fully until 1989. 21:41 <tom> Bob apologetically pets the wounded box as he sets it aside and goes through the contents of a file folder. 21:41 <VoxPVoxD> Willie: "You know it looks a bit like a bunch of landowners disappeared in the summer of '84." 21:42 <VoxPVoxD> She'll get Aster to check her work. 21:42 <tom> "...Whattaya mean, 'disappeared', like went off the grid?" 21:42 <VoxPVoxD> "Like, stopped paying property tax." 21:43 <Crion> The fundamentals seem sound. He can't tell who stopped paying, though. Not from these documents, at least. 21:44 <VoxPVoxD> Willie's able to go through these documents very efficiently, but that efficiency is hampered by how much backtracking she has to do. She hasn't the mind of a detective at all. 21:48 <VoxPVoxD> "Can we match these up to stories about construction, vandalism, perhaps fires?" 21:49 <tom> "You think that's the outward expression of a vampire civil war?" 21:49 <banana> Construction.. yes. There was a lot more of it, starting late in 84. Plenty of new growth, for once in the records’ history of decline 21:49 <VoxPVoxD> Willie: "Not necessarily. It might be the equivalent of economic sanctions against an unfriendly regime." 21:50 <banana> Aster’s found something again... maybe. How is he on habadashery? 21:50 <tom> Bob will take a break to eat a meat pie. 21:51 <tom> If there's extra, he'll take one or two home with him. Goblin grindset. 21:51 <VoxPVoxD> While Bob's taking a break, Willie asks him, "Did you get debriefed about Inchcape?" 21:51 <VoxPVoxD> There's enough food here for Bob to bring several meals home. 21:51 <tom> Fantastic. "Yeah we talked about it. He's just over there, y'can ask him." 21:52 <Crion> Aster: "His ears still work, too." 21:52 <VoxPVoxD> Willie: "Oh! Splendid. How'd it go?" This question is for both of them now. 21:53 <Crion> Aster: "My objections to mind-control have strengthened, and Sergio gets no bonus points for it being a seemingly-virtuous goal." 21:53 <VoxPVoxD> Willie: "Virtuous... you mean ordering Bob to commit suicide on my behalf?" 21:53 <VoxPVoxD> "No, I would not characterise it that way." 21:54 <tom> "I think you're making a lot out of it. Not my first time at the brainscrambler rodeo." 21:55 <banana> This reminds Bob, though. Sergio... not a common name around here. He thinks he paged past a single Sergio in one of the really early files from the Registrar. 21:56 <tom> He isn't wearing the glasses today, of course. He rubs his eyes and thumbs back to the first couple pages of documents. 21:56 <VoxPVoxD> "I did learn one or two things from him: the first is that he's now been briefed by several parties that attempting to hypnotise any member of our team is both personally and politically dangerous. The second is that citizens in the WASC apparently have to write on every application of mind control against one another, the way a police officer might on a weapon discharge." 21:56 <VoxPVoxD> "A protection to insist on or bargain for if we take more vampire work." 21:56 <tom> "...aaaaAnd here's your boy." 21:56 <VoxPVoxD> "Oh??" 21:56 <tom> He slides the file out and hands it to her. 21:57 <VoxPVoxD> Willie drops what she's doing and takes it. 21:57 <tom> Hopefully it's the right Sergio or Bob is about to look ever more the ass. 21:57 <Crion> Aster, still reviewing documents: "Making police write on discharging their weapons has done very little to stop them from shooting people." 21:57 <banana> Sergio Bonasera, 1948-1979. Cause of death: acute metastatic osteosarcoma. Survived by a father and a sister. Estate executor: Seele Shaw, attorney-at-law. 21:58 <Crion> Now he looks up. "What was that name?" 21:58 <Crion> "The attorney." 21:58 <banana> It’s good branding is what it is. You can just imagine the ad jingle. 21:59 <VoxPVoxD> Willie: "The point is not the protection itself, it's formal recognition as residents of the night-city. The legalism is a sign they take the formality seriously." 21:59 <VoxPVoxD> "Seele Shaw, the Night Mayor." 21:59 <tom> "He their king? Or whatever?" 22:00 <Crion> "She." 22:00 <VoxPVoxD> "She is the leader of the Wise and Solemn Court, as well as the city's actual Night Mayor, which is primarily a ceremonial/promotional role in city government." 22:00 <Crion> "The common analogue they choose is Prince." 22:00 <tom> "Nice," he adds. 22:01 <VoxPVoxD> Willie runs her fingers over the death notice. 22:02 <VoxPVoxD> "This matches with the story he gave me about his damnation." 22:02 <VoxPVoxD> "I-- I need a better word for that." 22:02 <VoxPVoxD> "The ones you get training in Milan are quite specific." 22:02 <banana> There hasn’t been a ‘Prince’ in the North for many years. Not since they strung the Prince of Roses upside-down in the centre of town and cut off her head. 22:02 <banana> (That isn’t in the records.) 22:03 <VoxPVoxD> Ah, it's like Game of Thrones. 22:03 <tom> Metal. 22:03 <Crion> Aster doesn't really pay too much attention to hats. He knows that's what "habadashery" refers to, and that's about it. But the good thing about pocket phones these days is they're little computers, and you can learn things on them if you take the time to do so. 22:04 <Crion> And if you stay off Facebook. 22:04 <banana> Hmm. 22:04 <banana> The Manchester Museum of Hattery, a public-private partnership opened April 2020 by the ward councillor, Sir Thornwell Carnleigh. But these photos in the newspaper archive... they remind him of the images Willie showed around earlier. 22:05 <Crion> Aster: "Willie, take a look at these, tell me if they seem familiar." 22:05 <VoxPVoxD> Willie does as instructed. 22:05 <banana> It’s not actually clear how to export the photos from Signal, but you can simply open them up again. Here’s the relevant image: 22:05 <banana> https://limits.thomascastiglione.com/media/ruth_henning_Gardener.jpg 22:05 <banana> Both the hats she was wearing.. they’re on display in this museum. 22:06 <VoxPVoxD> Willie: "Countess Salford's hats... they're in the museum." 22:07 <tom> "Yeah? Not just a similar one?" 22:07 <Crion> Aster: "Or she's got the money to commission very faithful, very expensive replicas. But either avenue gives us leads." 22:07 <Crion> "Had the money, I should say." 22:08 <VoxPVoxD> "April 2020... we need to speak with the Salfords' damnees, to see how that lines up with when they began to feel psychic emanations." 22:08 <VoxPVoxD> Fuck. "The Salfords'... descendants." 22:08 <tom> "Yeah that's the other thing that's got me a little freaked." 22:08 <tom> "They were all on about how like, 'the blood's coming back wrong' or whatever." 22:08 <tom> He makes air quotes. 22:09 <VoxPVoxD> Willie: "They were surprised it came back at all. Very old vampires can have quite bizarre effects on people and the environment." 22:09 <tom> "That runs against our theory it's just a knockout coma, right? That's a little more fucked?" 22:09 <VoxPVoxD> "But yes, the mechanics of that strangeness may be relevant..." 22:09 <banana> Now that you’ve stared at the two canvases for a while, both Bob and Willie can recognise the setting, of course. 22:09 <tom> He shrugs. "I'm not the vampire guy." 22:10 <VoxPVoxD> Is this the garden? 22:10 <tom> ...Inchcape? 22:10 <banana> Just so. 22:10 <VoxPVoxD> Willie points it out to Bob: "Recognise it?" 22:11 <VoxPVoxD> ...can Willie find any nee-Bonaseras in the right age range to be Sergio's sister? 22:12 <tom> "Yeah that's the patio out front at Inchcape." 22:12 <tom> "They did say it was their home, right?" 22:12 <tom> "Borrowing it." 22:12 <VoxPVoxD> Willie: "That's right." 22:13 <tom> "So that helps us get a positive ID I guess, but it doesn't really help us find them." 22:13 <banana> You’ve eventually got into the business registration records. These are very dry. 22:14 <VoxPVoxD> "A positive ID is all you want from a reference image. So a clear connection to Inchcape through the Salfords mainly serves to underscore that it *is* a usable reference. 22:15 <banana> You do find James Roth’s latest venture. The local businessman incorporated Gates of the Garden Plc just about month ago. 22:15 <VoxPVoxD> Does it say 'local businessman' in the official documentation? That's a bit odd, no? Sort of a newspaper phrase. 22:16 <banana> Undeniably accurate, though. 22:17 <Crion> Mmmm. 22:17 <VoxPVoxD> Willie checks TrackCheck. It's 'Local Businessman James Roth' in there. What happens if she updates the name in the entry to just 'James Roth'? 22:19 <tom> "Who's this prick again?" Bob is thumbing the portrait on the document. 22:19 <banana> The HTML table reflows slightly due to the shortened name. 22:20 <tom> "Oh is that uh, pokeball guy?" 22:20 <VoxPVoxD> Willie closes the app and reopens it. "He's the man who wants us to field test his monster traps." 22:20 <banana> Angela Rosa Mussumeli (nee Bonasera), 1949-2017. Cause of death: complications from surgery following shrapnel trauma. Kidney removed due to organ donation opt-in. Heirs: Tracey Palermo Mussumeli, Ruvia Catania Mussumeli. 22:20 <VoxPVoxD> Shrapnel trauma? 22:21 <tom> "Right." 22:21 <banana> None of you lived in Manchester in 2017. A few minutes search through almost any of these document categories reveals what everyone who did knows about: the Arena bombing. 22:21 <VoxPVoxD> Willie: "Oh wow." 22:21 <banana> One of ISIL’s attacks on the UK in the period, which inspired others, better known, in London. 22:22 <banana> Did Bob give up on those police documents entirely, or go through other years? 22:25 <tom> Bob's search is haphazard, unfocused compared to the neat piles Willie and Aster are pulling up, but eventually he makes his way back to the first box to finish up his search of the police documents. 22:26 <banana> There aren’t a lot of public records on Gorton Cemetery. People haven’t been buried in it for a long time - the city has newer plots that are less full. The Nightingale Society, it seems, have no legal existence. However, there is one thing. 22:27 <banana> Mid-2020 a permit was issued for heavy construction and earthmoving equipment to be operated at Gorton. 22:27 <VoxPVoxD> What. 22:28 <Crion> Aster thinks he can guess where this is going. 22:28 <banana> Furthermore and perhaps irrelevantly, the .kmz map file sent to Willie by Weaste showing the location of the Gardeners’ official gravesite points to, again, Gorton Cemetery. This place has form. 22:28 <VoxPVoxD> Willie: "Oh dear." 22:29 <tom> "So... you guys also getting that vibe?" 22:29 <tom> Bob sighs, reaches into his pocket, and pulls out a beat-up smartphone. 22:30 <Crion> Aster: "I am now even more profoundly annoyed that rousting the teens is our problem." 22:30 <Crion> "I thought perhaps it was just an aggravation to Barrigan, some make work, but no, clearly we're taking care of his actual responsibilities for him." 22:31 <VoxPVoxD> Willie: "On the bright side, if it overlaps with the Gardener job, then our cover for pursuing that alongside is much stronger." 22:31 <VoxPVoxD> "Your cover, I should say." 22:33 <banana> You could be drawing inferences where there are none. Or you could just be doing your job. 22:33 <tom> "Weird. I was trying to uh, cross-reference... murders and kidnappings to try and plot activity..." 22:34 <VoxPVoxD> Willie gives Bob an encouraging look. 22:34 <tom> "Looks like while we're high up on murders, Manchester's actually got the lowest reported rates for abductions in the whole country. Across the whole fifty-year period." 22:34 <VoxPVoxD> Willie: "Huh." 22:35 <banana> The #2, 3 and 4th lowest are Sheffield, Liverpool and Leeds. 22:35 <VoxPVoxD> To Aster: "All over the North, even. What do you make of that?" 22:35 <tom> "...It could just be a reporting issue." 22:36 <VoxPVoxD> "It could. And there are any number of natural explanations." 22:36 <VoxPVoxD> "But as a way to guide further inquiry..." 22:37 <tom> "What do you think? Some sort of magic bullshit?" 22:38 <VoxPVoxD> Willie: "I don't know yet... that sort of deduction is not quite my field." 22:38 <banana> One way or another, you’ve examined most of the topics you wanted to get through. From the sea of information you have plucked disconnected clamshells, forming parts of a web which, in turn, fails to cohere into a metaphor. 22:38 <banana> The main thing left to look at here is how ‘County’ Salford’s financials match up to real legal things. That’s going to take some back and forth-cross-referencing, leaning on Aster’s skills... is there anything else you wanted to check out in the records while putting those pieces together? 22:39 <banana> Or: concrete answers you’d like to try and distil from the sea of scraps (which are also clams)? 22:39 <Crion> Aster is here to do things that are extremely tedious quickly. 22:40 <Crion> Though he's glad he hasn't had to break out the Codex module, yet. 22:40 <VoxPVoxD> Is there anything about who hired those Gorton earthmovers? 22:40 <tom> Even Bob wouldn't be surprised to find out the WASC is making a move on the Gardeners. 22:41 <banana> Sure, the registered contractor is Night Soil Underworks. 22:41 <VoxPVoxD> What do we have on them? 22:41 <banana> Who in turn exist only as a line at Companies House and a single online article mentioning a union taking the company closed-shop. 22:42 <VoxPVoxD> A big union? 22:43 <banana> UCATT. Big at the time, now inexistant as they have merged into Unite. 22:43 <VoxPVoxD> When were they taken closed-shop? 22:44 <banana> Some time in the 80s, which is.. shortly after their corporate registration. You’d guess management rolled over pretty easily, as most builders do. 22:45 <VoxPVoxD> After the night of the long fangs? 22:45 <banana> Yes, 1988. 22:45 <VoxPVoxD> Willie: "There's enough facts here to fashion a narrative, but not to support one." 22:46 <banana> What Aster’s looking at in the Gardeners’ financials is a set of things they used to own. Through a series of fabricated identities and shell corporations the couple were once multi-millionaires. Most of those assets were transferred abruptly to others in, you guessed it, 1984. There are only a couple of things left in the names they use: 22:47 <VoxPVoxD> Willie: "How are you both feeling since your river excursion, anyway? Didn't catch cold or get eaten by a cadium-infused salmon or anything, did you?" 22:47 <banana> There’s the gravesite, token shareholdings in four companies, and a safety-deposit contract with Halifax Bank (Manchester Central branch). 22:47 <tom> "I feel great." 22:48 <Crion> Safety deposit boxes. Hrm. 22:49 <banana> Those he can look up. It seems the setup there is the swiss type, where you have to prove your identity with secret knowledge... 22:51 <Crion> Despite their popularity in films and television, safety deposit boxes like those rarely house things of actual import outside of their owner's interest and either way represent an extreme low risk, high reward project to acquire. 22:54 <banana> The shareholdings aren’t significant. One of the companies is entirely defunct, another is a charitable trust... 22:54 <banana> For the record, Aster puts together the list. 22:54 <banana> 1) ADMF 22:54 <banana> 2) London Midland and Scottish Railway 22:54 <banana> 3) BAE Systems 22:54 <banana> 4) Messrs. J. Wilson & Sons 22:58 <banana> It’s not clear that anything else in these boxes is of value to the three of you. 22:59 <VoxPVoxD> Willie exhales. "Alright. I think we're mostly done here. You two can take the leftovers, I'll tidy up here." 22:59 <Crion> Aster will grab the pizza then. 23:00 <Crion> It's not properly American -- weirdly-sized, for one -- but it's better than what the chains put out here and there are preciosu few American pizza places to be found. 23:01 <banana> Pizza Juan Domingo is the closest thing to a good American-style chain that actually has availability. But it’s still a chain. 23:04 <VoxPVoxD> Once they've gone, while Willie's in the midst of reorganising, she slumps down with a coffee from that shitty 20-quid percolator and texts Mari: <hello! I'd have included Robert in a Group Text but his phone can't handle them apparently. I want to invite the both of you to Tea! my flat is in the city Centre> 23:07 <banana> Mari: <⏩☕⏪> 23:08 <banana> <I’ll ask him and he’ll say yes. Sounds like a great idea, Willie!> 23:08 <banana> <Just one thing though; Bob is actually short for William... somehow...> 23:10 <VoxPVoxD> Willie knows that, but she has a weird reservation about admitting as much. <how odd. do you call him Billy?> 23:12 <banana> <Sounds too much like a goat. I might try Bobby.> 23:13 <banana> <Did you nkow he’s the only american who doesn’t like burgers?> 23:13 <banana> <I mean know> 23:14 <VoxPVoxD> Robert is a much better nickname than Bobby. <I didn't! maybe he's just very Particular? the way italians are about carbonara?> 23:16 <banana> Mari: <That could be it too. It was hilarious.. we went to Five Guys Burgers and Fries... he came in but there was this pause at the door, loooking around like, really?> 23:16 <banana> <I think he thought it was cringe.> 23:17 <banana> <Do you have a bf?> 23:18 <VoxPVoxD> Willie: <I do! you'll meet him at Samhain> 23:18 <VoxPVoxD> <unfortunately he's Constitutionally Disinclined towards afternoon tea> 23:18 <banana> <Omg.> 23:18 <banana> <(Pbuh)> 23:19 <banana> Mari: <When you say constitutional with a capital letter C... how does your bf feel about late night drinks?> 23:22 <VoxPVoxD> Mari is the first person she's formally acknowledged Sergio as a boyfriend to. That's not weird. They're friends! There's a lengthy period of animated ellipses before <he's Very Fond. you have a keen deductive mind> 23:23 <banana> Mari: <Thanks much! I’ve got to get back to using it on books about bones.> 23:23 <VoxPVoxD> <ttyS!!> 23:23 <banana> <We will rsvp you shortly 🙂>