Mid-Summer Murder?

 Nina and Summer were enjoying the party.  Nina didn't normally do parties, but she was feeling adventurous.  Summer didn't normally do much socialising either. Her main interest was in collecting flowery dresses. 

Aadi didn't normally socialise with people.  He enjoyed stock taking and oiling the pricing gun, and spent many hours examining spreadsheets, adjusting profit margins up and down by small amounts to see the effect on gross profit and net profit, allowing for some element of fluctuation in quantity purchased as the price varied.

These three, normally each engaged in disparate interests, found themselves thrown together by the fates. Not only that, but Aadi - a young man who seldom drank alcohol, who loathed cigarettes and who only ever took one paracetamol for a headache - found himself in possession of drugs having fought with Brodie and Dylan before throwing them out into the street, left hand holding Brodie and right hand holding Dylan.

Aadi, Summer and Nina (all of whom were always found in the kitchen at parties)  looked at the drugs together. Summer's floral frock was at odds with the thoughts rushing through her head.  Normally she'd be full of knitting patterns, church madrigals and soybean roasts.  Nina's goth makeup formed a strong contrast with the red hot synaptic activity going on in her brain.  Normally, her thoughts were busy with thoughts of death, graveyards and how to work the latte machine in Roy's café.  Aadi's shirt, tie and shorts combo suggested a sensible lad who wanted to be formal and yet relaxed at the same time, and his clothing was not commensurate with the rash thoughts he was having.

"Let's try the drugs," Summer, Nina and Aadi said in unison.  Suddenly flowery dresses, spreadsheets and graveyards seemed dull, and the thought of a hallucinogenic trip into Coronation Street special effects department pulled the normally staid trio in a new direction.

Nina went first.  Summer went next. Aadi was ready to take his when a voice called from the living room.

It was Ken Barlow.  "I've lived on this street all of my life," he said.  He always began conversations this way.

"Yes Mr Barlow, you've told me before," replied Aadi.

"We don't need a party going on at this time of day.  I can hear the noise down the other end of the street. Turn it down.  I've lived on this..."

Aadi tuned out and his dander rose.  He stared at Ken, and advanced slowly towards the elderly man.  Aadi went into spreadsheet mode. 

Dylan aged 18. Brody aged 19.  Sum total - 37 years.  

Ken, aged 85 years.  Sum total 85. 

Ken total age divided by Dylan and Brody total age 2.3.  Thus Ken is 2.3 times the challenge presented by Dylan and Brody.

Add on profit margin of 15% and VAT of 20%... no no stop. There's no need to add on profit and VAT.

So, Aadi thought, Ken is 2.3 times harder to throw out than the two boys were earlier.  Aadi, momentarily, thought he might not be able to do it.  Then he remembered that today was the day that he was going to throw off his dreary image.  Regardless of the difficulty, the young Aadi stepped closer to the elderly Kenneth. He turned the old man around to face the door, and picked Ken up by his trouser belt and collar.  Aadi aimed Ken's head at the door and started to run.  With a cry of 'concatenate' Aadi rushed for the door, and Ken's elderly head hit the wood hard.  However, no noise emanated from the head, cushioned as it was by the lustrous locks which had provided protection to the skull underneath for over eight decades, first when his mother dropped him when, at the age of two years old, he announced to her that having a brown sauce bottle on the table was common, swiftly followed by instructing his father that he was not to repair his bicycle in the front room.

Undeterred, Aadi opened the door, and flung Ken out onto the cobbles. Then he calmly closed the door and returned to the kitchen to drink his drug-enhanced cocktail.  Nina and Summer were hallucinating and Aadi looked for his glass.

"Where's my glass?" he asked.

"It's a lovely ass Aadi," replied Summer. Nina giggled.

"My GLASS, where's my glass?"

"I don't care if you've got gas, I'll never be your lass," said Nina.  Summer giggled.

A hand appeared, and laid an empty glass in front of Aadi.  One burp later, and the hand's owner said, "I shouldn't have had that cause I've got little Frankie to put to bed soon."

"Lauren!" said Aadi in a voice that was slightly louder than his normal voice.  "What have you done?"

"Got any crisps?" she asked.

Aadi turned to get pick up a bowl of crisps.  By the time he turned around, Lauren had vanished.  Aadi raced towards the door, and exited quickly.  He stumbled over Ken who was still lying on the cobbles, but quickly steadied himself.

Aadi approached the factory.  "What would Sir Alan do?" Aadi asked himself.  "He'd venture forth and invent a computer," he decided.  "I'll add that to my online to-do list when I get home."

The thought of Sir Alan gave Aadi the confidence to open the factory door.  Therein, he saw Lauren.

"Lauren," said Aadi.  "You're fired up on drugs. Let's get you rushed to hospital before you collapse, as you will."

Back at Aadi's house, Nina and Summer had decided to leave the party.  They opened the door and just as they got onto the street, Ken staggered to his feet.  The girls bumped into him and the aged Kenneth - the man who was to Coronation Street what the ravens were to the Tower of London - fell once again onto the Cobbles.  His investment in Herbal Essences over the years was paying for itself many times over today.

They rushed by to Roy's Rolls and locked themselves in.

"Have we..." cried Summer.

"Killed the world's longest serving actor in a continuous role?"