The Case of the Missing Letter

by Alison Golden

  “Nothing was ever proven,” Charlotte said.

  “Someone who would send away his own wife because she cried in despair once too often,” Don growled.

  “He did everything he could think of,” Charlotte hissed.

  “A penny-pinching tyrant? A tax-dodging tycoon? That’s the man whose reputation you’re so desperate to protect? Whose reputation could so badly affect your own?”

  “Don’t say those things! He was my father!” She spoke through gritted teeth. “He loved me!”

  “Well, I wouldn’t know what that felt like,” Don shot back. “Tell me, Charlotte, last night you went to the workshop where the desk was being repaired and hit a man over the head didn’t you? I heard about it on the news. Felipe Barrios. I knew it was you, straight away.”

  “I most certainly did not,” his stepsister protested, coolly.

  “And then,” Don said, “you searched for the letter. But you didn’t find it, did you? If you had, you’d be in Market Ellestry right now, keeping your head down and hoping the police don’t decide to question you as part of their murder investigation.”

  “You’ve got a very active imagination.”

  Don paced in front of her, reveling in this chance to lecture his high-handed stepsister. “This is the kind of woman you are. And you’re proposing to represent the good people of Market Ellestry? They need someone honest, not a scheming, selfish witch who throws murderous temper tantrums when she can’t get her own way.”

  Charlotte cut across him. “You know what I think? I think it was you who broke in to that workshop and killed the repairer. Giving someone a quick bang on the head would be nothing to you if it meant you could avenge your dear, sweet, old Mummy.”

  Near the top of the spiral staircase leading to the battlements, Stephen Jeffries listened. He had stepped aside on the stairs earlier to let Charlotte pass him. Now he found himself drawn to the ill-tempered sounds of a heated argument. Only yards away now, but hidden behind the thick castle walls, he listened to this brewing contretemps with genuine concern. “Murder?” he whispered to himself, reaching for his cellphone. “God… not again…”

  Listening to Charlotte was making Don’s blood pressure soar. “Ha! You’re so wrong. You thought I was the bumbling one. But you’re the person who broke into a man’s workshop and killed him. Which of us is the bumbler now?” he rasped, towering above her, his bulk giving menace to his accusations. “Which one of us,” he roared, “is the murderer?”

  Charlotte shrieked. Her hands lashed out. Fingernails caught the side of his face and raked his skin, leaving bloody scratches. “You’re nothing!” she yelled, “But a lousy, lumpish loser.”

  Don recoiled but then seemed to remember the great heft of his own bulk. He came at her, sending her reeling back against the stone walls. “You’re not going to push me around anymore,” he roared defiantly.

  Another harsh swipe of her nails against his forehead drew more blood. She was like a panicked cat, claws protracted, searching for weakness. “You came here for revenge!” she countered. “But you’ve made everything worse. Just like always!”

  Don stood menacingly in front of Charlotte, imprisoning her against the battlements with his sheer size. “What does it say, Charlotte?” he asked, his tone so much milder now. “The letter. The one he hid away in that beautiful old desk so secretly. What does it say?” His face was inches from hers.

  Charlotte’s palms were pressed flat against the stonework behind her. “I haven’t,” she said, her voice hoarse, “a bloody clue.”

  Don stood, his heart pumping hard, his fists balled, ready for combat. “You must know something,” he insisted.

  “I thought,” she continued in the same pained tone, “that you knew. That’s why you’re here, isn’t it? Because it’s something scandalous? Something that would ruin me?”

  He shook his head and then took her by the shoulders with large, strong hands. “I’ve got upsetting news for you, Charlotte Hughes,” he told her sternly. “You’re not the center of every bloody thing that happens in the world. I’m not here because of you.”

  Don spun her around, dragging Charlotte along the stonework toward a gap in the castle wall. Her heels scraped on the stones as they struggled, and Don forced her against the crenellations, designed centuries ago to protect Medieval archers, but now the scene of a desperate family struggle.

  “Stop, you…” she complained, wriggling from his grip as her heels slipped on the stones. “Don—”

  “Thomas Hughes was a tyrant,” Don growled, “a liar, and a scoundrel. A bully and a crook. A heart attack was too good for him. He deserved a horrible death.” He was pressing her against the battlements as though trying to force her body through them.

  Charlotte felt the cold of the stone and the harshness of its unpolished surface against the back of her neck. “What about the guard at the museum, Don? Did he deserve to die, too?”

  He lifted her now and found her so feather-light in his powerful grip that he could have tossed her up into the air and let the wind carry her out into the English Channel. “Did Felipe Barrios?” Don spat back at her. “Did he deserve to have his skull smashed in? Did—“

  “Gorey Police! Stay where you are!” It was an authoritative voice, deep and commanding. “Put her down and step away.” Barnwell filled the doorway at the top of the spiral staircase. Behind him cowered Stephen Jeffries.

  Don froze. “Or what?” he demanded, reluctant to move.

  “Let her go, sir,” was the response, more calmly now as the officer inched his way along the battlements, his arm outstretched.

  Don English stared at Charlotte. Her hair was askew in the wind, her lipstick smeared, her face ashen. It would have been so easy to maneuver her into the gap between the stone crenellations and simply push her away. But he found there, in Charlotte’s face, just that victory he now realized had been his aim all along. The tables were turned, and her life was in his hands.

  “Your father wasn’t merciful,” he told Charlotte in a hoarse whisper. “But I’m not a Hughes. My mother was an English, and I’m an English too.” He let go of her shoulder. “And we don’t treat people like this.”

  He dropped his hands from Charlotte’s shoulders and turned to face the police officer, the wind and fury knocked out of him. “I’m sorry about this. I’m not a danger to anyone.”

  Don looked at Charlotte. “I think we’d better go with him,” Don said. “We both have a lot of explaining to do.”

  DI Graham stood and carried his cup of tea into the lobby. He watched as Barnwell brought in the pair. Charlotte stood defiantly. Don was meek, his shoulders slumped.

  The constable left them with Harding and walked over to Graham. “Sir, this is the guy with the paper,” he whispered quietly. Barnwell tossed his head over in Don’s direction. “The one that dropped all his papers outside the coffee shop.”

  “Is that so?” Graham eyed the two standing at the custody desk. He thought for a moment.

  “Are you going to interview them tonight, sir?” Barnwell asked.

  “No, we’ll put them in the cells. Let them stew.”

  “Thing is, sir, we don’t have enough.”

  “Hmm?” Graham was still thinking.

  “Cells, sir. We don’t have enough for everyone.”

  Graham walked over to where Harding was registering the prisoners’ details. He read over her shoulder. “Put Harris-Watts in the interview room for now, Sergeant. Mr. English can go in his cell. Ms. Hughes can go in the other.”

  “What about overnight, sir?”

  “English and Harris-Watts can share if it comes to that.” Graham smiled. “Let’s hope it’s not a typical Friday night, eh? Closing time could make things interesting in here.”

  The two old men left the library together, walking through the park near where the man was hiding. After they had passed, he crossed them both off his list of those he knew to be inside. “Empty,” he sighed. “Finally.”

 
; It had been a long, frustrating day. The library closed late on Friday, but the last patrons had now gone, and Laura was tidying the place up on her own. It was the perfect moment, and one he had been waiting for all week.

  He sent one last text on his burner phone: All good. Target alone. Stand by. He approached the library, checking his handgun with his fingertips inside his jacket pocket. Silencer on. Safety off. He climbed the few steps to the front entrance.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  IT WASN’T THAT she minded working alone, but Laura found the dimmed, deserted library a little creepy once the sun began to go down. She had noticed the sensation several times during the past few days, that tingle in her skin that told her she was being watched. “Paranoia,” she muttered to herself. Calm down. And yet, she could have sworn that she saw, or felt, a pair of eyes watching her from among the shelves. “Overactive imagination,” she told herself. Focus on your work.

  Laura had been locking the cabinets behind the large, open tabletop of the distribution desk, and it was when she straightened up that she first saw the looming figure at the library’s locked door. With most of the building’s interior lights now switched off as part of the evening routine, and with the sun already set behind the row of homes opposite the front door, it was hard to see who this late visitor might be.

  Laura smiled as she opened the door slightly. It was a patron she thought, though not one she recognized. “We’re finished for the day, I’m afraid,” she told the man. He was big, perhaps fifty and dressed in a leather jacket.

  “Oh, I won’t stay long, I promise,” he said.

  Laura’s immediate sense was that his lilting, sing-song accent, which was hard to place, was not truly his own. “We open tomorrow at nine,” she told him and made to close the door.

  A large foot jammed itself quickly into the remaining space, and she felt the door shoved powerfully open, sending her tipping back onto the floor of the library’s lobby. “Please!” she gasped. “There’s no money here.”

  The man closed the door behind him, and stood over the terrified Laura. One hand was in his jacket pocket, and she knew that it would soon emerge with a weapon. “I’m not here for money,” the man told her. “I’m here to shut you up for good.”

  Laura tried to scramble to her feet, but the man’s boot was on her ankle, hard and insistent, painfully pinning her down. “No!” she yelled putting her hand up, the other propping her upper body off the floor. “I promise I won’t say another word. I won’t testify. I… I won’t go back there. Not ever.”

  The man’s hidden hand emerged, and Laura watched him bring back the action of a small, silver pistol. He did it steadily, as though relishing the occasion. “No, you won’t,” he assured her. “There won’t be no trial, and there won’t be no wit—. Arggh.”

  A hardback volume of poetry flew through the air, sharp and direct and seemingly out of nowhere. It struck the man hard on the shoulder. He slipped on the tiled floor. Laura’s ankle was released, and she bolted for the distribution desk, seeking cover behind its reassuring bulk.

  “What the…” Another volume arrived, even before the man could complete the curse. It beat against his chest, and then another sailed over his shoulder. This one narrowly avoided hitting him on the side of the head, causing him to duck. “Who’s there?” he bellowed. “Come out here!”

  The answer was another airborne book that bounced harmlessly onto the floor by the man’s feet, and then a flurry of quick footsteps. “Damn you!” He leveled the pistol but saw no one, hearing only the sound of running feet as they receded into the space around the shelves in the main part of the library. The man turned. He had no time for flying books. He needed to finish this job. But Laura was gone.

  He swore loudly and colorfully at the ceiling of the library. His only clues were the faint footsteps, now two pairs rather than one. They told him that Laura had disappeared into the gloomy depths of the library, and that her erstwhile savior had done likewise. He unleashed one more powerful oath and stomped toward the rows of eight-foot tall shelves. They lay in chevrons, one behind the other, flanking the central reading space with its tables and magazine racks. As he looked around for a light switch, he heard more shuffling and dashing of footsteps. He swore again as the sounds carried down the corridors between the bookcases.

  Laura ducked down behind the shelves. They would shield her from the man’s view. She had just caught her breath once more when she heard faint skittering sounds and, before she could even turn, someone appeared beside her, panting as quietly as he could.

  “Billy?” Laura whispered. “Oh, Billy for heaven’s sake!”

  “Are you okay?” he asked. “He didn’t hurt you?”

  Laura placed her hand on the boy’s head. His hair was matted with sweat, but he was unharmed. “No, but he won’t stop until he does.”

  Pistol drawn, the man paced down each row of shelving, stopping to peer over the books or to stoop down and ensure Laura wasn’t hiding down low in the neighboring aisle. At the end of the third row of shelves, he turned to check whether she had doubled back toward the distribution desk. Suddenly, from out of nowhere, another heavy volume hit him right in the face. His gun went off, shattering a floor tile. The sounds of the debris skittering across the space were louder than the retort of the silenced shot. In the relative silence that followed, he was certain that he heard the voice of a child.

  Roach kept his grip on the phone deliberately strong, as he risked dropping it out of sheer surprise. He was hissing into it as Barnwell told him of the day’s events. “You’re kidding me, right, Barnwell? You’re pulling my leg. I get seconded for a day and this happens. Three arrests? You’re a superstar.”

  “It was a bit of a madhouse in there for a while, mate.” Barnwell puffed and paused as he went down a gear and dug in to pedal his way up the hill away from the front. “What’re you doin’ in the station, anyway?”

  “Dropped in to pick up my soccer cleats. Janice asked me to take the phones while she pops out to get a takeaway for the guv.” Roach opened his mouth to ask more about the day’s arrests, but stopped himself. “Gotta go. Red phone.”

  “Okay, Roachie. Call me on the radio if you need anything.”

  Roach skittered around the corner of his desk and grabbed the red handset. “Gorey Police.” He listened for a moment and took notes. Four seconds into the call, his pen paused on his notepad. He abruptly moved over to the radio transmitter.

  “Mike Bravo 882, are you receiving? Over.”

  “Mike Bravo 882 receiving loud and clear. Over,” Barnwell responded.

  “Report of active shooter situation at Gorey Library.”

  “Yeah, right, son. Nice one, Roachie.”

  “No, that’s the report, Bazza…”

  “Says who?”

  “Mrs. Hollingsworth, the little old lady that keeps reporting suspicious strangers in the area.”

  Barnwell sighed wearily. He braked to a stop and turned his bike around. “Okay, well, roger that, dispatch. ETA three minutes. Don’t hold your breath.”

  “Keep the line open, 882.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  “OVER HERE!” THE man followed the child’s voice but found the whole area behind the shelves empty. It was like chasing smoke, he grumbled to himself as he hauled his generous frame around the spacious building. “Come out, wherever you are!” he called. “You can’t escape!”

  Another book came flying at him. This time, with a fraction of a second to spare, he caught sight of Billy before the boy ducked down behind one of the desks in the center of the library. “Didn’t your mother teach you to treat books nicely?” he muttered, leveling his weapon at the table. His quarry would break either left, toward the Recommended Reading table, or right, toward the New Acquisitions display. Either way, he would be exposed for a moment.

  “Over here, you fat gibbon!” Billy’s high voice penetrated the murkiness of the library.

  The man caught sight of Laura stan
ding in the open, just by the distribution desk. He loosed off a wild round and then another as he steadied the gun, training it on the desk area. But Laura was gone again, apparently as nimble as the kid. He cursed yet again. He turned to see the boy sprinting down one of the rows of shelving to his left. “Not so fat,” he shouted back, “that I can’t chase you around all night, if that’s what it takes!” The boy disappeared around the end of the book shelves.

  Then he heard it again, from over his shoulder. It came from the other side, Laura now, drawing out the insult like a boxing announcer, “Fat gibbon!” But still, he couldn’t see her. He spun around, tracing the source of the sound, but all he heard were footsteps.

  The man fired his pistol at the ceiling twice, and then roared in deafening anger. For a man of his size, he could move pretty fast, but he began to realize that he would never catch Billy, or Laura for that matter, in a footrace. They were constantly wrong footing him, their deeper knowledge of the library outwitting him. He sagged down onto his knees near the distribution desk, catching his breath and taking a moment to check his weapon. Six rounds fired, all needlessly, and only three left. He shrugged off his heavy leather jacket and rose to one knee, still panting hard. “Bloody kid,” he muttered.

  Billy found Laura on the opposite side of the library, almost as far from the wheezing man as she could be. “We need to escape!” he hissed. “I could—”

  Laura ruffled his hair. “No more book-throwing, Billy. Someone will have called the police by now. They’ll be here soon, and this will all be over.”

  “Yes, but—“

  “Let’s watch him carefully. If, if we get a chance, we’ll run for the doors.” She was being brave for Billy’s sake. In truth, her heart was pumping with fear, and there was a strange tingle in her fingertips. She desperately hoped that what she’d told Billy was true, that the police were on their way. She was much too frightened to call them herself.