by Ruby Loren
“Hello?” Teagan called, but just as quickly fell silent again. No one said anything, but I knew we all sensed the same thing.
No one was going to answer us.
I understood the source of the growing feeling of dread when I reached the office and poked my head around the corner.
Someone had added to the Halloween decorations on the cork board.
A woman I’d never seen before hung amongst the paraphernalia, held in place by the large wooden stake that had been hammered through her chest. Did someone think she was a vampire? My shocked brain threw out, even as I heard the exclamations of horror behind me, as everyone else arrived in the room.
I stepped around the side of the desk to take a closer look at the victim and tripped on something. My hands landed on the board, either side of the victim’s pinned body. I had time to note that the stake wasn't the only thing holding her up, before I looked down and saw what had made me trip.
“It’s Lyra!” I shouted, immediately dropping to her side. There was blood coagulating in her hair and I feared the worst. “She’s got a pulse! Someone call an ambulance right now. Call the police too,” I added, raising my gaze to the hanging corpse.
“I’m the office first-aider,” Laura announced, rushing forwards and kneeling down next to me. She gently tilted Lyra’s limp head and inspected the wound.
"Does anyone know who she is?” I asked, inclining my head towards the unfortunate woman on the board.
She had short brown hair and was dressed in jeans and what had once been a cream, cable-knitted sweater. My eyes naturally skated over the gaping wound in her chest and instead focused on the cable ties around her wrists. They were hooked onto nylon thread. There was a single coat hook on either side of the cork board that had been used to anchor the nylon and aid in her gravity-defying position.
I couldn't remember if the coat hooks had been there before tonight, but I was willing to bet they hadn’t been.
“I know her. She’s Jayne Fairfax,” Adrian said, breaking the silence in the room. “When I was running my own business, I employed her company to help with promotion. She and her husband call themselves ‘business psychologists’. What they are is a couple of scam artists. They’re the reason why…” He trailed off, blinking. “It’s terrible what’s happened to her,” he tagged on, far too late.
“Who would do something like this?” Alex said, his already pale face now looking the colour of curdled cheese.
I didn’t have a clue about who was responsible for the woman pinned to the board, but I thought I already had a clue or two about the motive. The memory of the dead rat swinging in the tree resurfaced in my mind.
I stood up and walked back to the entrance of the office.
“Where are you going?” Alex asked.
Four white faces looked back at me.
“Zara’s car was in the car park, so it stands to reason that she's still here. Unless she did it," I added as a careless afterthought. I bit my tongue. “Sorry, I don't mean that. There’s no way she could have lifted this woman up.”
I noticed that Laura was the only one who gave me a remotely withering look. Interesting, they’re not sure about their boss' character, I thought, saving that knowledge to mull over later.
“We should go and look for her in case she’s…” I made myself look over at the woman with the short brown hair, who’d been staked to the cork board. “…in trouble,” I finished, a little weakly.
I wasn’t immediately overwhelmed with offers of assistance.
“I’ll just go,” I muttered and walked out the door. After a second, I heard someone follow me out.
“Do you think the killer’s still inside?” Alex whispered, loudly enough to make me jump. I wondered if he’d gone to stage school and had been taught a different kind of whisper from the conventional quiet option.
“I don't know,” I said, feeling horribly defenceless. “We weren't exactly silent on our way in, so they’re probably long gone.” I hoped so, anyway.
Alex gulped. “I knew I should never have quit karate.”
We reached the door of the main hall. I tried the handle.
“It’s locked," I said, the sense of foreboding growing again.
“Police! Everyone stay right where you are!” someone yelled, nearly making me jump out of my skin.
I lifted a hand to my face, shielding my eyes from the bright beam of light.
“The body’s in the office with the light on. A woman in there needs medical attention. I think she was knocked out by the person who did it. Zara’s missing,” I told them and briefly explained about the PR boss’ car being in the car park.
Someone flicked a light switch and the fluorescent strips flashed and stuttered into life, leaving me with white spots in front of my eyes. Some of the feeling of dread melted away, but not much, not much at all.
The next several minutes passed in a flurry of coordinated activity. Backup arrived and it wasn’t long before forensics were in situ. The police were currently searching the building for any sign of Zara or the killer.
Most of the PR team were huddled near the entrance in the icy wind. I’d stayed further down the corridor, keen to try and keep at least some of the feeling in my fingers.
“Hello, I'm Detective Maynard and this is Detective Toyne. What's your name?” someone asked, pleasantly.
I turned and found myself facing the woman I'd seen directing all of the personnel currently present. She had blonde hair, streaked with grey, and a face that was still attractive despite the lines which crossed her forehead and creased her eyes. A younger man stood next to her. He had dark hair swept into a deep side-parting and a mouth fixed in a permanent pout.
“I”m Madigan Amos. I’m working as a consultant for Pendalay Zoo. I was invited here tonight for a meeting with ZaZa PR, who I’m supposed to be coordinating with. But when I got here…” I briefly explained everything that had happened after I’d met Teagan on the steps outside the building.
“Is there anything else you think we ought to know?” Detective Maynard asked.
“Yes. When I first met Zara, she received a phone call that upset her quite a lot. She told the person to leave her alone. I also happened to be passing by her house when she discovered that a rat had been killed and tied up in the tree by her front step. Apparently things like that have happened to her before…”
“I knew it," Detective Toyne cut in.
Both the detective and I looked at him in surprise.
“I’m sorry?” The detective managed to fill her voice with a warning that somehow implied her many years of experience and the consequences of crossing her.
“It’s obvious, isn’t it? Of course she’s involved. This is all about her,” he said. Something about his tone of voice seemed to imply that Zara was the one responsible, as opposed to being the victim.
Apparently I wasn’t the only one who thought that.
“It sounds to me as though this woman, Zara Banks, is the focus of a stalker,” Detective Maynard corrected.
“Don't be so sure. I was on another case just like this one before I came down to Cornwall. There was a woman who sent herself death threats. She even pretended to break into her own house and graffitied on the wall. It was all for attention. These women… they do it to themselves,” he said.
“Jack, please consider our company,” the detective said, now openly angry. She turned away from me a little, but that didn’t make it any harder to overhear her next words. “You may have come highly recommended, but remember you’re new here. I’ll be discussing this in greater depth with you later.”
The other detective just shrugged. He opened his mouth to say something else, but a shout went up that the main hall door had been unlocked.
“I found her!” someone yelled a second later.
I looked up in time to see Zara being led out of the hall by another police officer. He seemed to be supporting her.
“Are you okay?” I asked when no one else did.
She nodded and then shook her head.
“Ms Banks, are you aware that a homicide has taken place?” Maynard asked.
“Oh no, not again!” Zara said and then bit her lip.
To anyone who wasn’t aware of Zara’s history, that would have been a pretty strange statement to make. Fortunately, I'd already given the detectives a brief history of my own experiences.
I noticed Detective Toyne shake his head from side to side. He received the full wattage of Maynard’s glare. I was willing to bet there’d be fireworks later on tonight during his disciplinary meeting.
“It's Jayne who’s dead, isn’t it?” Zara asked, earning herself a sceptical look from the detective. I too, was curious about how much Zara had known about what was going on.
“Ms Banks, we need to talk to you about tonight's events. Shall we find a quiet place?” Detective Maynard said, adopting a soothing tone.
Zara bit her lip again and shook her head. “I’d rather stay with Madi, if that’s okay. I might need help getting things straight. My head's in a spin.”
I could tell the two detectives were reluctant for me to stay, but they needed the information, and after what I’d told them, they knew how much this must be affecting her.
She’s holding up remarkably well! I privately thought. When Lowell and I had witnessed the rat incident, she’d been in tears. Now there was a body pinned to her cork board and she merely looked a little pale. It could just be the shock, I mentally allowed.
“Would you mind taking us through what happened tonight?” Detective Maynard prompted.
Zara took a deep, trembling breath and began. “We all worked late today, finalising ideas for Halloween. Unfortunately, we haven’t got much time at all to put an event together and promote it. I’d been piling on the pressure all day when I remembered I’d arranged to meet with Jayne. Because of the deadline, I realised it would be sensible to get everyone together for a group meeting to make sure we were all on the same page about what’s coming up. I sent the rest of the team out to get some dinner for themselves. I didn't go because I’d asked Jayne to come early, so we could discuss exactly what I needed her and her husband to do.”
“Had you met Jayne before?” Maynard asked.
Zara shook her head. “She approached me with a business pitch and I was interested. I invited her down here tonight to talk through her ideas with the rest of the team. I wanted to see what everyone thought before I made a final decision on what she was offering.”
I mentally raised an eyebrow, knowing exactly what Adrian would have had to say about a collaboration.
“Did you know the victim?” Detective Toyne suddenly addressed me.
“I did not, but Adrian knew her.”
“Oh? What were the circumstances of their relationship?”
I shook my head apologetically. “You’ll have to ask him that. I only know what he told me.”
Detective Toyne looked annoyed but refrained from making another comment.
“Ms Banks, you were telling us what happened after you’d dismissed the rest of your team,” Maynard reminded her.
Zara nodded, her face looking pinched. “Jayne arrived and I took her into the office. We chatted about what was going to happen in the meeting. Our talk turned to the Halloween event we’ve got to plan, and I got a little carried away. We’d been working on it all day as a group and I wanted to show Jayne the branding we’ve come up with. I’d left the posters in the hall, so I left Jayne in the office and went to go and get them.”
She took another shuddering breath. “I’d got the posters and was about to walk back across the corridor when I dropped them everywhere. A second later, I heard Jayne say something to someone. She sounded surprised, but then I heard… I heard…”
“You heard her being killed?” Toyne finished, and this time he sounded serious.
Zara nodded. "It was horrible! I had my keys in my jacket pocket, so I quickly locked the hall door and turned the lights out. I was terrified. I thought that he’d break down the door and do something horrible to me, too.”
“Did you hear the assailant enter the building through the doors down the corridor?" Maynard enquired.
Zara tilted her head from side to side before letting out a big sigh. "I'm sorry. I don’t know. The doors open and close all day long, so I can’t say I notice it anymore. We’re not the only people who use the building, you see. I think there's another entrance around the back, but it's meant to be a fire escape.”
“Ms Banks, what happened after you heard what happened to the woman you’d been meeting with?” Maynard asked.
“I stayed where I was and prayed that whoever it was didn’t know I was in the building. I heard footsteps right outside the door and I thought I was done for. But then I did hear the double doors open, and it sounded like someone ran back into the office. I heard someone calling…" She broke off again to bite her lip. “I wasn't sure who it was. I just hoped that the person who’d done something to Jayne would stay hidden, or run away.”
She paused to rub her fingers together in a nervous tic I hadn’t noticed her do before.
“There were some more footsteps after that, going up and down, but I didn’t know who it was. A little while later, I heard voices again, but I was too afraid to move. I wasn’t sure what was happening, so I stayed hidden. I was there until you opened the door and I realised it was okay to come out. I heard someone shout that the police were here, but I just thought it could all be some horrible trick,” she finished, limply.
I did my best to keep my face blank, but I was having a hard time of it. I knew that Zara was at the centre of a storm of nasty behaviour, but I still found it difficult to swallow that she’d locked herself in a room and hidden - both when the murder took place and when Lyra had unwittingly walked in on the killer.
I noticed Detective Toyne giving her a look that plainly showed he didn’t believe there'd been anyone else in the building at all - just Zara.
I tried not to roll my eyes. I was willing to believe the story he'd told about his last case, but I was pretty certain that this was a different matter. From a physical perspective alone, I didn’t think Zara was able to have hoisted the dead woman up onto the cork board, even with the help of the cable ties.
I also didn’t think she had it in her.
Cowering in a room (unfortunately) rang true as more her style. I'd already witnessed her reaction to things that upset her, and I didn’t think this was an exception.
Unless she’s an Oscar-worthy actress, I added, playing devil’s advocate with myself.
“Zara? Are you okay?” The double doors burst open and a man with thinning brown hair ran in, despite the efforts of two police officers, who were trying to restrain him.
“Sir, this is a crime scene!” One tried to tell him.
“It’s okay. It’s my husband, Darren,” Zara explained to the baffled detectives.
“How did you know?” she asked him.
“Alex called me to say you were missing. I’m glad you're all right. What happened?” he asked, brushing a hand across her hair to push a few strands back into place.
“It’s him. This time he killed someone,” Zara said. Her bottom lip wobbled a little, but with a remarkable effort, she stilled it. Something that looked like determination crossed her face.
“Is it true?” he said, addressing the detectives - as though Zara was prone to having flights of fancy about murder.
“Yes, it is. A woman has been killed and displayed in a very disturbing manner,” Detective Maynard said, shortly.
I could tell she was considering Darren.
“You’re okay though? You’re sure?” He rested his hands on Zara’s shoulders.
His jaw moved back and forth and I realised he was grinding his teeth to hide just how furious he was. I imagined how powerless he must feel, knowing that someone was affecting his wife’s life in such damaging ways and not being able to stop it.
“I’m fine…
really!” she said, even managing a little smile.
“Mr Banks, where were you before you received the call about your wife being missing?” Detective Maynard asked.
“I was back at our house, working. There wasn't anyone there with me, I’m afraid,” he said with an apologetic shrug. “I work freelance from home as a financial advisor to businesses. Often, I help ZaZa PR’s clients, who could use a hand with their financials. I also do the business’ books. When Alex called me, I jumped straight in the car. I just knew this had something to do with him.”
“Do either of you have any idea who might be targeting you?” Maynard asked.
The couple looked at one another and shook their heads.
“I think it’s about time the police earned their money and did something to figure that out, don’t you? We’re the victims here!” Darren protested.
I suddenly wondered if Zara had noticed anyone leave the building after she’d heard the rest of us come in. I was about to open my mouth to ask her when Darren spoke again.
“We’re going home. You can come and see us, but this sort of treatment just isn’t fair!” He gently took Zara’s arm and led her back down the corridor towards the doors at the end.
The detectives and I watched in silence, as the double doors slammed closed behind them.
“You’d have to be deaf to not hear that,” Detective Toyne commented.
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Books in the Series
Penguins and Mortal Peril
The Silence of the Snakes
Murder is a Monkey’s Game
Lions and the Living Dead
The Peacock’s Poison
A Memory for Murder
Whales and a Watery Grave
Chameleons and a Corpse
Foxes and Fatal Attraction
Monday’s Murderer
Prequel: Parrots and Payback