The Mother's Day Rush

Copenhagen, Saturday dawn · a flower shop before Mother’s Day · two hundred bouquets and one missing van driver · Difficulty: Officer 3 · 6×6

In Denmark Mother’s Day is the second Sunday of May, and on the Saturday before it the Blomster & Co. flower shop in Copenhagen works all night. Villads, the courier, arrived at five for the first boxes and complained that somebody was pocketing the difference on missing orders. By six he was gone. Six people were in the shop. Villads was found dead. Mother’s Day came late this year.

Rules

1. Every row and every column holds exactly one person. As soon as you place someone, cross out their whole row and column.
2. “Beside” = directly left, right, above or below, and in the same area. Squares with objects (the potted plants, the shelves, the counter, the tables, the sink and the cart) cannot be occupied; the chair, the stool and the bench can.
3. Directions refer to rows and columns, not to the same line: “exactly one row north of him was a woman” = the person in the row directly above was a woman, in any column; “the northernmost person in her area” = nobody else in her area was in a row further up.
4. The murderer was alone with the victim: nobody else was in that area. The victim made no statement – his square, too, follows from the others’.

Statements

• Anders (owner and head florist): A potted plant was somewhere in his area.
• Bodil (florist): She was not beside the cart.
• Connie (apprentice florist): She was not in a corner of her area. A shelf was somewhere in her row.
• Ditlev (regular customer): He was beside the chair.
• Else (early customer): She was north of Anders. A potted plant was somewhere in her column.
• Villads (delivery driver): The victim. He was alone with the murderer.

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