RP: The graffiti artist

Who: Stephen Cornfoot, Zacharias Smith
Where: Badger Den Road
When: 30 September 2001, early morning

Stephen Cornfoot

Stephen’s mother had berated him about some of his less than stellar eating habits after the break-in at his office earlier in the month. “Spend more time with Mandy,” his mother told him. “Such a lovely girl. She makes sure you eat right.” Of course, Stephen hadn’t taken that to heart. With little more than ice cream, a head of lettuce and a block of cheese in the flat, he needed breakfast before he started another long day at the office trying to work out the future of the company which included, of course, the Calliope Heights project.

He checked his pocket watch. Live to Tell the Kale’s breakfast smoothies were the stuff of legend and all that fruit would be at least two of his five a day. The café would open in five minutes. Perfect.

Rather than walking, he Apparated straight to the end of Badger Den Road, just outside of J. Pippin’s. Normally, the lingering smell of curry and falafel were the most noticeable things about this end of the street, but today that honour went to the figure diligently defacing the front of Live to Tell the Kale.

Despite what he read, Stephen couldn’t help but smile. The graffiti artist. It seemed that Radford would be able to close another case. He still hadn’t caught the murderer, though. He pulled out his wand and cast a quick spell. “Petrificus Totalus.” The man fell to the ground like a tree being felled and Stephen couldn’t help but wince slightly, hoping he hadn’t broken his nose.

As he strode over to the wizard, Stephen glanced at the graffiti. There, in tall scarlet letters, was a half-finished message.

ASK STEPHEN CO

Stephen gently prodded the man with his toe to roll him onto his back. He raised his eyebrows. “Got to say, I can’t wait to see how your dad tries to spin this, Zacharias.”

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