by Gwen Gardner
“I’ll take that,” said O’Boyle, extending his hand for the investigation board.
Simon, ever the son of a solicitor, said, “I think not – unless you have a warrant, that is.” He tucked the tube in the corner behind him. Badger and Cappy stood to fill in the space, effectively blocking O’Boyle’s way should he think about making a grab for it. So – we were closing ranks. Riley and I stood, too.
O’Boyle looked at our immovable, mask-like faces, trying to decide what he should do next. Getting a warrant would take too long. By that time, we would have gotten rid of the tube, or tucked it away somewhere safe – hidden from him. Then again, that tube might not be any use to him at all, if we were on the wrong track. But I didn’t think so. More importantly, if we had indeed solved the murders, then we were in grave danger.
D. S. O’Boyle made an obvious decision.
“Let’s talk,” he said. He moved into the room and sat down at the table.
We didn’t move.
“Right, then. I’ll talk, you listen – then you can decide.” He looked like a man with a trump card to play and no need to hold it any longer. “Let’s say that your information is correct. That your suspect is, indeed, the perpetrator. Then what? Are you going to arrest him? Kill him? What are you going to do?”
He had a point. A very good point. Once we had the evidence, what were we going to do with it? We’d have to turn it over to the police. We didn’t necessarily have to turn it over now. But why wait?
Because it was our case. We solved it, not the police.
“Badger?” I said. We agreed at the beginning of this investigation that Badger was in charge. He would have the last word.
Badger sat down and the rest of us hesitantly followed.
“Tell me what you know,” said D.S. O’Boyle. “I swear to you I’ll do everything I can to bring about an arrest.”
Badger still hadn’t said anything. O’Boyle gave him the time he needed.
Finally, when the tension in the room was about to explode, Badger spoke. “Okay. Let’s talk.”
A collective sigh filled the room. And a feeling of hope. And relief, as well. Sharing the burden of this investigation might help relieve the stress we were under.
“First,” said D.S. O’Boyle, “call me Robbie – unless my D.I. is around. I only overheard the last bit of what Indigo was saying. And for the record, I hadn’t intended to eavesdrop – I just came up at the right time.”
We nodded our heads, although still wary about trusting him.
“What you said,” he turned to me, “it made sense. Except...what was that bit about a dream and a message and psychosomething?”
“I guess I’ve already dug myself in this deep, so I may as well tell you. I don’t expect you to believe it. But it’s my secret so I’ll have to insist you swear to keep it – you can’t tell anyone.”
He nodded his agreement. “As long as your secret isn’t illegal or harmful to anyone, I’ll keep it.”
Badger snickered and I shot him a dirty look. I told Robbie my secret, and explained my dream, and Psychometry, and again about how we determined who the murderer was.
Robbie O’Boyle, to give him credit, wasn’t totally disbelieving. But he promised to keep that part of the investigation a secret. In any case, he wasn’t about to tell his boss that he was using a psychic to help solve the case that his department had botched so badly.
That day, Robbie followed the leads provided by us. First, he interviewed Claude Burns from the right-end barstool at the Blind Badger. Then he spoke with Padma from the MEC and Beth from Jake’s restaurant. I handed over the papers from the planning department. Riley gave him the newspaper dated August 20th and the older clip about the Renaissance project. Simon let him ‘borrow’ the murder investigation board to study, with the promise to return it.
Based on the gathered circumstantial evidence, he was able to get a warrant to search Andy Harris-Hall’s house and office. At his home they recovered Bart’s and Shelly’s phones, which Andy had used to send text messages and phone calls back and forth between the two to make it look as if they were still alive and furthering the affair rumor.
Ralph, Billy’s brother, heard the news reports and came out of hiding to turn in Bart’s laptop that had been in Billy’s possession. Payment for doctoring the identification number on Bart’s car.
Two drafts of Bart’s environmental impact report on the Renaissance project were located on Andy’s computer; the original – which had been deleted but recovered by the technical crew - and the doctored copy.
It turned out that Bart suspended the project as originally presented due to the negative impact on the environment the extra traffic would cause. Bart gave another viable option to deal with the traffic, but the cost was an extra five hundred thousand pounds for a car park that Andy didn’t want to pay. Bart would not approve the project going forward until the issue was resolved.
On August 16th, while working at the MEC, Shelly discovered that the project had gone ahead without approval when an immigrant client filed a complaint about non-payment. Shelly notified Bart.
On August 17th, Bart had lunch with Andy, told him that he had no other option but to build the parking structure, and they argued. Bart refused to let the project resume and would not sign off on the report. Andy begged for more time to come up with another option to the extra expense of the car park. Bart agreed, but ordered Andy to stop construction until the issue was resolved.
On Saturday, August 20th, Bart read in the newspaper that the project was continuing and work was well under way. He had trusted Andy to stop construction until the traffic and parking issues were resolved, so he hadn’t checked. Incensed, he phoned Andy, who agreed to meet him at the project, and then called Shelly to bring a construction stop-order.
Andy presumably murdered them both on the jobsite.
Billy and Ralph disposed of the bodies in the tunnels. Bart’s body washed up due to the heavy rains. Shelly’s had not. If they could locate Shelly’s body, they had a chance of finding DNA evidence and the murder weapon.
And Andy Harris-Hall had disappeared. He was presumably on the run.
Robbie proved to be trustworthy and kept us updated on the now progressing case.
We were all in the snug discussing the last piece of the puzzle; Shelly’s body and the missing shovel used as the weapon. Ralph Radcliffe gave the police all the information he had and Robbie had shared it with us. Apparently, Billy and Ralph had hidden the bodies and weapon in a tunnel somewhere in Sabrina Shores.
“Tunnels?” said Simon. “I’ve never heard of any tunnels ‘round here.”
Hannah floated in and out of the room, carrying full tankards of ale in, and empty tankards out. She wore the same clothing as always; blouse, bodice, skirts and apron. Her blonde hair was pinned into a bun, with escaping tendrils surrounding her round face.
I smiled absently at her as the conversation continued.
“Apparently they’re only accessible from the river,” said Badger.
“No they’re not,” said Hannah, setting down tankards of invisible beer.
“They’re not?” I said.
“No,” said the wench.
“What do you mean, ‘they’re not’? How do you know?” asked Riley. The others looked on, confused.
“Hannah,” I answered, pointing to the spirit standing behind Simon, playing with his hair. He swatted at an invisible fly. They glanced at the empty space.
Hannah continued. “Any time you want to hide something around these parts, it’s always in the tunnels.” She looked at me like I was simple-minded. “Everybody knows that. But it’s dangerous – the worst of the worst is down there. You’d never get me down there.”
“Where are the tunnels, though? How do you get there?” I asked as the others looked on, bemused.
“I’ll show you,” said Hannah, and she floated through the closed door before I had a chance to say anything.
I leapt out of my seat and ran through t
he door after her, yelling, “Come on,” over my shoulder to Riley and the boys. They raced after me.
“What’s going on, where are we going?” Badger asked from behind me, weaving through the passages to a door at the other end of the kitchen. I yanked on the door, about to burst through, when I hit a wall of darkness. Badger, unable to stop his forward momentum, ran into the back of me, grabbing me around the waist before I could tumble down the dark stairwell. Simon, Cappy and Riley brought up the rear, peering around us to see what was below.
I fumbled around for a light switch, which when I found it, cast barely a glow to light our way. I started down, the others behind me. The stairwell was steep and went down quite a way before we reached the bottom.
I shivered at the cold and damp. Badger fumbled for a light switch on the wall behind us, which cast another weak glow.
“The cellar,” said Badger, unnecessarily. Full of boxes stacked against the walls, mostly alcohol, but sacks of potatoes and other goods as well.
I looked for Hannah, who hovered at the top of the stairwell looking down at us. She pointed into the shadows, a look of true fear on her pale face, and disappeared.
“She’s afraid.” I peered into the shadows and shivered involuntarily.
“Who?” Cappy asked.
“Hannah,” I answered.
“Um, in case you’ve forgotten,” said Simon, “some of us don’t actually speak to ghosts.” He looked around as if searching for my ghostly source. Their gazes looked upon me expectantly.
I rubbed my arms. “Hannah said that when anything needed to be hidden, that we should try the tunnels. She pointed over there.” I gestured toward a dark corner.
“We need more light,” Simon said.
Badger scrounged around on a shelf and located what looked to be an ancient flashlight, er, torch. He clicked it on and shone it into the corner. We moved slowly in that direction, Badger in the lead with me, Riley and Simon behind and on either side of him. Cappy brought up the rear. It went further back and descended further down than we had at first realized. What started out to be a finished cellar block, now led into an unfinished section of damp, cave-like rock walls and ceiling. It did end, however, with what appeared to be stacks of ancient casks.
Badger shone the light across the wall and between the barrels. “What the-?”
“What is it?” I peeked around him, holding on to his shoulder. A tiny wooden door with a rusted iron loop handle was partially visible between the dirt and rock wall.
“Here.” Badger handed the torch to me. “Help me move these,” he said to Cappy. The casks were full and heavy, but they used the rounded bottoms to sort of roll them out of the way.
Simon went for the latch in the door and tugged, to no avail. It didn’t appear to have been opened in the last one hundred years, possibly two hundred. “Well, now what do we do?”
“I say we come back later,” I said. “We’re not prepared. We don’t know what’s down there. We need flashlights and jackets.”
“I agree,” said Simon. “We should research, too. Who knows? We might find a map or some other useful information.”
“Oh, and I forgot to mention,” I said, looking at the others with a frown of concern. “Hannah says it’s dangerous.”
“Oh, now you tell us,” said Simon facetiously, trying to lighten the mood. “Seriously, though, that was years ago. This door hasn’t even been opened in recent history.”
“Yes, but...we are looking for a dead body, aren’t we?” I countered. The others nodded.
“Not to mention we’re dealing with someone who has already murdered three people,” Riley put in. “And probably wouldn’t hesitant to kill a few more.” Our gleaming eyes met and held in the eerie darkness.
“Right, then,” said Simon, getting back to the seriousness of the matter. “All the more reason that we come back prepared.”
Hannah followed us back through the pub, chattering so quickly and so high pitched in my left ear that I hardly understood what she was saying. But I got the gist. Don’t go down there. Standing now in the entryway to the tunnel, my stomach tightening, I was inclined to agree with her.
Chapter Thirty-Six
The Tunnels
We were back that same afternoon, as prepared as we’d ever be.
“Here goes nothing,” I said, staring down into the dark tunnel. I really wasn’t looking forward to it. In fact, I’d rather be decorating our bare tree we dragged home from the Blind Badger a few nights ago. Or Christmas shopping. I’d rather do Christmas than what we were about to do. A nice cozy Sunday evening at home a week before Christmas would have been good.
I gulped.
Riley and Cappy stayed behind. If we didn’t return within two hours, they would go for help.
Bart appeared in front of me. “Indigo, do not go down there. There’s a reason this doorway has been closed and hidden for so long. It’s not safe.”
I stepped through the passage anyway, muttering, “Oh, now you’re speaking to me. Well, it’s too late.” Badger and Simon followed behind me, Simon asking, “What did you say?”
“Nothing. Come on, let’s stay close together.”
Almost immediately the familiar tingling at the base of my skull commenced. Spirit activity. Taking a deep breath, I told myself to get on with it, and began to move forward.
Again, Bart appeared before me, urging me to go back. “You don’t know what lives down here,” he said. “There are things you don’t understand. Dark things, things you don’t know how to handle.”
“Shhhh,” I told him. “We have to do this.” Bart angrily disappeared in a whoosh of cold air, but his essence and the frustration he could do nothing about still accompanied me.
When Simon had done an internet search, he was only able to find an obscure article about the Sabrina Shore tunnels. They were a labyrinth of subterranean passageways created in the sixteenth century, mainly used by pirates to transport booty and avoid the tax collector. Their ships cruised up the River Sabrina, which was much wider and faster at the time, and docked at certain inlets with caves where they stored contraband, including the human kind; slaves.
Today, most of the existing tunnels were part of the new sewer and drainage system. But what the article didn’t make clear was that certain tunnels led all the way from the river into the city, and lay beneath shops, banks and pubs, long forgotten. Except by those who still used them.
I wore my navy pea coat, scarf, hat and gloves. This was topped with my backpack containing extra batteries for the torches, and a few other items I deemed necessary. We had no map. Simon came up with the idea to bring chalk to mark arrows in the tunnels, so we would know which way to return. There could be miles and miles of tunnels, all leading down to the river, according to Hannah. It would be like looking for a four-leaf clover in a field of shamrock.
Muted voices hummed in my ears, which meant that spirits dwelled in the tunnels. Based on my deepening feeling of dread, a strong negative energy pervaded the underworld of which we were now unwelcome intruders. A black cloud settled over me and I searched for the source. The Soul Collector. This was where it lived. We were on its turf now. I shivered.
We crept silently down through the bowels of the subterranean world, the Soul Collector lurking and waiting in every corner and crevice. Evidence of a previous existence littered the dug-out vaults. Pottery jugs and bowls, burnt tallow candles, shredded blankets, beads and other personal items were left in their original state, suspending time, waiting for their owners’ return. Indentations carved into the rock walls made berth-like beds, claustrophobic like coffins in their closeness.
“Cor blimey,” said Simon. “People use to live down here.” He shivered. “Look at that.” He pointed to a rusty sword over in a corner and started for it.
“No! Don’t touch it,” I whispered loudly, shining my torch around. “Don’t touch anything. They’re still here. If you take anything we’ll never have another minute of peace.”
Simon nodded, his eyes big and glowing in the torchlight.
“They already know we’re here.” My voice was barely louder than a whisper. “And they don’t like it.” I shivered. “Let’s keep going.”
“So, what can they do to us?” asked Badger in a low voice. “Can they touch us? Harm us?”
“They can do more than you know,” I answered. “They can make things happen, make things fall on you or fly at you, or disorient you so badly that you feel drunk with confusion.”
We continued down until we reached a fork.
“Which way, now?” asked Simon, shining his torch down each passage.
“This way,” said Bart, floating down the right fork.
“This way,” I countered, taking the left.
“Stubborn girl!” said Bart, confronting me. Tendrils of my hair gently waved in the breeze caused by his angry swoop. “Why won’t you listen to me?” I ignored him.
“Simon, be sure to mark an arrow here so we know where to turn on our way back.”
“Already done,” he answered.
“Listen,” whispered Badger, a hand on my elbow to stay me.
We listened.
“Water, do you hear it?”
I nodded. “We’re getting nearer to the river. That way.”
We continued down the dark passage, the stone beneath our feet growing wetter and slicker. We moved as quickly as we could under the circumstances.
Moments later, the pathway twisted around a sharp corner and we entered a large cavern. The descent was steeper here and the passageway narrowed with a sharp drop-off to our right. The sound of moving water grew louder, and in fact, water seeped through crevices in the rock walls. The constant damp seeped into my clothing and frizzed the loose tendrils of hair around my face into a puffy black cloud.
I shivered. “This passage is getting worse. We don’t even know when the passage was last used. It can drop off into a black abyss for all we know. All the hounds of hell are probably snapping at our heels right now.” That the Soul Collector waited to steal us from the mouths of those hounds, I had no doubt. My imagination continued to burst forth like a runner jumping the gun.
