AMP: Artists' Meeting Place and Resource Collective

For earlier Chapters and an explanation of this dreadful story, see blog: The Cardiff Grandma. WARNING: This novel contains fake Welsh.
In the previous episode, the cherrylipped callgirl and Ddwwchllyff discover a mutual acquaintance in Sunny Quito. It is confirmed that the Revolving window© works “at night too…and in fog!”

The Cardiff Grandma Chapter 9

“I’ll see if I can find that for you – you put it on reserve, correct? And what’s your name again?”

“Sunny Quito”

“Alright. Here it is. ‘How to sue yourself for plagiarism – a macrophilological approach to lepus-cerebral ideations’ Kent, 2004. This is in big demand, there’s a waiting list.”

The librarian was rarely surprised anymore by the drivel she catalogued at the University library, but this one was particularly pompous sounding – as if everyone didn’t know how to sue themselves, but ooh no, it had to be some complicated ass-backward thing only academics and trick dogs could perform.

“Our professor assigned it, but there’s only the one copy,” the student was saying.

“We all have to read it.”

Where had she heard this before? From the previous student to borrow it? She had a jarring sense of déjà vu all over again as she ran the book under the scanner and the student watched with anxious eyes. So anxious these students, every last bloody one them. Why?

She sighed for effect and handed the student the book. “Please be sure to return it on time. Your professor assigned it, but there’s only the one copy. You all have to read it.”

Her own words sounded strangely familiar to her like some sort of ricochet or other lace-making craft…

When Constable Painting had awakened from his nap in the disabled toilets at Cardiff International last year or week, he had no idea what had taken place in the “bar”. He merely went looking for his dog sniffer dog. All perfectly normal. A flash lawyer suit was still encasing a body at one of the tables, a pair of capital Red leather shoes still shod the appertaining feet. His dog sniffer dog was out and about doing a bit of the old wag and wangle on the lady sitting in for the fair Elspeth at the Bureau de Change. He called the mutt over to him in case the dog had scored and was tempted to cheat on their deal. But as the dog approached, it stopped at the barlike affair where earlier an old geezer’d actually tried to order a Beer„ -- and then the dog barked. The constable cast his eyes spryly down at the item causing all the bow-wow then sprightly away, feigning indifference to mask his apathy. His dogger sniffer dog began to show romantic interest in the item, the battered suitcase the geezer had apparently forgotten when he went to catch his flight or whatever it was people did on airport stairwells.. Constable Painting didn’t know, didn’t want to. And he as sure as hell didn’t want his dog sniffer dog sniffing dogs. The law was clear – discovery and reporting of dog smuggling carried a heavy fine, a stiff sentence, a few firm paragraphs and a long disapprobation period. No. Not for him. It was the dogs who were penalized, the poor brutes. He prized his beloved cur on the moldy old valise, so he prized his beloved cur off it and headed toward the disabled loo. It was time for a break anyway.

As Painting and his canine charge reached the toilet he found one of the ever present Icelandic maintenance staff hanging a sign on the door handle.

‘This convenience is out of order,’ it read, ‘sorry for any inconvenience caused’ it concluded. The disabled toilets had been disabled? ‘Typical’ thought Constable Painting.

Just then a smartly dressed young lady, a man struggling to rest a large video camera on his shoulder as he moved and another man weighed down with a rectangular shoulder bag and what initially looked like a grey, limbless ferret on the end of a metal pole, all rushed past the officer and his dog, trailing a tangle of assorted cables behind them.

Something, it seemed, was going on.