by Ruby Loren
Katya shrugged. “I guess something else happened to them. Unless you can find out how far the police searched into the area around here, you can’t know where they did, or didn’t, look. There’s quite a lot of countryside around here. I’m sure if you were to dig, you’d find a whole lot of bodies. Perhaps the Abraham family are among them.”
I shivered a little at the thought. It was all well and good wanting to solve a mystery in the hopes of undermining a ridiculous tourist attraction - and possibly sabotaging some of Mellon Zoo’s success in the process - but quite another matter when I really thought hard about digging up bodies that had been waiting to be discovered for seven years. It was all so morbid.
I gritted my teeth. Now was not the time to give up.
“The police would have records, wouldn’t they?” I said, eyeing Katya thoughtfully.
She raised her hands. “Don’t look at me! I do not have any connection to the police. Private security, remember?” she said with a slightly raised eyebrow that I did not miss.
“I suppose I could talk to them,” I mused remembering I still had Officer Kelly’s number handy. After I’d helped to catch those con artists (by nearly dying) I was cautiously confident that she wouldn’t hang up as soon as I called.
“Do you know if an aerial search of the property was ever done?” Katya suddenly asked.
“I’m not sure. It was never written about anywhere, but that doesn’t mean the police didn’t do one. It’s a big property, it would make sense, right?”
Katya shrugged. “You’re on your own. I just hope it stops this… thing,” she said, jerking a thumb back in direction of the barn. I knew she was really talking about the ridiculous sign out of the front of the building. The one which shouted about ghost tours and aliens.
“I’m surprised there isn’t a fake crop circle around here,” I said, thinking I was being funny.
Katya looked away at the patch of barren land next to the barn. “I saw them planting seeds in that the other day,” she told me.
“In hindsight, it seems a bit obvious, doesn’t it?” I concluded before looking down at the papers Katya and I had scribbled our workings out on. “I’ll go through these when I get some time. Perhaps if I draw it all out I’ll find something we missed when struggling with the maths.”
I looked up at Katya, knowing there was a question written in my eyes.
Once more I saw an apologetic look written there, but this time, she held my gaze. “Working on it,” she said. I decided I had to be satisfied with that for now.
Of course, that didn’t mean I wasn’t going to find out on my own anyway, but I really did believe that Katya wanted to help. In the same way she considered the disgustingly decorated ghost house to be in poor taste, I thought she considered the treatment I was being given to be much the same.
I walked through the zoo trying to organise my thoughts, ready to begin the work I was actually here to do today. I compiled a list of things that could help me to figure out what happened to the Abraham family.
Put together a plan of the barn using the measurements taken today.
Find out if an aerial search was ever done and try to worm any further information I can from the police.
See if I can find the girlfriend, Rosalie Bridges.
Locate the original newspaper reporter (if possible) and pick his brains about what he remembers about the day.
Visit Cedric Jameson, the contractor who poured the concrete for the parking space on the day the family disappeared.
When I’d finished writing I looked at the points and felt pleased. This lot would keep me occupied for quite some time.
It was almost enough to take my mind off the ginormous elephant in the room - and I wasn’t talking about Donald Trunk. Even my investigation of the Abraham family’s disappearance wasn’t quite enough to distract me from the plethora of strange things that were going on around me right now. But who knew? Perhaps solving one mystery would lead me straight into the heart of the other.
9
Stashed in the Attic
I was surprised to see Katya hovering outside the Abraham barn the next day. When she saw me approach her expression let me know she’d been waiting for me.
I threw her a questioning look and her face closed up a little. Whatever this was, it was nothing to do with the questions I’d asked her.
“I thought of something last night. There was something in the attic I might have overlooked,” she greeted me.
“I noticed the same thing. There’s a vent or something that’s wider than it needs to be,” I told her and moved my clipboard to one side, so she could see the sledgehammer I’d managed to conceal halfway down one of my trouser legs with the head poking up over the waistband. Two members of staff had already commented on my limp.
“No way. You can’t be serious,” Katya said.
“Why not? No one’s going to go up into the attic. It’s not part of the story. There are no props up there, right? Probably no one will notice what we’ve done for ages.”
“Uh… they might hear us demolishing the place! I can’t do this, Madi! I’m just supposed to do my job.”
“Which is…?” I tried pressing the advantage, but Katya clammed up.
“Okay, well… I suppose I’ll just have to go up there and do it alone.” I pulled my phone out and looked down at it theatrically. “I’ve got about two minutes before it starts.”
There was a pause.
“Before what starts?”
I just grinned at her and walked into the barn. I wasn’t surprised when she followed me.
“You’ve planned this, haven’t you? What’s going to happen? Should the team know about it? Have you got some kind of cover story for if we’re caught?” It didn’t escape my notice that she’d just said ‘we’.
“Oh no!” I said.
“What’s wrong?” Katya asked, immediately looking around at our surroundings. It also didn’t escape my notice that her hand reached for her gun. Putting that concerning observation to one side, I continued with my ruse.
“I think I just saw a peregrine falcon fly up onto the roof. It sounded like it fell down into something. As we both work for an eco-zoo I don’t think in all good conscience we can let that bird die in that space. If that’s really where it fell - which I think it probably is,” I finished.
Katya didn’t look impressed.
“Oh come on… it’ll do,” I said, marching up the stairs. I glanced down at my phone again. Drat! It was time for the distraction to start. “Hurry!” I called back down to Katya.
Then the roaring began.
“What’s going on? Did you let them out?” she said, not swinging the sledgehammer at the wall the way I’d hoped she would.
“No! It’s just a simulated hunt for all of the big cats. They’re on timers. They were supposed to be tested gradually throughout the day, but I know they work, so there wasn’t any risk. I just fiddled with the timers so that all of the hunts began at the same time. Pretty loud, huh?” I said with a grin and then looked pointedly at the sledgehammer.
Katya shrugged and picked it up. I figured that was as close as she came to looking impressed. It was lucky that the big cats were making a racket and probably had a lot of people running around because the bashing in the attic wasn’t exactly silent either.
Several swings later, we were looking at a void in the wall.
Unfortunately, a void was all it was.
“There’s nothing here,” Katya said. She took a couple of steps forwards and leant in, looking up and down. “I think it’s some kind of drainage shaft for the water from the roof to run off and be collected. I suppose that’s for when it rains too much for the roof to handle.”
“Hmmm that does make some sense,” I admitted.
“Yep. And we just busted a great big hole in it,” Katya said dryly.
We looked at the mess for a few seconds. “What do you think? Cleverly placed poster of a hot babe? I’ve heard it can work…�
�
Katya sighed. I didn’t think she understood my sense of humour.
“Hey, maybe we can just place the bricks back where they were… the ones that you didn’t completely smash… and then it will look like it just fell down by itself.” For all of my planning, I hadn’t considered what we’d do if there weren’t any bodies to find in the void beyond the wall. I got down on my hands and knees and starting shifting a few of the bricks whilst Katya hopped from foot to foot, nervously glancing down the stairs that led to the attic.
“There is something here,” I said a second later. Katya had looked up the empty shaft but she hadn’t looked down. In-between the floors, there was some kind of an alcove. bracing myself, I stuck my hand into the hole and felt around. My fingers brushed cloth and I pulled away, shivering a bit, before I told myself to suck it up and pull whatever it was out of there.
“What is that?” Katya said when I pulled out the cloth-wrapped bundle.
“I have no idea,” I said, exchanging a horrified look with her. I knew we were both thinking the same thing. Had there been another member of the Abraham family… a small one, whose arrival could have sparked some sort of murderous rage?
I took a deep breath and opened the bundle.
A terrifying face with glassy eyes and hair all over it looked back at me. When I’d finished panicking, I realised it wasn’t a baby at all. Once upon a time, I thought it might have been a toy lion.
“Look at that! It’s got a tag on it that says ‘Abraham Family Zoo’. It must have been merchandise made before the zoo was due to open,” Katya said, moving closer now that we’d both got over our shock.
“It must have been a prototype. Perhaps one of the family made it,” I mused, thinking it was far too early for the zoo to be stocking toys when the enclosures hadn't even been completed.
“Why would anyone put it beneath the floor?” Katya looked baffled.
I scrunched the toy and felt something like twigs breaking and leaves crunching inside. When I pressed my nose against it, I could smell years worth of dust, but there was also something else. I thought it might be basil, or bay. Whatever it was, it was definitely some kind of herb. And it had been sewn up inside a toy lion and left between floors.
“I think it might have something to do with witchcraft,” I said. And I knew exactly which family member liked to dabble with pickles and herbs. I wondered if she’d been involved with anything a lot more sinister than stuffed lions…. Could the Abraham family’s disappearance have a supernatural explanation after all? I didn’t believe that. But that didn’t mean witchcraft could be ruled out. Plenty of people went ‘missing’ when cults and ritual sacrifice were brought into play.
I replaced the lion between the floors and reined in my imagination. A lion stuffed with herbs and a human sacrifice cult were worlds apart - even I knew that much. I was also willing to bet that if I Googled bay and basil, I’d probably find out that they were for luck, health, or prosperity. The lion hadn’t been ripped apart or filled with pins, it had been placed in the house as a good luck charm.
“We’d better go,” I said, suddenly becoming aware that the ruckus outside had stopped. I happened to raise my eyes to the ceiling and marvelled at how hickeldy-pickeldy it was. There were points and flat parts everywhere. I assumed it was some kind of eco-design, or just the mark of amateur builders showing their inability to stick with a decision. After all, Katya had already noted that the garage roof had suffered from a change of mind.
We both hesitated for a moment, looking back at the smashed drainage shaft.
“I’ll report that I heard something falling down upstairs in the house in an hour or so’s time,” Katya said before shaking her head. “It’s a good thing there’s no CCTV yet.”
“Yes… why is that?” I asked.
For what felt like the hundredth time, Katya clammed up.
“Thanks for helping me out. Hopefully no one will notice the sledgehammer at the bottom of the shaft,” I said, knowing to let it go for now.
“What about your limp?”
“It was just cramp that slowed me down on the way to find out what on earth went wrong with the hunt timers today? Amazingly, it seems to have loosened up now.” I raised my eyebrows at Katya before walking away.
It was sad. In another time at another place, I would have been more than willing to believe Katya was my friend. But right here and right now, I wasn’t about to trust anybody.
Derek Hurst, the reporter credited for writing the newspaper article I’d read when I’d visited the library, was not at all what I’d expected. For one, he must have been pretty young when he’d covered the article seven years ago, because he was only in his mid-thirties now.
“Expecting someone older to be stuck writing articles for the local rag?” he said when he opened the door and read the all-too-obvious look of surprise on my face. “It might sound crazy, but I love it! I pretty much run the paper nowadays. The original owner is getting on a bit. I’m able to influence the direction it goes in and even take steps towards its modernisation.” He cocked an eyebrow. “Online newspapers - they used to strike fear into our hearts, but I think they help the paper. In a rural area like the one we live in, people still like their papers. It’s nice to have something to read when there’s no WiFi signal on the train. The paper is doing just as well as it’s ever done but the addition of the online paper is helping us to spread our influence further - especially when we manage to land an exclusive scoop that’s hot news right now.” He looked at me when he said it.
I tried to look keen.
I’d cut a deal with Mr Hurst. When I’d first let him know I was interested in the Abraham case, he’d been less than enthusiastic. It would appear that scores of other ‘detectives’ had asked him the same question over the years. That was when I’d realised I might have to think of something to bargain with in order to get my way.
Strictly speaking, I wasn’t supposed to give interviews that weren’t approved by the publishing company. I’d told Derek that, too, but he said there was always a way around stuff like that. All I needed to say was that Derek was a distant cousin and I’d thought we’d been chatting when he’d actually been interviewing me. I would also have to ask the publishing company not to sue the living daylights out of him - on the grounds that it would ruin my family.
“Your company likes you, right?” Derek asked. “A scoop is worth a lot to me, but not my house, if you know what I mean.”
“I’m pretty sure they’ll do what I say if I make it sound like it was a big mistake,” I said.
“Pretty sure, huh?” He shrugged. “I’ve taken worse gambles. Make yourself at home.” he gestured to his cozy, but stylish, living room, which contained tartan rugs draped over brown leather sofas and a very inviting woven rug.
“I’ll make us some coffee.” He disappeared into the kitchen.
I walked over to the wall of framed front pages. It didn’t surprise me that the Abraham family’s article wasn’t up there. Even after all of these years, there was something about an entire family going missing that made you feel uneasy. Instead, I looked up at the many scandals of local political party candidates, coverage of the Queen coming to visit an historic cathedral restoration opening, and a couple of reports on the two local murderers, who had been caught during the past decade. I was still wondering why it was that pictures of killers were easier to look at than the Abrahams when I caught sight of my own face on one of the front pages.
Christmas Con Artists Caught At Avery Zoo!
I avoided looking at the faces of the two people who’d tried to murder me and Tiff. Instead, I looked down at the picture of Tiff, Auryn, and me. All of us looked happy. But then, that had been before whatever it was that seemed to follow me around had caught up again.
“So, you wanted to know about the Abrahams. I’ve actually said no to people who ask me about them for years. It’s my view that if they were findable, they’d have been found by now. Dredging up the p
ast isn’t going to change a thing.” Derek placed a steaming cup of coffee down on a mat in front of me. I took a moment to appreciate the smell of coffee machine made coffee.
“I’m working at Mellon Zoo. It’s the zoo…”
“The one that’s opening at the Abraham place? I know about that,” Derek interrupted.
I smiled a little. Of course he knew, he was a reporter.
“That does explain your interest. I know that if I worked at that place I’d start to wonder, too.” He rubbed his gingery stubble. “No bodies dug up yet then?”
I shook my head and Derek mimicked the movement. “Well, if the police didn’t find it seven years ago, it’s probably not there to find. I’ve found my notes from the day - just for you.”
“How kind of you,” I said with a knowing smile.
“Quid pro quo,” the reporter answered.
“Here it is! I was the first reporter on the scene. It pays to be local when a big case like that goes down. If I remember correctly, it hit the nationals, but I was the only one Mrs Kendal spoke to. After the police got in, she never said a word to anyone else. I transcribed everything she told me and I’ve still got my original notes.” He handed over a piece of paper with slightly yellowing edges.
“Take your time,” he told me and walked over to his desk and began typing.
I looked back at the paper and started to read word for word exactly what Mrs Kendal had seen on the day her family vanished.
The police are all over the property but there’s no one around outside. They’re all searching the barn conversion - a building which looks as though it’s just been completed. On the lightly gravelled track in front of the house stands a woman, watching the proceedings. She has grey hair and an expression of annoyance on her face. No one seems to have noticed her.
Her name, she says, is Fiona Kendal. She is the mother of Molly Abraham and she is the person who reported the Abraham family missing.
