The Case of the Fallen Hero (An Inspector David Graham Cozy Mystery Book 3)

by Alison Golden

  It was exhausting work, hard on their hands and backs especially, and they desperately needed sustenance. They were running short of water. Harry’s bottle was their only source. Leo had a small packet of toffees and was doling them out to the others carefully.

  With Harry having forgotten his, and Emily insisting that they keep at least one as a backup source of illumination in the event the batteries of the others gave out, they could only use two cellphones to shine light at once. Working as quickly as they could in the relatively tight space, the four found themselves bumping into each other in the gloom, and more than once, dropping rocks on each other’s feet. After one testy exchange, Harry decided they should work in pairs, with one person resting, and the fourth organizing illumination. The phones couldn’t be left on permanently, the batteries would drain far too quickly, so they rationed short blasts of light, far too bright in this almost complete darkness, to find their way.

  The “staircase” took shape. They found they could move rocks from the tunnel without risking any further collapse. They began piling the larger ones in a layer about three feet wide. On top of these were slightly smaller rocks, and they agreed to find those with flat edges, suitable for a good foot-hold.

  Leo and Marina found themselves sitting next to each other. Marina held the phone and guided Harry to and fro as he strained to bring across more rocks for their ad hoc solution, while Emily found smaller fragments to pack between the larger ones, creating a stable platform.

  “Feels a bit like one of those adventure holidays, doesn’t it?” Marina tried.

  Leo marveled at the analogy in the circumstances, but played along. “Or those deathly dull team-building things where you all go out into the woods and solve problems together.”

  “Yeah. They always sounded awful,” Marina commented. “I’d almost prefer to be stuck down here.” She paused, her voice cracking a little. “Almost.”

  Leo put an arm around her. “It’s going to be fine. You’ll see.”

  “Sure,” she said without real confidence.

  “And it’ll make a great story, right? Imagine telling your students about this?”

  In the small chamber, Emily couldn’t help but overhear, and her earlier resolution to remain upbeat and positive left her momentarily. “You mean, tell them how we got stuck under a castle like a bunch of idiots because one of our number,” she said pointedly, “decided that curiosity definitely wouldn’t kill his particular cat?”

  Harry had his hand on her forearm in seconds. “Take it easy. We all agreed to come in here. And you have to admit,” he said, resuming his work, “that this is one hell of a freak accident. I mean these walls have stood for centuries,” he said, “and they choose today to crumble?”

  “I’m honored,” Marina quipped. She stood. “My shoulder’s a bit better. I don’t mind doing some of that leveling work, Emily.”

  Relieved, Emily took the seat by Leo. “You okay?” he whispered.

  “Yeah,” Emily replied. “This dust is playing merry hell with my allergies, though. Can hardly see straight, not that there’s much to see. Don’t suppose you’ve got any antihistamines lurking in your trouser pocket?”

  “Sadly not,” Leo confessed. “Hey, Harry? Want to take a break?”

  They switched out regularly, and within half an hour, their hands sore and scratched, the quartet had built a three-foot-tall platform on which to stand.

  “Right, then. Who’s going first?” Marina wanted to know.

  “I’ll go,” Leo said. “I’m tallest, anyway.”

  There were no objections. Leo was given all the light they had – three cellphones’ worth – as he found reasonable footholds among the pile of larger rocks they’d assembled. As he reached the top, he stretched upward to see if he could get a grip on the ledge of the fissure. The bricks – thick, old-fashioned ones, each with a maker’s mark – had come away from the wall in a pattern that left decent handholds, and Leo found the edge of a flat surface.

  “The mortar must have been terrible,” he observed, calling down to them. “The wall fell away in a nice, neat chunk.” He experimentally pulled himself up, testing to see if the wall would hold his weight, then heaved himself hard up the face of the it, aiming to get his elbows on the edge of the crevice.

  “Just take it easy,” Emily said.

  As he pushed off, the rough-hewn platform beneath him gave way, and momentum was lost. Swearing, he struggled to get both hands on the fissure, but one slipped immediately and the other just couldn’t get enough purchase. “I’m … shoot… I’m going…” he wailed as he toppled back away from the wall and into the darkness below.

  The quiet reception area of the police station was shaken by a piercing, harrowing scream. Seconds later, a door flew open, and Detective Inspector David Graham dashed to the interview room to see what on earth had happened.

  “It’s okay, boss…” he heard Harding say as he burst through the door. “Marie’s just having a tough time.”

  “Bloody hell,” he muttered. Marie was in the corner of the room, curled on the floor, hands over her ears. “What did you say to her?”

  Harding was a little red-faced, though it hadn’t really been her fault. “I mean…. She’d been talking about George in the past tense, and answering questions about him as if he were dead…” Harding began.

  “But she hadn’t truly accepted it. Not even after seeing his body this morning,” Graham finished for her.

  “Shock, sir,” Harding said by way of explaining the scream. “Reckon it’s sinking in now.”

  “Look…” Graham raced to form a plan which might help their investigation while protecting Marie from the worst of her demons. “Her doctor is on his way. Can you stay with her? Get her some water, maybe? Just keep her calm until he gets here.”

  Harding approached Marie and knelt beside her. “Would you like a glass of water, sweetie?”

  The distraught woman said nothing. She was crying, hiding her face in her hands.

  “How about a cup of tea?”

  Marie lashed out suddenly, kicking at Harding like a cornered animal and bellowing in incomprehensible French.

  “Steady…” Harding told Marie. “It’s okay… We’re here to help you, love.”

  Marie snarled again and tried to slap Harding’s offered hand away.

  “Not in the mood, sir.”

  Graham gave it a try. “Marie? Your doctor will be here in just a few minutes. Dr. Bélanger tells me that you’ve been getting much better lately,” he fibbed – Graham had yet to speak to the psychiatrist – “and he’s looking forward to…”

  Marie yelled at him, inconsolable, desperate, and then lunged forward, trying to bite his hand.

  “Right, that’s it,” Graham decided, stepping back. “Sergeant, I’m sorry to do this, but we’re going to place her in a holding cell until her shrink gets here.”

  “Okay, sir.”

  “If you can do it without cuffing her, great. But if need be…”

  “Understood, sir.” It took cajoling and more force than Harding would have liked, given the circumstances, but they got Marie downstairs and into a cell within five minutes. By the time she was in the small, bare room, perhaps realizing what was happening, the fight had largely left her, and she was a little more docile. Still, Graham reasoned, he could take no risks with the safety of his officers.

  Harding ensured that Marie had nothing with which she might harm herself, and she pushed a plastic beaker of cold water through the hatch. “Drink this, love, and breathe deep, okay?”

  Graham watched with professional pride. “Well handled, Sergeant.”

  “It breaks my heart,” Harding told him as they climbed the stairs together, “after the day she’s had.”

  “It’s not what we’d prefer,” Graham agreed, “but it won’t be for long.”

  The Detective Inspector’s prediction was accurate. After only ten minutes in the cell, Marie seemed calm enough to talk to her psychiatrist, Dr. Bé
langer. Graham and Harding escorted him downstairs, adding only a little detail to Graham’s earlier phone message.

  “She’s becoming more aware of events, but only gradually,” Graham told him. “The shock, I think, really knocked her sideways. We’ve tried our best, but neither Sergeant Harding nor I are experts at this kind of thing.”

  Bélanger was well over six feet tall, but he had a soothing, gentle manner. He straightened his navy blue tie and strode into the holding cells area. “On the left,” Harding told him. “Second door.”

  Bélanger opened the hatch and spoke to Marie. “Madame Ross?”

  She began crying again, but Bélanger motioned to the officers that he would be quite alright.

  “I would climb mountains,” Graham told Harding as they left Bélanger to it, “for a cup of tea. There just hasn’t been a moment.”

  “I’ll do the honors, sir.”

  “She is borderline in many ways,” Bélanger told them half an hour later. “She is suffering from clinical depression as well as generalized anxiety. She’s had a couple of psychotic episodes in the past that have required hospitalization, but with medication, support, and limited stress, she’s able to function. Her husband’s death, though, seems to have tipped her over the edge.”

  Harding listened carefully. Their little constabulary had brought in psychiatrists for a number of reasons during her tenure, and she always found what they had to say fascinating.

  Bélanger appeared thorough, professional, and knowledgeable, even if he did spout a few too many buzzwords for her liking. “We really didn’t want to put her in a cell, Doctor,” Harding contributed.

  “I don’t think it exacerbated her condition,” Bélanger assured them, “but I’m surprised by the sudden violence. It’s not something I associate with Marie.”

  “Losing a loved one can turn a person into someone they themselves don’t recognize….” Graham began, but then stopped. Harding and Bélanger waited, but Graham seemed lost in thought.

  Bélanger recommended that they release Marie from the cell. He would ensure that she received her medication and would quickly move her to a psychiatric unit on the south coast of the island. As they were making the arrangements, the phone rang.

  “Mrs. Taylor?” Graham was surprised. “Is everything alright?” He listened, flashed Harding a worried glance, and promised that they’d be right over.

  “Trouble at the Inn?” Harding asked.

  “Something of a ‘commotion,’ according to Mrs. Taylor,” Graham related. “George Ross’ sister has just awoken.”

  Stephen Jeffries sat in his office, wracking his brains. Across the simple, black desktop, Constables Roach and Barnwell observed the fretting figure, and as they were trained to do, wrote down everything of value. The problem for them both was that, especially when nervous, Jeffries spoke in a ceaseless, excited torrent.

  “I really don’t know how helpful I can be,” he said, well into the fourth minute of a protracted, stream-of-consciousness monologue. “They played beautifully at the wedding, went back to their hostel afterward, and then apparently visited the castle this morning. I don’t think I remember seeing them,” he said, glancing around the room like a distracted squirrel. What he could provide, though, were cellphone pictures of the quartet playing at the wedding reception, which he promptly forwarded to Roach’s email address.

  Roach had done most of the talking – that which could be fit in edgewise between Jeffries nervous diatribes – and was committed to finding the missing foursome. However, Barnwell regarded this whole adventure as a waste of police time. “They’re musicians, right?” he’d confirmed. “They’ll be down the pub, getting hammered, spending whatever dosh they made last night at the wedding.”

  Roach, however, was a lot more concerned. Jeffries had left them in no doubt that, particularly for the curious with a disdain for closed doors and proscriptive signs, the castle could be an endless source of amusement. He had visions of the four string players locking themselves into some ancient basement or falling down some poorly lit spiral staircase, nursing broken limbs and calling for help. The thought chilled him.

  “Well,” Roach reminded Barnwell. “The lady on the front desk definitely saw them come in, but she did not see them leave.”

  “So she says, and I believe her,” Jeffries agreed. He looked harassed, his hair ever so slightly out of place, This was most uncharacteristic and indicated that this had been the rarest of days, one on which Stephen Jeffries found himself genuinely flustered by one event after the other.

  “We’ll search the grounds again. Would you like to accompany us?” Roach offered. He didn’t need to look over at Barnwell to understand the older man’s utter contempt for what he saw as a senselessly wasteful plan.

  “I wouldn’t want to be in the way, but if I can be helpful,” Jeffries replied, “I certainly will.”

  The grounds were immaculate. Not only was the castle host to a wedding, but the staff recognized the importance of neatness, “putting their best foot forward,” and maintaining a dignified air at this historic landmark. Jeffries first led the two police officers around the quadrangles where the wedding had taken place. They were deserted now. Jeffries was glad to see that the remaining guests had resisted the temptation to simply mill uselessly about near the scene of the accident… or should that be crime scene…. No, he corrected himself. Let’s not put the cart before the horse. Scene of the accident would do for now. Like Mrs. Taylor, he was intensely anxious that a mysterious, sudden death should not unduly color the public’s opinion of this fine place.

  “That’s four times,” Barnwell reminded Roach quietly when they had finished scouring the castle’s exterior. “If you want to do a fifth tour of the grounds today, you’ll do it alone.”

  “Right,” Roach agreed, though he found Barnwell’s habitual laziness particularly unhelpful today. “Let’s head inside.” He turned to Jeffries. “Where do the tourists normally go?”

  Jeffries led them into the darker, cooler interior of the castle. The temperature dropped significantly, and all three men were glad of the respite from what had become an unseasonably warm day. “The old jail cells,” Jeffries explained.

  “Wonder if our missing quartet have managed to lock themselves in?” Barnwell offered.

  Jeffries double-checked each cell, accompanied by Roach. “I’m afraid that’s impossible. They can’t be opened without one of the master keys.” He led them down the narrow hallway, lit by wall-mounted electric lights that had taken the place of the torches that had for so long illuminated these ancient chambers.

  “Is it worth calling their names?” Roach asked, mostly rhetorically.

  Jeffries, for one, apparently felt it was worth a try. “Emily!” he called down the hallway, listening to the dull, stony echo. “Marina!” he tried next. All three men listened carefully for a response, but none came. Jeffries shrugged and led them onward.

  They passed a closed-off room that Jeffries explained was earmarked as the home of their new torture exhibit. “Fantastic,” Barnwell said. “Maybe they’re torturing each other for fun.”

  The door was still closed, but Jeffries noticed that the sign barring people from entering had been moved. He slid it back into place. “Probably some kids. The room’s not open yet. And what with today’s accident, I’m not sure it ever will be.”

  “Pity,” Barnwell said. “A little S&M never hurt anyone, right? Let’s have a little look-see.”

  Roach rolled his eyes and opened the door to the exhibit. The three men went inside. The room was completely dark and smelled very dusty. “This is going to set me off,” Roach complained, shielding his nose.

  “Emily!” Jeffries yelled again.

  “If it turns out,” Constable Barnwell told his colleague, “that they’re actually down the pub, you owe me dinner at the Bangkok Palace.”

  Roach had his hands on his hips. “Can we focus on the…”

  “With drinks,” Barnwell underlined. �
��Lots of them.”

  “I thought you were off the sauce?” Roach whispered back as Jeffries poked around the darkened room.

  “Ow!” they heard him say.

  Both officers were alert. “You alright, sir?” Roach asked, shining his flashlight in Jeffries’ direction.

  “Yes, yes,” Jeffries said, a little embarrassed. “Just caught myself on this pike.” Roach illuminated the seventeenth century weapon, a five-foot long wooden shaft topped with a truly nasty looking sharpened spike. “Oof. Wouldn’t want to find myself on the wrong end of one of those.”

  “Shall we?” Barnwell, suddenly tired of his idea, urged the others toward the door and back into the relative comfort of the hallway.

  Jeffries wrung his hands. “Where on earth have they got to?” he anxiously wondered aloud.

  CHAPTER 9

  IT WAS IN David Graham’s nature to try to bring compassion to every one of his encounters with the public, however challenging, but having to face his second hysterical person of the afternoon was not a challenge he relished.

  “Okay, Mrs. Taylor. What’s the story?” he asked a little wearily.

  The proprietor was nearing her wit’s end. “I can’t have these disturbances, Inspector Graham. It’s not right,” she insisted, wringing her hands. “This is a respected hotel, and it’s Sunday, for the love of all that is holy.”

  Graham made a conciliatory face. The White House Inn and its long-suffering owner had indeed been handed far more than their fair share of troubles in the past six weeks. Mrs. Taylor was all too aware that the impact of a negative buzz on social media could mean ruin. Gorey was hardly experiencing a “crime wave,” but two mysterious deaths in as many months were two more than was reasonable for somewhere so idyllically quiet.

  “Why don’t you just tell me what happened?” Graham said, notebook at the ready.

  “She woke up, well after lunch time.”

  “Who did?”

  “Eleanor, Mr. Ross’s sister,” Mrs. Taylor said. “She knew nothing of the whole business, she was just sleeping off a hangover. I suppose she has a cellphone. Anyway, she woke up and suddenly finds out about her poor brother.”