by Safari,B. C
The mention of Dr. Willow’s name triggered an instant alteration in Junior’s countenance. If the doctor knew that Mr. Williamson had a secret dorm beneath his office, the two men must’ve been more than acquaintances. Why had Willow denied knowing the headmaster at all? From his reaction alone, Junior was certain that the doctor knew more about Percy Williamson’s death than he was letting on. But how on earth were these occurrences connected? The file that Junior had stolen from the headmaster’s office would soon shed light on who Arthur Mannox really was…that would be the place to start.
‘You are going to tell me, right?’ blurted Charlotte, ‘whatever it was that you and Sasha were doing in Williamson’s office.’
‘That depends…’
‘Depends on what!’
Junior pressed his nose to the window and observed the night’s sky. The moon was full and incandescent. He imagined that the outside world would’ve been bitingly cold by now. Much too cold for any strong spirited youngster to sneak out of her cosy home, where her grandma lay sleeping, jump onto her bicycle and pedal as fast as she could to the Willow Lodge. She won’t come. Junior closed the blinds slowly. If Sasha did not come, Junior feared he would not be able to reveal his suspicions to his sister. Sasha’s presence alone would act as a buffer. She would serve as a voice of reason against Charlotte’s always–factual explanations.
A sudden ‘Tink’ reverberated from the window; the prickly clink of rough pebbles rebounding from the glass forced Charlotte to sprout up from her seat.
‘What in Merlin’s beard was that?’ shot Charlotte, worriedly. Charlotte spread apart the bedroom curtains and waved her torch into the dark lawn. Below, Sasha Fling had already parked her bike against the giant hedges, she had arrived at 9 on the dot.
‘Sasha!’ shrieked Junior, poking his head through the window, ‘you need to mount the wooden fencing… then leap onto the roof beneath the bedroom window.’
‘Bloody hell!’ cursed Sasha. She had cycled for ten straight minutes and was positive that Junior was overestimating her acrobatic abilities. Nevertheless, Sasha managed to scale herself up the staggered wooden fence until the bedroom windowsill was within reach. Charlotte and Junior pulled Sasha through the window head-first. It took a few minutes for Sasha to stabilise herself once she stood upright. From her appearance, it was easy to deduct that Sasha had cycled against a blustery night’s wind. Her flawless caramel cheeks appeared unusually flustered; her usually tidy dark curls were now a blown out mesh of tousled waves. Sasha plucked a crispy brown leaf from her dishevelled locks and grimaced.
‘It’s great to see you Sasha, but why exactly are you here?’ said Charlotte, straight to the point.
Dusting the last foreign particles from her raincoat, Sasha huffed, ‘I was hoping that I would find that out myself, Charley.’
The two girls turned at Junior, shooting threatening expressions.
‘Okay… I’ll explain everything,’ mumbled Junior, extracting a document from his school bag. Shaking Arthur Mannox’s folder, Junior muttered, ‘this…’
‘That file is what we went through hell for!’ shot Sasha, ‘this’d better be good...who is this man, Arthur Mannox, anyway?’
‘Arthur Mannox!’ exclaimed Charlotte, ‘him again?’
‘You’ve heard of Arthur Mannox!’ cried Junior, gawking at his sister.
A worry line worked between Charlotte’s brows, ‘sure, I told you about him all those weeks ago…just after dad died.’
‘What - do - you - mean?’ Junior enunciated every syllable of every word.
‘It was the Saturday after Dad’s passing,’ recalled Charlotte. ‘I was by the telephone accepting calls from everyone who’d sent their condolences…and then a woman called.’
‘You didn’t tell me this!’ shot Junior.
Charlotte tossed her brother a befuddled glare, either she was finally losing it or Junior had suffered terrible memory loss. The simplest explanation was that Junior paid her little attention in the days following his father’s death.
‘Anyway,’ continued Charlotte, slightly aggravated, ‘the woman kept repeating ‘Arthur, Arthur Mannox’ and before I had the chance to tell her that she’d dialled the wrong number, she hung up. Sonia said the same woman called every day since Allan had passed, asking for Arthur each time and then hanging up... I guess she must’ve given up by now.’
Junior was suddenly pale, ‘that is impossible,’ he mouthed.
‘What’s impossible?’ asked Sasha, bewildered by Junior’s sudden pallid complexion.
‘Read this...read it out loud,’ ordered Junior, removing a crumpled piece of paper from his blazer. Charlotte snatched the newspaper cutting and scanned it before regurgitating:
‘HOUSE FIRE KILLS COUPLE AT THE WILLOW LODGE
In the late hours of Thursday evening, a fire broke loose at the Willow Lodge, Shorebridge, turf of the recently deceased aristocrat, Lady Helen Willow. The fire claimed the lives of two residents of the Lodge, a newly married couple, Arthur (39) and Annie Mannox (34). A source close to the pair quotes ‘it is highly unlikely that one will ever meet another duo quite as pleasant as Arthur and Annie. God bless their souls.’ The source of the fire is still unconfirmed. We suspect that the tragic passing of these two upstanding citizens will do little to boost the morale of Shorebridge, and will only rouse the grievances against the police, who have yet to perform in this period of mourning.’
‘Woah!’ swallowed Sasha, ‘what does that mean?’
‘Look at the date,’ ordered Junior.
‘1947…this surely couldn’t be the same Arthur Mannox.’
‘Look at him, look at his face ... he looks exactly like our father!’ exclaimed Junior, ‘a carbon copy!’
Charlotte examined the paper, twisting it in every direction until she could find any plausible discrepancy with Junior’s claims.
‘It’s just a coincidence,’ huffed Charlotte.
‘This is no coincidence!’ cried Junior, ‘Arthur Mannox died here, at the Willow Lodge! He must be related to our father... just look at the resemblance.’
Rising from her seat hysterically, Sasha cried, ‘so this is the reason you broke into Williamson’s office…because you had a hunch!’
‘It’s not a hunch, I know it,’ shrugged Junior, ‘Charlotte just confirmed that a woman called our house several times asking for Arthur Mannox…now that is no coincidence’.
‘But –’
‘See how the article says ‘in this period of grieving’, the late 40’s …they were talking about the killings.’
Sasha raised her brows tentatively, ‘killings?’ she muttered.
‘…And disappearances in 1947,’ explained Junior, ‘the murderer was never caught and now it’s happening again.’
‘So you think that Arthur Mannox, who is dead, has something to do with this?’ chortled Charlotte, in a tone that implied her brother was deranged.
‘Not just Mannox, but our dad. Mr. Williamson, Bart Bold. These are all high profile people. Luchia said that the last time the killings happened, the murderer targeted high profile people…can you see now?’
‘You’re forgetting one tiny detail Junior …one tiny, significant detail,’ said Charlotte, ‘our father committed suicide.’
The moment that followed was painstakingly silent. Junior suddenly came to the realisation that Charlotte would never believe him, regardless of how much evidence he acquired. She’d always think that he had fabricated a conspiracy theory (one that did not include Allan Roterbee’s suicide), a theory in which Allan had been ruthlessly and unjustly murdered.
Snatching the stolen folder from Junior, Sasha muttered, ‘you sure sound as loony as my grandma right now, but we went through a great deal of trouble to get this file, we might as well find out who Arthur Mannox is once and for all.’
She ran her finger down the seam of the folder and opened it dramatically.
‘Hmm,’ hummed Sasha,
‘Arthur Mannox was born in Sicily, 1908…he was an A-grade student, had a knack for chemistry and ... it says here that he was the captain of the football team…there’s even a picture of him.’
Sasha pressed the file to her face, absorbing the photograph of a young Arthur Mannox cradling the St. Andrew’s trophy.
‘Let me see,’ said Charlotte, seizing Arthur Mannox’s file. She grabbed her spectacles from the cabinet and squinted at the greyscale photograph.
‘It cannot be,’ muttered Charlotte, breathing mist into her glasses.
‘What?’ shot Junior.
Colour flooded from Charlotte’s cheeks, making her appear unusually white. Lines of worry were replaced with lines of shock. Utter Shock. Charlotte had not been this dazed on learning that Allan Roterbee had died. She could not get out a word. After several pounding shoulder buds from Junior, Charlotte regained responsiveness.
‘What is it Charley?’
‘Arthur Mannox,’ she mouthed.
‘What about him?’
‘Not only does he look exactly like dad… he is dad.’
‘That’s impossible,’ chortled Junior. ‘I was only proposing that Arthur Mannox was related to our father, but what you’re saying is –’
‘Impossible,’ murmured Sasha.
Charlotte gawked at Mannox’s photograph once more, ‘look at this picture,’ she ordered, ‘that scar on his knee…that birthmark is our father’s birth mark.’
She twisted the folder in all directions (to negate the possibility of a false positive), before finally muttering, ‘I know that mark, it’s shaped like an odd P.’
Charlotte closed the folder and gazed at her brother frightfully, ‘it’s him,’ she whispered.
‘There must be a mistake,’ garbled Sasha, ‘maybe the files aren’t authentic, they’re more than 50 years old, they could’ve been tampered with.’
Junior dragged the folder from his sister’s grip, ‘this is real!’ he declared, ‘Arthur Mannox is real.’
‘Do you understand what you’re saying!’ ejaculated Sasha. ‘If by any chance Arthur Mannox is your dad, that would make him over 100 years old.’
‘Forget age!’ blurted Charlotte, ‘Arthur Mannox or dad, whoever he is, was supposed to have died at the Willow Lodge in 1947. He obviously didn’t, otherwise we wouldn’t be alive!’
‘If this is true, then someone knew Arthur or Allan was still alive,’ said Junior, ‘…at least that explains the woman calling our house.’
A worry line appeared between Charlotte’s brows, ‘who could she be?’
‘This is still all hypothetical, right?’ muttered Sasha, ‘as in, if the files have not been tampered with.’
‘No one has had access to these files apart from Mr. Williamson, Sasha.’
In apparent surrender, Sasha collapsed into the lower bunk, bathing her head in a pile of fluffy cushions.
‘So what does all of this mean?’ she whispered, finally.
‘It means that the Mannox’s were running from something,’ answered Junior, rubbing his chin, ‘why else would they want people to think they were dead?’
‘It must have something to do with the killings,’ mumbled Charlotte, ‘but what?’
Sasha buried her head in her hands. The idea that Mannox, who was pronounced dead in 1947, could’ve been the same man as Allan Roterbee, made no logical sense. There was a possibility that after forging his own death, Mannox devised his new identity as Allan Roterbee, so that he could continue to live undetected. However, a man who wanted to live an undetected, low profile life would not live as Allan Roterbee did. Mr. Roterbee had built himself a million-dollar empire and acquired near celebrity status. If Arthur, or Allan, was running from any danger, the threat or threatener must have retired a long time ago. Why would a man, who was bent on faking his own death, want to become a prominent figure in his new life? They were dragging the theory from air. Even if it were true, certain details would never correlate, like how Allan Roterbee had miraculously maintained his youth. Arthur Mannox would have been over 100 years old if he was still alive, but Mr. Allan Roterbee looked like any middle aged man. It was this unanswerable question that set the whole theory alight. Frustrated by this inexplicable discovery, Sasha delved back into the thick folder, scanning each page until she could assimilate a plausible answer. She had almost abandoned her search when another familiar face shot out of the file.
‘Charley, come and look at this now,’ ordered Sasha, her nose buried deep inside the folder. ‘If we are finding it hard to get our heads around the fact that your dad was alive in 1947, then how do you explain the fact that Mr. Williamson was still the headmaster of St. Andrew’s in the 1920s.’
‘What!’ cried Charlotte, snatching Arthur Mannox’s folder.
‘Here he is, Mr. Williamson… not a day younger than he looked a few weeks ago.’
Squinting at the picture, Charlotte replied, ‘that old man is barely 65 years old but if this is accurate, he’d be more like 200 years old.’
‘It’s true!’ cawed Sasha, her eyes filling with amazement. ‘My grandma said that Mr. Williamson was the headmaster of St. Andrew’s when she arrived in England more than 50 years ago.’
Fighting back tears of bafflement, Sasha croaked, ‘I thought she was joking, but I can’t remember there ever being another headmaster at St. Andrew’s before him.’
‘That’s it!’ shot Junior, ‘he’s frozen somehow…frozen in time.’
‘Now we just sound ridiculous!’ chortled Charlotte.
Junior’s returned complexion slowly chalked over again, ‘didn’t you see Percy Williamson’s dying stare?’ he muttered, ‘there was ice in his eyes…he was frozen. It was the same dying stare as… as my father’s.’
‘Junior,’ began Sasha, the amazement in her tone was slowly draining into sympathy.
‘That’s how they’re linked!’ cried Junior, circling the room, ‘it’s not because they’re high profile but because they’re somehow-’
‘Frozen… now that would make them vampires!’ cried Sasha, incredulously.
Folding her arms over her chest, Charlotte replied, ‘I don’t know what they are – but I never once questioned the fact that my father has looked the same age for most of my life.’
Lines of distress surfaced on Sasha’s face; soon, she was pacing around the room as recklessly as Junior.
‘So the killer is after people like Mr. Williamson and Mannox…people who never grow old?’
‘It seems that way,’ murmured Charlotte, ‘what if Dr. Willow is one of them.’
‘Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,’ said Junior. ‘We can’t be sure that any of this is true. I mean for goodness sakes, vampires!’
‘Vampires are very real mystical creatures, actually,’ said Sasha, offended by Junior’s mockery of her theory.
Junior sniggered, utterly convinced that Sasha’s theory was nuttier than his own. In some way, he was relieved that he’d finally shared his suspicions with Charlotte and Sasha. Collectively, they’d made discoveries that Junior could not have unearthed alone. Most importantly, neither Sasha nor Charlotte believed that he was out of his mind. They believed, to some degree, that the deaths and disappearances of late were somehow linked to Arthur Mannox…who was also Allan Roterbee. But maybe this was all too complicated, more complicated than it really ought to be. And just maybe, the truth was nestled somewhere in the simplest, most plausible explanation.
‘We don’t know that any of this is true,’ said Charlotte, breaking the thinking silence, ‘but what we do know is that there’s a murderer out there. The murderer killed Mr. Williamson and is probably responsible for the disappearances over the last few months.’
Pacing about the room determinedly, Junior muttered, ‘I need to get to the bottom of this. I believe that this same murderer killed my father, and I need to know if it’s true.’
‘I’m in,’ said Sasha, without an inkling of hesitance.
<
br /> Junior and Sasha looked to Charlotte, who was still biting her nails.
‘We are meant to be students, not murder investigators – I can’t help but feel we’ll only get deeper into this mess if we keep looking for trouble.’
‘Come on Charley, do something exciting for once!’ urged Junior.
‘I’m only in because I firmly believe that vampires exist,’ chuckled Sasha. ‘And, of course, Shorebridge police have no leads on the murder. In just one night we have already uncovered so much, why give up now?’
Filled with apprehension, Charlotte glanced between Sasha and her brother.
‘Fine,’ she groaned, ‘but mark my words…we’d better not get into any more trouble.’
Junior smirked victoriously and spat air into his palms; he urged the girls to do the same.
‘Is that necessary?’ Sasha grimaced.
‘Yup!’ shot Junior.
The girls groaned in sync as they spat into their palms. Junior grabbed their hands eagerly until the trio had formed a complete triangle.
‘This is our oath of secrecy,’ he declared, once all palms were sealed.
The girls continued to grimace. Soon after, the raucous thumps of heavy footsteps signalled that an angry and tired Dr. Willow was towering up the wooden stairway. This was Sasha’s cue to leave. Junior hastily lowered her onto the tiled roof. Then leaping onto the wooden fencing, and down into the dark lawn, Sasha mounted her bike. Charlotte watched from the window as Sasha cycled into the night. When her friend could no longer be seen, Charlotte closed the bedroom blinds.
Chapter nine
‘The Shorebridge Ripper’
Every year, the transition between the seasons is appropriately and mysteriously marked. This year, Shorebridge saw the extinction of its last green foliage and the arrival of a cold sweeping wind, which signified the fall’s end and the winter’s beginning. Mysterious. In this respect, Shorebridge is no different to many other towns around the world. With December ever approaching, and an increasing number of shops restocking for the festive period, there should not have been a single soul that wasn’t avidly anticipating Christmastime. Nevertheless, the passing of Headmaster Williamson had somewhat dampened the moods of the people of Shorebridge. If they were anticipating anything, it was likely to be updates on the scandalous murder case from the seemingly sluggish town police. With Mr. Williamson dead and Bart Bold missing, Christmas was most definitely the lesser anticipation. However, there was one small sector of teens, in the upper-sixth year of St. Andrew’s college, who believed they had something more exciting than Christmas, or receiving updates on Williamson’s murder, to anticipate…the Winter Ball. The Winter Ball is a glorious occasion, native to St. Andrews College for boys and girls. Right from the moment that most students receive their acceptance letter to the school, they begin to forestall the extravagant dance, albeit seven years too soon. Eager mothers enrol their prepubescent daughters on all the afterschool dance classes, and avid fathers begin training their boys on the etiquette of speaking to women. By the end of their third year at St. Andrew’s school, most students already know their potential dates and by the fourth year, there is little potentiality about the matter. However, the befuddling twists and turns of budding teenage romance renders most students dateless by the fifth and sixth years. So, by the final year at St. Andrew’s College, the principal priority, in the sight of many students is not to pass all exams with flying colours, or to gain admission to the top Russel group universities, but rather to find a suitable date to the Winter Ball.
