by Ruby Loren
“A bag search! That’s not a bad idea,” Eamon trumpeted. “One of you lot is hiding something. We’re all here. We should do it together and right this second, so no one can hide anything.” He gave everyone the beady eye.
There were murmurs of consent. As one group, we went into Sylvia’s room, apologised for invading her privacy, and then went through the small suitcase she’d brought with her. Everyone eyed the knitting bag. It was agreed that it would be removed from her room and placed in with Christine. Nothing that appeared to relate to the crime was found in Sylvia’s luggage, but I hadn’t really expected there to be anything. Whoever was actually responsible for the crime had already placed enough suspicion on the elderly lady.
The next room was Christine’s. After a brief debate, we decided that we wouldn’t go through her bags. It was doubtful that she’d be carrying something pertaining to her murder, and if she’d been killed for an item in her possession, it would surely have already been taken. That was the logic used to make the decision. The truth was, no one wanted to return to the room where the smell of death lingered. We dropped the bag in and shut the door again.
Instead, we went next door to Eamon. His luggage contained nothing incriminating either - something that he’d been adamant about from the start of this exercise.
Rich Strauss’ bag inspection was the first to turn something up. His neat designer man bag was opened and the contents inspected. Neatly folded underwear and shirts stared back at us.
“See? Nothing groundbreaking apart from some fantastic boutique underwear from a little shop in London I would be happy to share with you,” he drawled whilst Tanya dispassionately flipped the contents around. She really did seem to have lost the hots for Rich.
“Hey, wait!” I said, just before she was about to slam down the lid with some definite disappointment. I reached in and pulled out the sharpie marker pen I’d seen poking out from one of the rolled up pairs of boxer shorts.
“That’s not mine,” Rich said far too quickly.
“Let me guess… you have no idea how it got there?” Fergus stepped in, looking rather too pleased with himself. He turned to me with a questioning look on his face.
“It’s impossible to know for sure, but it does look like it might be the pen that was used to write the message on the flower,” I allowed.
Rich looked grave. “I’m sure you’re right, but it’s not mine. Someone must have planted it in there,” he protested.
“Huh!” was all Eamon had to say to that.
Our group inspection continued with Duncan and Bella. Both of their suitcases looked well-travelled. I wondered how many competitions Bella had won before this unlucky trip and where they’d travelled. I knew that ‘compers’, as they were known, entered hundreds of competitions a day and often won experiences that even money couldn’t buy. The interior of one of the bags revealed more interesting items. A kindle case monogrammed with B.R.H (empty due to the confiscation of all communication devices) a pair of remarkably thick woollen socks, and some rather fancy silk boxers further fuelled my suspicion that Bella may have been on a winning streak. I knew it wasn’t strictly fair to judge items against people - personal preferences could always surprise you - but Duncan and Bella didn’t strike me as the frivolous sort.
Rich conducted the honours when we inspected Tanya’s room. I wasn’t sure what exactly had happened between the pair, but he was practically sneering whilst sorting through her clothes, underwear, and fluffy socks.
“Nothing there,” Tanya concluded smugly when Rich was forced to admit defeat.
We briefly searched Lorna and Jack’s bags without finding anything. I glanced at Rich and cleared my throat. “We found a set of master keys with both of your names on it in a bag with the fork. Do either of you know why they might have been there?”
Both guides paled.
Lorna turned accusingly to face Jack. “I knew I shouldn’t have left them with you!”
“Hey! I already told you I hung them up as soon as we were released to our work station at lunchtime yesterday. I remember putting them on the hook,” Jack protested, looking panicked by the implications the missing keys had for him.
“Well, they were gone last night!” Lorna muttered.
Everyone looked from one guide to the other, but there seemed to be nothing more to say. Jack or Lorna could have taken the bunch of keys and used them to commit murder, but they could also have been stolen by someone who’d seen an opportunity.
Next, we moved all the way back down the row of rooms to Lady Isabella’s. Something about her well-spoken nature and the feeling I was sure we all had that she was used to moving in the upper circles of society made everyone apologetic. To her credit, Lady Isabella accepted the whole thing with excellent grace. In the end, Sylvia was the one who conducted her bag search. She was about to shut it again when Fergus stepped forwards and peeled a long glove off where it had stuck on the top of her suitcase. We all stared at the red smear it left behind.
“It is my glove,” Lady Isabella confirmed. “But I have no idea at all as to how that nasty stain got on it. I haven’t worn that pair since being here. They’re rather old and worn out.”
I shook my head, feeling this mystery sink further into the mire of doubt.
“One more room! We’d better hurry. There’s only ten minutes before the next challenge begins and I haven’t had my fill of sandwiches yet,” Eamon announced, his hunger overcoming his standoffish attitude.
We dutifully trooped into the room Fergus and I were sharing and the search began. I discovered I wasn’t at all surprised when a whole pack of chai teabags turned up inside my suitcase. Someone really was playing us all and in such a way that made our suspicions plausible. I’d identified the poison, so wasn’t it probable that I could have been the one to use it?
Fergus’ suitcase was cracked open next. Everyone stared at the military uniform lying on top of his clothes.
“Oh, come on! That would never fit me,” Fergus said, picking it up and demonstrating that the wearer had been considerably shorter and narrower than he was.
“You might have bought it deliberately small for this very moment,” Rich suggested. “It was dark when you were spotted wearing it.”
“I never wore it! I’ve never seen it before in my life,” Fergus protested, looking amused by all of the fuss.
“You did suggest that aliens would have chosen military wear if they were invading us, or something,” Bella meekly suggested, before blushing under scrutiny.
“That’s because I genuinely believe they might impersonate military personnel. I didn’t say anything about personally impersonating…” he shook his head, tripping over his own words. “It’s clearly not mine. For one, I’d have sourced the genuine article. This is just a tacky costume.” He pointed out the wobbly stitching and cheap polyester accents. “Someone is clearly messing with us,” he finished, voicing my own thoughts out loud.
“Then it’s someone who looks innocent who is actually the killer,” Eamon said, squinting round the circle and conveniently forgetting that his case hadn’t been tampered with.
“Not necessarily. The killer could have framed themselves to play the victim and appear less guilty,” I said, wanting to play devil’s advocate.
“We…uh…need to start the next challenge. You know bad things happen when we’re late,” Jack prompted when the silence had gone on too long.
We trooped back into the dining hall. I grabbed as many of the remaining sandwiches as I could. Rich kept that same amused look on his face when he selected a couple himself. I decided there and then that I wasn’t going to pay any attention to what the South African thought or did.
Especially now that the pen had been found in his luggage.
I chewed on a smoked salmon sandwich whilst I thought about that. The other additions to peoples’ luggage had been obvious - farcical, even, in the case of the blood-stained glove stuck to the top of Lady Isabella’s suitcase. But the pen was
subtle - just like the writing on the flower had been. Plus, Rich Strauss had the most obvious connection to Christine Montague and the most obvious motive for murder. He’d been working with her, and his boss certainly hadn’t been a saint. There could be any number of reasons for Rich to snap.
As we walked across the hall towards the room indicated by our guides, I couldn’t help but wonder if we’d already found Christine’s killer. And we still had to spend one more night alone together. Did I really want to get any closer to the truth?
Whilst the others rushed towards the door of the next challenge, eager to avoid a repeat of this morning’s dramatic motivator, I hesitated, feeling the book inside the overalls I’d reclaimed from Fergus. With no one else around, I pulled it out and flipped through The Language of Flowers until I arrived at the entry for snapdragon, which revealed its victorian hidden meaning. A single word jumped out at me.
Deception
8
Close Encounters of the Seventh Kind
“I declare that this challenge is impossible!” a red and sweaty-faced Eamon announced half an hour into our first task of the afternoon. I hated to quit on anything in life - I now understood that it was the main reason I had dedicated so long to both chemistry and my old relationship - but in this instance, I was starting to lean toward’s Eamon’s view.
The challenge had seemed fairly simple at first glance. It was a virtual challenge in which you had to place the flowers displayed on the screen in vases that corresponded with the month of the year they were most commonly available. The problem was, some flowers had a flowering span of several months, some of them even had a second flush, and there was quite a lot of debate over which months which plants and flowers were available. The challenge would only be finished when everything was in the place it should be. The course designer had known what a fiend they were being and had included percentages below the months that told us how close the displays were to being correct, but that didn’t always help. To make matters even worse, we’d been given ten lives… and we’d already lost three of them.
“What happens when we run out of lives? How bad do you think it will be?” Bella fretted, tugging on her dishevelled ponytail. Everyone’s appearance had suffered somewhat from the terrible start to the morning and then the stress of the following challenges.
“Who knows?” Rich said with a casual shrug. “I didn’t even want to be here,” he added in a lower tone.
I silently raised my eyes to the heavens. This course did rely quite heavily on the shared knowledge of those taking it and their willingness to work as a team. It was strange, but I did think that I was picking up a few tips. Were it not for the murder, it might even have been fun. However, the ambiguity of the punishments for when we got things wrong were starting to get on my nerves. Worrying about an unknown meant that everyone was overcautious in their choices, and whenever someone got something wrong, there was definitely a feeling of the group blaming them.
I also suspected that the course designer had taken into account each and every person who was attending - as the earlier poison challenge had demonstrated - and was relying on them sharing their skills with others. What the designer hadn’t accounted for was that we would be losing one of our number - and the one we’d lost might have known more about seasonal flowers than the rest of us put together. Christine had excelled at designing gardens throughout the year. Gardens that had to look their best at very specific times of the year. While she might not be an expert flower arranger, she would certainly have known which flowers cropped up at which point during the calendar.
Rich came and stood next to me, running a hand through his messily styled hair. “Too bad we can’t hack the system and get ourselves out of here, right?”
“I’m sure we’ll get it correct in the end. The punishment is probably only something like another glitter bomb,” I diplomatically suggested, unsure where Rich wanted this conversation to go. Fergus and Eamon were still looking sparkly. I privately thought it worked for Fergus but not for crusty old Eamon.
“Or it could be something much worse. Remember the shortbread?” Rich pointed out, rather annoyingly.
I tried to make light of it. “It would only have been bad if we’d actually eaten it. The course designer never expected us to.”
“They never expected a bunch of people to be locked in with a murderer either, but here we are.”
I did my best to keep my expression blank. If someone had asked me to put money on who was likeliest to have killed Christine, the person who made the most sense was the man standing right next to me. I wondered if he was really oblivious to the fact, or if this was all part of his game.
“I wish Christine was here,” Rich said, surprising me. “She was really good when it came to figuring out creative ways to break the rules. Sure, she didn’t exactly make any friends on her way up to the top, but she could always outmanoeuvre the competition.” He grinned. “She was tolerating all of this stuff during the first day, but if she’d been here today I guarantee she’d probably have found a way to melt the lock on the door, or something crazy like that.” There was a note of admiration in his voice that made me uncertain all over again about Rich being the killer. Could you admire someone but still want them dead?
“Who gets control of Christine’s company now that she’s gone?” I asked on a whim.
Rich shot me a look of amusement, triggered by my careless statement. “The bank and Her Majesty’s government, I assume. The business has been turning a profit recently, but starting a business like that from scratch doesn’t come cheap. Christine had a lot of debts. Now she’s gone, it’ll be time to pay up.” He shot me a thoughtful look. “You grow flowers… why don’t you tell me more about your business?”
Now it was my turn to shoot him a look that said he was hardly being subtle in his inquiries. “I’m definitely not in the kind of league Christine was. Nor do I ever really want to be,” I hastily added, knowing that Rich would probably suggest I did my best to rise up to get there.
He smiled a little ruefully. “Shame. I’ve been watching you through all of these challenges. You really know your stuff and you’re sensible - not hotheaded. If I’ve learned anything it’s that being hotheaded gets you nowhere in business. You might know more than the guy you’re up against, but if you lose your cool, the man who uses his head, and not his passion, will always win and know when the time is right to strike.” He made a fist with his hand and his eyes flashed cold steel before the smile returned to his expression. “I understand that you don’t want to turn into someone like Christine, but I think you’re still ambitious. I can see it in everything you do. You want to achieve… and I think I could help you to do it.” He reached out and rested a hand on my arm for a moment. I looked at the hand and he took it away again.
“Thank you for the offer. I’m pretty sure I can’t afford your services, but I’ll consider it,” I said, just to be polite.
“Oh, I would work pro-bono in your case,” he promised.
I raised my eyebrows. “Surely someone with your work experience would be able to walk into an excellent job now that I assume you’re looking for new employment.”
“Don’t be so sure. Being the number one suspect when it comes to your boss’ unsolved murder is hardly a selling point. Tell me I’m wrong?”
I felt my cheeks warm for a second. But it was the only semi-logical theory I currently had.
“Anyway, maybe I’m done with working that kind of job. High stakes business takes it out of you. Perhaps I just want to settle down in the English countryside with a flower grower who doesn’t want her business to grow too big.” He looked thoughtfully at me.
I felt my stomach twist into all kinds of knots and turned away to try to regain some sense of clarity. My eyes found Fergus across the room. He was watching me with a bemused look on his face. He silently raised his eyebrows at me. I diverted my gaze from him, too. Honestly, I had no idea what either man thought they were playing at.
“I think we should all be focusing on the challenge at hand. It’s hardly pragmatic to be standing around talking about the future when we don’t know how to get out of here, or what happens if we don’t complete everything in time,” I said, hoping to end the conversation.
Something cleared in Rich’s expression. “Right you are! We should seize the moment rather than wallowing in indecision.” I watched with mounting concern as he walked over to the touch screen and moved several of the flowers around. Alarms blared when he got two out of three incorrect and we lost further lives. Within moments, the group had surrounded Rich and pulled him back from the touchscreen. “I was just moving things along! We’re never going to get out of here unless someone puts it all on the line. We’ve got to take a risk!”
“The man has a point,” Fergus spoke up from his place in the corner, surprising everyone by agreeing with Rich. “However, he’s not the one to take the risk. We need to elect someone who will make the final decisions, and then we let them get on with it. We’re getting nowhere debating these final flower choices. We could end up spending the night in here if we aren’t careful. I’m voting for Diana.” He looked towards me with trust in his dark eyes.
“Thanks a bunch,” I muttered under my breath, knowing that Fergus’ idea came with the dubious honour of being the mug who was probably first in line to receive whatever punishment there’d be for getting the choices wrong.
But he wasn’t the only one thinking along those lines.
“I vote for Diana, too,” Eamon said, raising his right hand which still showed traces of blue glitter.
“Me too,” Rich said from where he’d been restrained, not wanting to be left out of this ridiculous vote that Fergus had initiated.
“I think that would be a good idea. Out of all of us, you do have the most hands-on seasonal flower knowledge,” Sylvia said, smiling encouragingly at me. The others murmured their assent.