by Agatha Frost
“Sean?” Damon hurried over. “Where have you been?”
A wide-eyed mixture of relief and terror spread across Sean’s face. Still in his grey jumpsuit from the convention, he hadn’t showered, and judging by the dark brown circles around his eyes, he definitely hadn’t slept.
“She won’t let me in,” he said, barely looking Damon in the eye, “to see Taron.”
“There’s not much to see.” Damon led Sean out of the intensive care unit and back out into the brighter general corridor. “I’ve been worried sick. I’ve been calling.”
“Taron had my phone,” he said, clearly agitated. “My costume doesn’t have pockets. Is he in there? Is he okay?”
“He’s recovering.” Damon directed Sean to a row of plastic chairs in front of a window looking out at a small courtyard garden enclosed by high hospital walls on every side. “Sean, where have you been all night?”
“I-I got lost,” he muttered, glancing at Claire as she watched from the side-lines. “I saw them putting Taron on that stretcher. I panicked. Started walking. It didn’t feel real. I ended up in a mall. I tried to find the hall again, but I couldn’t. I-I didn’t know what to do.”
Claire’s gut wrenched. In her search for Sean, she hadn’t thought to look further than the hall. She knew Blackburn well enough to know the shopping centre was only one short side street away from King George’s Hall.
“You’ve been wandering around all night?”
Sean nodded. “I started following signs for the hospital. The man at the front desk told me where Taron was, but they won’t let me see him.”
“Didn’t you ask anyone for help?” Damon urged. “Someone would have given you a phone. You could have got a taxi back to Northash; we would have paid on the other side.”
Sean shrugged, staring at his fingers as they twisted together. Claire could barely believe what she was hearing. Being shy was one thing, but wandering around a strange town all night to avoid asking anyone for help was as unusual as it came. Even three hundred miles away from home, she imagined she’d be able to figure something out.
“You know this doesn’t look good,” Damon whispered after a heavy exhale. “You vanished right after Taron was stabbed.”
“I panicked,” he repeated. “I didn’t want it to be real.”
“Want what to be real?” Damon pushed. “Did – did you . . .”
“Did I what?”
“Did you stab Taron?”
The question sank like a heavy stone in a still pond. Sean looked from Damon to Claire, his red-cheeked face expressionless. The denial didn’t come. He jumped up and set off down the corridor, walking fast. Claire rose to follow, but Damon remained in the plastic chair.
“There’s no point,” he said, looking up at the bright lights in the ceiling. “He won’t stop and talk. I know it looks strange, but this is just what Sean is like. Taron is the one he’s comfortable with. He’s the only one patient enough.” Damon forced himself upright. “His grandparents are old-fashioned. They’d never have taken him to get diagnosed, but we’ve always suspected something was different about Sean. We never point it out. We love him, but at times like this, it becomes more obvious. For what it’s worth, I don’t think he’d have stabbed Taron. He’d never have reason to. They’re like brothers.”
Perhaps Claire wasn’t familiar enough with Taron and Sean’s relationship to question such a statement, but she knew what she’d just seen with her own eyes. Innocent people rarely fled.
“You’re right,” Damon said as they weaved through the busy corridors in search of the exit. “We can’t help Taron as he is now, but we can try to figure out how he got there. There’s just one question.”
“What’s that?”
“Where do we start?”
The bus pulled up at the stop outside The Hesketh Arms. As tempting as it was to sit down at one of the outdoor tables for a Sunday lunch, they didn’t linger. Instead, they went to the clock tower in the middle of the quiet square.
“I was right here when I overheard Rina last night,” Claire said, facing the corner where she could just make out Marley’s Café. Turning a full one hundred and eighty degrees, Claire pointed to the corner leading away from the row of shops with Claire’s Candles in the middle. “Unless she knows someone who lives in Christ Church Square, I’m going to guess she was on her way to the bed and breakfast.”
“Maybe she came down from Glasgow with a uni mate?”
“Let’s find out.”
They walked around the corner to the bed and breakfast. The signage hadn’t changed since Agnes and Jeanie Reid’s tenure as owners. With the shame of her sister’s indiscretions hanging over her, Jeanie had left the village. The rumour mill had suggested she’d moved to Wales to live with a cousin, but nobody had heard from her. Wherever she was, Claire hoped she was getting on with her life. She might have had her issues with Agnes even before her murderous turn, but Jeanie had always been pleasant.
Claire had never stayed at the bed and breakfast, but she’d visited a handful of times, especially in recent months. Until the small, terraced cottage in Christ Church Square had come up for rent, Ryan had lived at the B&B with his two kids. Inside, it didn’t seem the new owner had got around to changing the dated décor. They walked up to the small desk at the end of the hall; behind it, the door to the back private area was shut.
“Hello?” Claire called.
The door burst open, and a short, scruffy man with a loose tie and lopsided bifocals – he had to be in his fifties – greeted them with a toothy grin.
“I hope you’re not looking for a room,” he said in place of a greeting as he tapped the ‘NO VACANCIES’ sign on the wall. “All full up, I’m afraid.”
“We live in the village.”
“Locals?” The man’s face lit up, and he hurried around the desk. His voice had a twinge of a soft Scottish accent. “I was wondering when the welcome committee would come out! You hear that about these small villages, aye?”
Claire and Damon smiled awkwardly at each other as the short man heartily shook their hands. Neither Claire nor Damon was particularly tall, but the man’s height left her feeling relatively giant.
“Please, come and sit down.” He ushered them around the desk and into the back room. “Name’s Fergus Ferguson.”
“Fergus Ferguson?” Damon arched a brow at Claire.
“My parents had quite the sense of humour.” He cleared a sofa of boxes and motioned for them to sit. “Please, make yourself comfy. Tea?”
“No, thank you,” Claire replied as she sat on the edge of the sofa in the cluttered room. “We’re actually here to ask about a guest.”
“Are you sure you don’t want tea?” Fergus asked as he played with a strange contraption containing a metal teapot suspended above a small travel stove. “It’s my own invention. Pours the tea for you.” He grinned proudly as he fiddled with the machine. “I’m somewhat of an inventor.” The teapot began pouring tea, and it had almost filled the cup before it swung back, spilling boiling water all over the hissing flame. “Needs a little tinkering, but I’m getting close!”
“What’s wrong with a kettle?” Damon whispered to Claire as he slid onto the sofa next to her.
Claire shrugged, smiling politely as Fergus made himself a cup of tea. Rather than clearing room on one of the armchairs set up around the small sitting room, he sat on the edge of a coffee table and hugged his cup.
“I’m not quite set up, but I didn’t expect to be so fully booked so quickly! That ad in the paper worked wonders.” He looked around the room as though he were right at home. “Think this used to be an office, but it’s quite comfy as a private sitting room of sorts, no?”
Without giving them time to respond, he leaned in and asked, “Tell me, what’s the story with this place? I’ve been hearing tales of a mad woman with a knitting needle going around and killing people. It’s all quite fantastical! I’ve always had somewhat of a wild imagination, myself. Away with t
he fairies, my old mam used to say.” He sipped more tea, and almost choking on it, put the cup on the side. “Enough about me! Tell me about you! Are you married? You do make a lovely couple.”
“Friends,” Claire said, unsure how to take the impish man. “We’re here to see another friend of ours. Rina?”
“Ah, the beautiful girl with the silver hair!” he boomed, clapping his hands together. “You’re friends of hers?”
Claire let Damon nod, relieved her assumption had proven correct. Her father, an apt detective, had once mentioned pushing people to volunteer information was much easier than asking them for it outright.
“Is she in?” Claire probed when Fergus went back to smiling at them like they were the most fascinating pair he’d ever laid eyes on.
Fergus slapped his knees and slid off the table. “I shall have a look!”
Fergus hurried out of the back room, around the desk, and up the stairs. Once he was out of sight, they both let out the laughter they’d been holding in.
“He’s crackers,” Damon said.
“Oh, absolutely,” she agreed. “I quite like him though.”
“Let’s get out of here before he comes back and tries to force tea on us again.”
Back in the hallway, Damon wandered over to the door to the main sitting area where Agnes and Jeanie had always been knitting and playing cards. He pressed his ear against the wood, and his eyes widened as he heard something Claire couldn’t.
“That’s Dawn Ship 2 music,” he said.
Damon pushed open the door. The pale floral décor in this room hadn’t changed either. Most of the living room furniture had gone, but the small dining tables for mealtimes were still set up at the back end of the long room. Two guests were already in the room, but instead of eating, they were gaming on a desktop computer with two screens set up across three tables pushed together as a desk.
One man, sitting in front of a screen showing images similar to those Claire had spotted on Taron’s computer the morning of the convention, hammered his fingers on the keyboard. The other man sat beside him, typing on a different keyboard in front of a screen showing video footage of a man staring at a computer with a chat box running down the side. It wasn’t until Claire noticed herself and Damon in the video’s background that she realised the feed was coming from a camera attached to the top of the gaming screen.
Noticing them seconds later, both men turned.
“Mark?” Damon walked into the room. “Daniel? What are you two doing here?”
Based solely on his height, Claire knew the man playing the game was Mark. Even sat down, his slender limbs seemed impossibly long. He had huge eyes, cropped brown hair, a lengthy narrow nose, and a toothy smile. The other man was average height, although he looked tiny in comparison. His thick hairline started impossibly close to his eyebrows, jutting up off his head like a porcupine. She knew both were in their early thirties.
“Came for the convention, didn’t we?” Mark replied, turning straight back to the game. “I’m streaming to two thousand people right now, so I’m a little busy.”
“Two thousand?” Damon hurried over and leaned over the backs of their chairs to look at the screens. “Oh, you aren’t joking. Where’d they all come from?”
“Yesterday’s convention vlog raked in the views,” he replied, eyes still fixed on the screen. “Knew it would happen eventually.”
“You were at the convention?” Damon asked.
“Duh.” Mark huffed. “Just because your precious Taron told me to steer clear didn’t mean I was going to. Going and getting himself stabbed was the best thing he could have done for me. He never believed I could do this.”
“Dude, he’s fighting for his life in hospital.”
“So what?” Mark suddenly stopped typing and let out an angry roar. “Look what you made me do! Drew a damn solar flare card. I was kicking their backsides.” To the camera, he said, “Guys, I’ll be back soon. Let me get rid of these intruders, then I’m good for a rematch. Oh, and don’t forget to follow me on Twitter.”
Daniel clicked something on the other screen and the video vanished. Mark dragged his chair around and leaned back, his long legs stretching out as he rested his hands on his slim middle.
“Finally got yourself a girlfriend?” Mark said to Damon, nodding at Claire without giving her a look. “Never thought you had the stones.”
“This is Claire,” Damon explained. “My friend. You’ve met her before.”
“Oh, right.” Mark nodded at Claire, his bug-eyed gaze not quite landing on her. “Did you want something specific? Because I need to get back. That weirdo owner is letting me use his dining room until dinnertime. Can’t let this new fame slip through my fingers, can I?”
Daniel grabbed two tall cans of what looked like energy drinks from a cooler box under the table and cracked them open before handing one to his friend. Mark took a deep slurp while staring at Damon; he really was just waiting for them to leave.
“I didn’t know you were here,” Damon admitted. “I just assumed you weren’t coming when you said you weren’t part of the group cosplay anymore.”
“Had other plans.” Mark shrugged before letting out a loud belch. “I was going to win the tournament, but that got cut a little short, didn’t it?”
“Don’t you care?”
“Care about what?”
“Taron?” Damon stepped back, folding his arms across his middle. “He’s in a bad way. He might not make it.”
“Got what was coming to him.” Mark shrugged again before turning his chair back to the screen. “If you only want to talk about him, clear off. I’ve got more important stuff to do.”
Daniel gave a somewhat apologetic smile, but he also turned back to the screens. Without waiting for Claire and Damon to leave, they fired up the game and continued the stream. Claire gestured for Damon to leave with her. She didn’t see the point in trying to talk to someone so pig-headed.
“I don’t remember him giving off such bad vibes the one time I met him,” Claire said when they were back in the hallway.
“He’s always been a little over the top,” Damon said, staring through the closed door, “but I have no idea who that guy is. He and Taron never really saw eye to eye. I think they were both vying for the group’s alpha spot. Taron is easily the most intelligent of us, but Mark likes to think otherwise.”
“He said Taron told them to stay away from the convention?”
“Sort of.” Damon nodded his head from side to side. “It was a bit of a group consensus by the end, but Taron was the one to push for it. Mark wouldn’t stop ragging on Sean. It went from little digs here and there to full-on bullying. That’s what Taron said. I didn’t really see any of it. I try to stick to the main group chat where things usually stay civil.”
“How many chats are there?”
“Dozens.” He pulled his phone out and scrolled through to show her. “We break them off so it’s never too much of the same thing in the main one. There’s one for talking about games, one for films, another for music. There’s even one for food. Rina set up that one, but barely anyone uses it. I’m the only one with a full-time job, so I dip in and out of the main chat when I can be bothered. Whenever we’re playing Dawn Ship, we only talk strategy.”
“And where does Daniel fit into all this?”
“He’s Mark’s lapdog,” he whispered, rolling his eyes. “Always has been. They went through school together. Class clowns, from the way they talk about it. They’re the only ones who knew each other in real life before we all met online. After the big argument between Taron and Mark the other week, Mark deleted himself from the groups and Daniel followed him.”
The stairs creaked and Fergus appeared alone at the top.
“I’m afraid your friend isn’t feeling too well,” he said with an apologetic smile. “Funny tummy. She said she’d call you when she was feeling better.” He held out a hand to the back door. “Tea?”
Claire and Damon excused them
selves and left. The bad energy feeling didn’t dissipate until Claire was on the pavement outside, looking up at the B&B. One of the curtains fluttered as though someone had just pulled it back.
“Did Rina specifically tell you she came down from Glasgow yesterday when she heard about Taron?”
“Word for word.”
“Then I think she was lying to you.” Claire sighed as they set off back to the village square. “When Taron and Sean arrived, two people paying in cash had just taken their rooms at the B&B.”
“Mark and Daniel?”
“My thoughts exactly.” Back at the shop, Claire pulled her keys from her pocket and unlocked the front door. “Was it always Rina’s plan to stay at the B&B?”
Damon nodded. “On Friday afternoon, she told me she wasn’t coming. Just said she wasn’t feeling up to it.”
“Seems like another lie,” she pointed out, “because if the B&B has been full since Friday, she’s been in the room she booked for herself since then. Otherwise, her room would have been empty, and Fergus wouldn’t have given away Taron and Sean’s. Why would she come to Northash, not tell you, and then lie about it after?”
“Because of Mark,” Damon said as he followed her inside. “They’ve had an on and off again thing for years, but it’s been off all this year. Maybe it’s back on and they wanted to keep it secret? Originally, Mark and Daniel were supposed to stay at a chain hotel closer to the convention, but I wouldn’t put it past them to steal the rooms out from under Taron and Sean just to mess things up for them.” He closed the door behind him, his brows knitting together in the middle. “But why would she lie about coming down last night? Why not just say she was already in the village?”
“The convention.” Claire headed to the flat door in the back room. “She didn’t want you to know she went to the convention.”
“Why would she lie about that?”
“Why lie about when she arrived?” Claire walked up the dark staircase. “A man was stabbed, and it seems like she’s gone out of her way to give herself an alibi. She could be ill, I suppose, but it’s a bit of a strangely timed coincidence, don’t you think?”
