Greater than the sum
an excerpt

“Explain this agency, how may we help you?”
“It’s THE Explain this agency, Carla!” said Simon Banks, the agency’s owner but Carla wasn’t listening to him. Once again her eyes rolled upwards as she started to type furiously.
Simon sat down at his screen to see what was coming in. This time it was his turn to roll his eyes. Yet another member of the Great British Public had failed to ‘get’ the point of his investigation agency.
“Forward it to her MP,” he said to Carla as she came off the phone, “let him explain the government’s stance on immigration. Any news from Rich?”
“Yeah. His report came in last night”
“Carla, are you chewing?” Simon saw her swallow hard and then theatrically open her mouth wide as if to allow him to inspect it. “I told you to masticate on your own time but especially not while you are on reception duties.”
Simon Bank’s investigations agency was called “Explain this!” because he was interested in apparently unexplained and unexplainable phenomena. Not exactly ghost hunting, though he had had his fair share of those to investigate; more a sort of investigation into rum goings on.
As a premise for a detective agency, “the unexplained” was doing about as well as you might imagine, which is not very. It operated out of a small office on the third floor of a soon to be condemned Victorian edifice. This building, situated as it was in the upcoming Brixton area of south London, would soon be bought up and developed into luxury apartments for the people who left the East End of London after having made their fortunes in the Olympic property boon.
Currently the property was being run-down in order to encourage the occupants to leave for as little expense as possible.
The office itself looked out over Brixton Green. Or, at least it would, were it not for a huge neon sign proclaiming “Brixton! Murder free for – and then a number that would change daily – days.” Usually, the number hovered around zero but, rather optimistically, it allowed for three digits.
Simon and Carla could only see the back of this sign, of course. Their window was behind the ‘x’ of Brixton which added to the seedy atmosphere such that the office could almost have been in Soho.
Simon himself only added to the atmosphere of decay. Though he lied to himself that it was expected of him to dress like he did in his line of work, the truth was he had gradually run himself down. Perhaps, like the building, he secretly hoped that someone would come and renovate him, providing re-development of his soul.
He wore black shoes, which for reasons so complicated that he no longer proffered any, were a size too large and blue chinos which were correspondingly a size too small. The explanation for this was, however, quite simple. Though he swore that they fitted when he bought them (they probably did) and he would soon slim down again to fit them once more; Simon had put on weight.
His shirts, all eight of them, (for, as he delighted in explaining to Carla over and over again; unless you bring washday forward by a day each week, you have to have eight), were the colours of a pastel rainbow plus white. Today was a white day though it really was a grey-blue day following the accidental washing of shirts and chinos together about three months ago.
Simon wore thick rimmed (though thin lensed) glasses. Bucking the fashion for rectangular frames, his were defiantly round, circular in fact which did nothing to complement his rounded face and bald head.
The overall look, he convinced himself, was one of ‘discrete but with an air of authority when required’. However, he was more conspicuous then he imagined.
Carla was another of the Great British Public that didn’t ‘get’ the Explain this agency. But she knew the difference between something that Simon would want to pick up off the pavement to get a closer look and something that he would rather cross the road to avoid treading in. She liked Simon, for all of his eccentricities and though she never saw enough work come through the door, he always paid her on time and always paid her well. “Do you think Rich is on to something?” she asked, after waiting enough time for Simon to have skimmed through the report.
“Not sure, at this stage, could be simply good soil or local weather conditions. Downham is in a valley and it is often said that they have their own micro-climate. But, then again, there is the fact that the extra-rapid crop maturation only started around 1990. According to the records, there was nothing especially unusual until then. His report also says something about an apparent zoning of the effect. Perhaps I’ll pay a visit to the epicentre – see what I can ‘dig up,’ geddit?” Carla just rolled her eyes again. “I’ll give Rich a call.”