The Mystery of the Marsh Malaise: Wonky Inn Book 5

by Jeannie Wycherley

  At 2.30 am I found myself hiding in a hedge in a field next to The Hay Loft. The very same field where the Psychic and Holistic Fayre had been held a few weeks previously. Given all the rain we’d had in the Spring, the ground was claggy underfoot and I was worried about leaving footprints, but for now I needed to get on with the job in hand.

  Florence and Ross hovered in front of me, casting sly glances around, bigging-up their roles as super sleuths, or criminal masterminds, depending on your take on things.

  “Are you both clear about what I need you to do?” I asked them in a low voice, for about the millionth time. We would probably only get one shot at this and I wanted to do it right. I glanced up at The Hay Loft. One light burned on the top floor, and a few on the middle floor, but all the lights downstairs were out. If the landlord, Lyle Cavendish, was inside, presumably he would assume that any noise he heard was one of his guests mooching about.

  Ross, who would forever be dressed in his super smart and exquisitely tailored suit, folded his arms and pursed his lips. “I think we’ve got the message,” he said.

  “Everything will be fine, Miss Alf,” Florence soothed. “Stop worrying.” She couldn’t hide the excitement in her voice.

  “I can’t help but be nervous,” I whispered, wiping my clammy palms against my thighs.

  “We’re ready,” Ross reiterated.

  They were. As ready as they’d ever be. “Okay. Go for it.” Then added as an afterthought, “Good luck!”

  I watched them melt away towards the back door of The Hay Loft, where they paused for a moment. My heart thumped in my chest as I squinted through the darkness after them. Problem? The little red eye of the surveillance camera blinked on and I held my breath. But what kind of image could a surveillance camera possibly catch? I could see Ross and Florence because I knew they were there. Lyle did not.

  After the longest second in the history of time the light blinked off again, and Ross and Florence disappeared through the door.

  Now all I could do was wait.

  I don’t wear a watch for a variety of reasons. Primarily, given that they have fallen largely out of fashion, I hadn’t possessed one since I’d been at school. I’ve always been horribly clumsy, so any watch I tried to wear just never managed to stay the course with me. In any case, like most younger folk these days, I preferred to use my phone to tell the time.

  I hadn’t brought my phone along on this particular outing, knowing that I wouldn’t be able to trust it not to start emitting strange noises. I’d found out that as a rule of thumb, Alf—or Alf-as-Fenella—made a pretty poor undercover detective. What’s that acronym? Kiss. Keep it simple stupid? Yep. That works for me.

  I huddled into the hedge, absent-mindedly extracting twigs, pieces of dead leaf and caterpillar cocoons from my snagged hair. The night was warm enough, but still I shivered a little, the anticipation of what was happening inside causing an adrenaline rush.

  I waited and waited, urging myself to breathe normally, scouring the rear of the inn for any activity whatsoever. The trickier part of the mission was still to come.

  For now, this was just a waiting game.

  It felt like hours, but finally, five or six minutes after Florence and Ross had entered The Hay Loft, I spotted ghostly movement at a small window. I hurriedly broke cover but was just as quickly yanked backwards by my hair snagging on some prickles. I jerked myself free, and bending low to the ground, ran for the window.

  We had discussed in advance the best course of action. I couldn’t be certain of the security system The Hay Loft had installed, but I assumed it was more state-of-the-art-technology-based than the one I used at Whittle Inn (namely magick). I had made a guess that The Hay Loft had internal cameras and possibly seals on the doors. Once the alarm had been set in the evening, if the seals were broken an alarm would go off. I could only hope that the small windows in the lavatories at the rear of the inn had been exempted from this security arrangement. After all, the windows were so tiny, not even a Dickensian urchin would have been able to squeeze through them.

  But they were the perfect shape and size to pass a laptop through.

  Florence appeared in front of me on the other side of the glass. The window slid silently open—thank goodness for modern double glazing, I could only imagine the squeaking and scraping noise an equivalent window at Whittle Inn would have made—and I reached up to pluck the laptop out of thin air.

  It was a tighter squeeze than I’d anticipated. I had to twist the machine slightly sideways to fit it through. It clinked against the glass. A small dull noise. Surely nothing that would disturb anyone’s sleep?

  A light blinked on from the top floor and I froze, muscles tense, not daring to move. I stayed that way for thirty seconds until I heard Florence hiss, “There’s a light on the landing, Miss Alf.”

  “Get out of there,” I ordered, and grabbed the laptop, not caring whether anyone heard me or not. I stuffed the machine underneath my robes, then clutching it tightly, skirted the side of The Hay Loft and out onto Whittle Lane. Behind me, more lights flickered on downstairs.

  Lyle would be coming after me in seconds.

  I pelted along the lane, thanking my lucky stars that streetlights were not an option the council deployed around here, but even so, the moonlight was bright enough that my fleeing figure, heading in the direction of Whittle Inn would be clearly seen.

  The high hedges fell away at this point, the cultivated section of the village giving way to the forest. I opened my mouth to screech in shock as a figure dressed all in black suddenly appeared in front of me, grabbed my arm and threw me sideways onto the soft ground. I didn’t get a chance to finish the sound. Whomever it was threw themselves on top of me and pushed my head into the ground.

  Reminded of the traumatic night I’d lay in the dirt at the edge of the village pond, I tried to fight back.

  “Be very still,” a familiar voice spoke low into my ear. “Your life depends upon it.”

  I stopped struggling and felt something soft and heavy envelop us.

  We lay that way for a little while. I listened to the sound of someone running up the road, passing us quite closely, cursing, then returning more slowly. They paused somewhere near us, and walked into the trees close by, tutting, then returning the way they had come.

  A few minutes later a car drove slowly by, illuminating the trees around us, and all the time, the figure on top of me pinned me down, a warning hand pressing against my shoulder, reminding me to be still and quiet.

  Eventually, the pressure eased, and the figure rolled off me, allowing me to sit up, stiff with cramp.

  He reached down to help me stand, throwing a voluminous cloak back over his shoulder, and smiled, dark eyes glittering grimly in the subdued light.

  “Silvan!”

  He held his finger to his lips, then grabbed my wrist and led me quickly and quietly up the lane to Whittle Inn.

  “You followed me?” I asked Silvan once we were safely inside the kitchen. My robes were covered in dirt, burrs, dust and dead leaves.

  “Of course. I would never miss an opportunity to uncover someone’s secrets.” He offered me a dazzling smile. He was certainly worthy of his reputation.

  I glanced about uneasily, then drew the laptop out from under my robes, placing it gently on the kitchen table. Certainly we were safe here at the inn, but still… “Do you think they’ll know it was me?”

  He shrugged, so cavalier. It wasn’t his neck on the line after all.

  “They’ll probably work it out, but with any luck, by then, you’ll have what you need.”

  “I truly hope so.”

  Florence and Ross apparated into the kitchen alongside us. Florence regarded me with some unease, but Ross looked as happy as Silvan.

  “Boy that was fun,” Ross said.

  “Are you alright, Miss Alf? You look a little shaky.” At least Florence was concerned about my well-being

  I had to confess I did feel a smidgen unnerved. Flo
rence put the kettle on.

  I plonked myself down on a bench and slumped over the kitchen table, pulling the computer towards me. My knees were a little weak. The Mori deserved everything that was coming to them, but even so, I couldn’t help but feel guilty about the theft.

  “Don’t open that,” Ross warned me.

  Taken aback I looked up at him. “Why?”

  The computer slid across the table towards him. “It could be booby trapped in some way. You never know. There are advanced security systems that will eradicate data in a nanosecond if the wrong person switches a machine on.”

  I blanched. This was all so complicated.

  “Leave it to me,” Ross instructed, and I nodded, relieved that I’d lucked-out when I’d found him on the tracks in London.

  “Here’s your tea, miss,” Florence said, as a plate of biscuits and a steaming brew appeared in front of me, followed by similar refreshment for Silvan.

  Silvan twisted his lip. “I’d rather have wine.”

  “The bar’s closed,” Florence responded. I smirked. I might have offered him a drink. He had rescued me from a potentially tricky situation after all.

  Silvan shrugged and resorted to the tea.

  “Tell me what happened while you were inside,” I urged Florence, watching as Ross carefully examined the outside of the laptop for anything unusual.

  “It went pretty much as you’d said it would, Miss Alf,” Florence replied, wiping down the counter top. “We went in and the whole of the ground floor was in total darkness. The office door was standing open—not that it would have caused us any sort of impediment, but still—so we went in there. Ross looked around but he couldn’t find evidence of any other computer equipment.”

  “Everything at The Hay Loft seems to have run off the one machine,” Ross interjected. “They’re going to miss it.”

  “I expect they already have,” Silvan muttered.

  “We pulled the strings out,” Florence resumed.

  “Cables,” Ross said.

  “There wasn’t much else on the desk there. I had a poke around like you told me to.”

  “His printer wasn’t working,” Ross added. “The lights were flashing on it. I had a quick look but I think it had run out of ink.”

  “Everything was going smoothly until we discovered the machine didn’t quite fit through the window.”

  “Was it the clunk that alerted him do you think?” I asked.

  “I imagine so,” Ross said, his fingers hovering over the lid of the laptop. I could see he was dying to open it and explore whatever lay beneath. “Until then, we hadn’t heard a peek from upstairs.”

  “What happens now?” Florence asked.

  “You did well,” I said. Her work was done. Now I had to wait for Ross to perform his own special brand of technical wizardry.

  We retired upstairs where Ross finally cracked open the lid of the computer and tentatively operated the button to switch the machine on. I held my breath, watching over his shoulder as the screen turned blue, then a photo of a waterfall came up on the screen.

  ‘Welcome Lyle’ it said, and I turned my nose up.

  “Password protected,” I groaned. Of course it would be.

  “That’s the minimum security you’d expect,” Ross said cheerfully enough. “Leave it with me.”

  So I did.

  I fell asleep in my chair and awoke with a start a few hours later. I’d been dreaming of enormous reptilian-type prehistoric birds, their claws tapping at the windows of my wonky inn.

  I shot forwards with a gasp. It was already light outside and the birds were joyfully singing in the trees. My neck ached from the ridiculous sleeping position I’d been in. The clicking of Ross at the keyboard must have infiltrated my dreams.

  “You’re in,” I said, blinking in surprise, allowing the turbulent dream to slip from my psyche.

  “I’ve discovered the best part of being a ghost,” Ross said enthusiastically, his eyes never leaving the screen. “It seems that I can harness any kinetic energy to circumvent some of the programs. And in this case I can utilise electrical pulses to operate the magnetic switches in the keys.”

  “Really?” I asked, clueless as to what he meant.

  “Yes, but actually what I’ve done is find traces of the passwords used on this machine.”

  “How did you get past the first screen?” I would still have been stuck on stage one.

  Ross snorted. “It wasn’t actually enabled. The second I pressed a key, we went to the homepage.” Ross looked up at me, and I could see the excitement in his eyes. “Schoolboy error!” he drawled. I smiled back, delighted at his obvious happiness. If he’d been so enamoured by life in his old job, he would still have walked among us.

  “I’m currently trying to go through everything. Give me some more time and I’ll let you know what I’ve found.”

  I nodded, yawned and stretched. I decided to take a shower, and then maybe a quick walk in Speckled Wood to get some air. Perhaps I could try and catch up with Finbarr. As I left the room I glanced at the mind map I’d left tacked to the wall by the door—a stark reminder of everything I needed to do.

  One step at a time, I reminded myself.

  Baby steps where required.

  Of course my walk in Speckled Wood lured me to the body of water that Vance inhabited. I perched on the rocks, staring into the water. Was it my imagination or was the water murkier than ever? Small bubbles lay on the surface. They didn’t appear natural, but more like homemade soup that has been left out in the warm for too long and gone sour. The bubbles were motionless, not forming and bursting, just sitting there in the fetid water. The stench in the woods had become distinctly unpleasant—thousands of rotting trees, dead insects, sick mammals and birds.

  I threw a couple of pebbles into the water, watching them sink, wondering whether to call Vance, but what would I say to him? Everything he had needed to tell me had been shared a few nights ago. I simply had to work out a way to meet my responsibilities.

  “Soon,” I murmured to the pool, assuming Vance could hear me and that he would appear if he felt the need to. “I’ll be back soon.”

  As I swung about on the rock, intent on going further into the wood in search of Finbarr, I spied several chunks of branches that had fallen from Vance. The ancient wood had started to dry out. I picked up a large twig, about twelve inches in length, drawn to the unusual twist in its centre—virtually a spiral—and the almost copper colour of the wood. It had some flexibility but was sturdy enough.

  I turned it about in my hands, running my fingers over the fine markings. “Carved by Mother Nature,” I said aloud, forever entranced by the mastery of our natural world. “She could teach some carpenters a thing or two.”

  It seemed a shame to relinquish my newly found treasure, so I carried it with me as I strolled through the woods, walking to the very edge of the boundary, where Mr Kephisto’s magickal barrier glowed fluorescent pink, violet and blue, humming quietly with its own purpose.

  I’d obviously missed Finbarr. Everything seemed to be normal along the perimeter, so I turned about to retrace my steps, walking more quickly. Things to do, people to see.

  Halfway back I heard the tell-tale crunch of a branch snapping up ahead of me.

  I dived behind the nearest wide tree, crouched low to the ground and peered out, listening intently for any further movement. Remembering my training with Silvan, I allowed my senses to pan out by themselves, and sure enough I picked up the faint rustlings of someone heading my way. They trod softly, movements that were almost furtive, but couldn’t hide every noise of the natural environment around them, or even control their own breathing entirely.

  A dark clad figure came into view and I rolled my eyes and stood, making myself known.

  Silvan.

  “Following me again?” I asked him and he chuckled.

  “Perhaps you are merely pre-empting my own movements,” he said. “Very good, Alfhild. I didn’t sense you until we w
ere practically on top of each other. Your defensive magick is improving.”

  I smiled at the compliment. I did feel like I was making great strides. I couldn’t know whether it was enough yet.

  Silvan pointed at the large twisted twig sitting comfortably in my hand. I hadn’t noticed I’d automatically reverted to the attack posture he had drummed into me. I held the length of wood out, aiming it at him. “I think I’ve found myself a wand,” I said in surprise.

  Later after I had painstakingly cleaned it up, and applied a thin layer of protective polish, we put it to use for the first time. In the attic, I shot down tennis ball after tennis ball from where they darted among the rafters. Silvan had been right. Utilising a wand made my aim deadly accurate.

  “I think you’re really getting there,” Silvan announced, and for once, it was me and not him who smiled through grim eyes.

  “So I think I may have some of what you want,” Ross was saying.

  I pulled my chair alongside him to get a better look at what he was doing. Fingers hovering over the keys, he pulled up files faster than I could possibly read them, then minimized window after window.

  “Tell me,” I instructed him.

  “Well as you surmised, the files here are buried deep and there’s quite a lot of security—but what’s odd is that it’s only on certain things. I can access Lyle’s personal material, his internet search history, his banking information very easily… and the data he holds on his guests is also kept here on several spreadsheets.” Ross scrolled quickly through various files and I watched as they zoomed past me. Nothing caught my eye.

  “None of this is very interesting, and I’m not sure it’s pertinent to your investigation,” Ross continued. He pointed at the screen. “It gets more interesting when we look at what he’s stored in the Cloud. Many people make the mistake of assuming the Cloud is secure, but that’s really not the case. Any hacker worthy of the name knows what they’re doing. If they want to get into your material they will.”