by Robert Innes
“We’ll have to check out their stories for sure, but it looks to me like none of them were anywhere near this manor last night.”
Gresham’s eyes landed on Blake. “And what were you doing with my sergeant?”
“You haven’t asked me that question since that Christmas party a few years ago,” Blake replied, glancing at Sally who snorted with laughter.
“Don’t take the micky. Answer the question!” Gresham retorted angrily.
“I was giving him a lift, Sir,” Sally replied. “I saw Blake walking back from one of the villages, and I offered him a lift.”
“Sergeant Matthews, that car is not to be used for you to run a personal taxi service!” Gresham exclaimed, the vein in his head throbbing furiously. He stormed towards Blake, looking up at him angrily with his hands on his hips. “And as for you Harte, keep your nose out of my investigation. Am I clear? What are you even still doing here anyway?”
“I’m on holiday,” Blake replied innocently, looking down at Gresham with some amusement. From Harrison’s perspective, the size difference between the two men looked fairly comical, especially with how annoyed Gresham was.
Gresham glared at Blake. “I know your game, Harte. You haven’t lost a single bit of that superiority complex.”
“I don’t –“
“And for your information,” Gresham interrupted. “I am extremely close to making an arrest and putting this whole sorry affair to bed.”
“An arrest?” Sally repeated. “Who?”
“Need to know, Matthews. Need to know,” Gresham replied smugly, tapping his nose, before returning his glare back to Blake, who continued looking down at the smaller man with a deadpan expression on his face. “So, as you can see Harte, your services are in no way required. Matthews, with me, let’s go!” He pushed past Blake and pointed towards the car park, striding away with his coat flapping behind him in the breeze. Sally glanced at Blake with an exasperated look and followed her angry little boss to the car.
“Who’s he going to arrest?” Harrison asked, as they watched the police car drive away.
“God only knows,” Blake muttered. “But whoever it is, I bet they didn’t do it. I wouldn’t put it past Gresham to arrest someone who’s got absolutely nothing to do with it whatsoever.” He turned back to Harrison and smiled. “So, what have you been doing since I’ve been gone?”
Harrison shrugged. “Not much.”
“Arguing with my ex?” Blake asked, putting his hand on Harrison’s shoulder.
“It was more him doing the arguing,” Harrison replied, as Blake led him towards the door of the mansion. “And it wasn’t just me he was having words with.”
“What do you mean?”
“Davina. I overheard them talking. I don’t know what they were arguing about, but Davina was saying that she’d done something, and she looked like, whatever it was, it was something bad. But before she could say what it was, the ambulance came to pick up Mrs Urquhart. Apparently she’d had some sort of fit.”
They walked inside the mansion and towards the stairs. “Is she going to be alright?” Blake asked.
“I don’t know. Polly went with her.”
“And Rupert didn’t?”
“No. I think he wanted to, but Polly went instead, she said she’d call him from the hospital.”
Blake frowned as they reached their corridor. “Did she?”
As he thoughtfully unlocked his room, he opened the door wide and held it open.
“Did you mean it when you said you thought we could solve this together?”
Harrison looked at the floor, putting his hands in his pockets. “Yeah, of course. But you’re right, it is dangerous. And I probably wouldn’t be much help to you anyway, you’re a detective, you’ve been doing this sort of thing for years, I’m an ex farmer who now works in a shop.”
“Yes I am and yes you are,” Blake said, taking hold of Harrison’s hand and leading him into his room. “But, you’ve also seen exactly the same as me. You’re a bright guy. You’ve got as much chance of working this out as me.”
Harrison gave him a small smile. “Thanks.”
“But,” Blake said, “I don’t want to talk about that right now.”
“Then what do you want to-“
But Harrison’s words were suddenly supressed. The next second, Harrison could not even remember what those words had been, as he found himself with Blake’s lips on his. The world around him disappeared, and once Harrison had recovered from the shock of what was happening, he put his arms around Blake and pulled him in closer, losing himself in that first kiss that he had wanted to happen for so many months.
After what could have been a few seconds or a century, Blake pulled his head away and looked into Harrison’s eyes, speaking softly. “I know Nathan. If he’s having some sort of row with his wife, then I feel like I need to say this, because I also know you. Don’t you ever think you’re not good enough for me. You are ten times the man he could ever be and don’t you dare ever forget that. Because, do you know what Harrison Baxter? I love you. And we can wait around forever for each other to come to terms with that or we can just hold hands and get ready for the ride of our lives. So, which is it going to be?”
Harrison’s heart was hammering in his chest. All he could do was nod breathlessly.
As it happened, words were not necessary. The two of them kissed again, more fervently this time, as if they were trying to prove their intentions in the only way they knew how. The months of longing and curiosity melted away around them as they landed on the bed, grasping at areas of each other that had been inaccessible for too long. The time for them to be together had finally arrived and, as Harrison was about to discover, nothing, not their reservations, not a smirking ex-boyfriend, not even a murder, was going to prevent Blake from making sure that every moment of it counted.
The next morning, Blake opened his eyes and looked down at the sleeping blonde man whose head was resting on his chest. Even if this week away had gone absolutely nothing like the way either of them thought or hoped it would, they could at least take this away. Blake had realised that he needed to step up and be as sharp and insightful and brave as Harrison so clearly thought he was when he had gotten out of Sally’s car and seen Nathan talking to him, with that same cocky and arrogant expression on his face. Faced with the two men who Blake had ever considered on the same level in his life, he had realised that he wanted to see only one of them happy, in fact only one of them meant anything to Blake whatsoever – and it certainly was not the one who had broken his heart.
Harrison stirred and slowly lifted his head with a yawn.
“Morning,” Blake said, stroking his hair.
Harrison sat up and snuggled up to Blake. Even the touch of their bare shoulders against each other felt right. “What time is it?” Harrison asked, groggily.
“Does it matter?” Blake asked him.
Harrison leant forwards and kissed him. Even after they had been doing exactly that, and more, for most of the night, the jolt of excitement that coursed through Blake’s body whenever their lips met had not faltered from its initial high point since the first one. “No,” Harrison said. “I don’t suppose it does. Though, you have still got a case to solve.”
“That doesn’t matter,” Blake said. “You’re far more important.”
“Come on,” Harrison said, kissing him briefly. “You’ve got nothing to prove now. We’re an item, we’re a thing. It’s okay. So, come on.” He kissed Blake again, then stood up and walked across to the kettle that was on the cabinet by the bed. It was already full of water, so Harrison flicked the switch and retrieved two cups from a nearby tray, before placing two teabags inside them. The sight of Harrison’s body made Blake sigh with lust, but Harrison merely grinned at him and sat on the other side of the bed. “Come on then, Detective. If you were in charge of this case, what would be your next move?”
Blake sat up and folded his arms. “I’d go through all the facts that I kne
w so far with the rest of my officers.”
Harrison leant across the bed and looked up at him. “In that case, reporting for duty, Sir.”
Blake laughed. The mansion could be under siege by multiple killers and it would not have affected how happy he felt at that moment. “Okay,” he said. “What do we know so far? Duncan Urquhart, the oldest brother of two who live in this mansion is murdered. We were witness to a hooded figure somehow walking across the lake where Duncan was fishing, and stabbing him to death.”
“Except,” Harrison pointed out, “that the forensics have said that can’t have been exactly what happened because Duncan was already dead when the murder we thought we saw had happened.” The kettle clicked, so Harrison stood up and poured the water into the cups.
“All the same though,” Blake continued. “We ran out of the hut, and it was definitely Duncan lying in that lake. Rupert jumped in and pulled him to the bank. The police turn up and he’s officially confirmed dead.”
“Do you take sugar?” Harrison asked him.
“No thanks,” Blake replied, staring into the distance, playing back what he had seen that night in his head as Harrison brought the steaming cups across and climbed back into bed beside him.
“Who have we got as a suspect?” Harrison asked him, sipping from his cup.
“Suspects. Get you.” Blake grinned.
Harrison laughed, then looked thoughtful. “You know when we were first walking towards the hut, down the path and towards the lakes for that dinner?”
Blake nodded.
“I didn’t see Duncan in the boat in the lake, did you? I mean, I wasn’t really looking for him, obviously, but would we have seen him?”
Blake considered this. “We were somewhat distracted, if you remember,” he said. “We were talking, then Nathan turned up and was his usual pain in the butt self.”
“What I’m trying to say,” Harrison continued, “is that if Duncan had somehow already been murdered, then anyone could have done it, couldn’t they? I mean, it could have been anybody underneath that hood.”
“I suppose so, but-“ Blake began, but then stopped. A thought had just landed in his head, one that he could not believe he had not already considered. “You’re absolutely right,” he said, stunned. “Anybody could have been underneath that hood! The two people who claim to have seen this hooded man, Rupert and Polly. Both of them claim that the figure was vandalising the property, smashing windows. That’s not murderous behaviour.”
“And a few chickens, don’t forget,” Harrison pointed out.
“You could get a dog or something to do that,” Blake replied. “You wouldn’t need to actually do it yourself.” He thought for a few seconds to check that his theory made sense. “Rupert and Polly are the only ones to have seen this figure, Duncan always thought they were talking rubbish, none of the other guests have come forward saying they’d seen it and the only other possible witness, Patricia Urquhart, is in a top room of the mansion, stuck in a wheelchair. What if, assuming that they’re telling the truth, what if the hooded figure that was harassing them is a different hooded figure to the one that appeared to murder Duncan?”
Harrison frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Think about it. Polly’s family, the Lomaxes, hate the Urquharts. I can easily picture them coming over here to try and damage the property, especially as this whole area of land used to belong to their family because of that old steam railway. Nothing better than a hood to hide your identity, so what if whoever murdered Duncan, was just using the hooded figure idea to hide their own crime?”
Harrison sipped his tea and nodded. “That makes sense. It still doesn’t explain who it was though, or how they managed to pull off that whole walking across water thing or the fact that Duncan was already dead. I mean, we both saw him standing up, he looked alive enough to me when he was waving his arms about shouting.”
Blake widened his eyes. “How do we know he was shouting? Did you hear anything?”
“Well, no. He was too far away.”
Blake scratched the back of his head, thinking hard. Slowly, bit by bit, things were coming together. “Exactly. We were too far away to hear him shouting, we just saw him waving his arms about. It’s possible that - No. Is it? How?”
“What?” Harrison asked, watching Blake talk to himself.
Blake turned to him, still wondering if what he was thinking was too ridiculous to be practical. “What if who we saw being ‘murdered’ wasn’t Duncan?”
Harrison stared at him in confusion, but before he could say anything else the sound of angry shouting began emanating from the corridor.
The two of them looked at each other, then quickly got dressed. As they hurried out of the room to see what was happening, Blake’s mind was racing. He felt like he was close to putting everything together, but there were some vital pieces of the puzzle missing. All he needed to know was who exactly had lied to him since he had arrived at The Manor of the Lakes.
Once they were out on the corridor, they quickly realised that the shouting was coming from the reception area downstairs.
“…absolutely preposterous!”
“What do you think you’re doing, Inspector?”
Blake rolled his eyes as they reached the top of the stairs and saw what was going on.
The reception area was in chaos. Gresham had Rupert in handcuffs and seemed to be attempting to frogmarch him out of the front door, made trickier by the fact that Polly was standing in the way and yelling at him. Blake strolled down the stairs and cleared his throat.
“Can I be of any assistance?”
Gresham glared at him. “Oh, why am I not surprised to see you here? No, thank you, Harte. The situation is perfectly under control, thank you, without you sticking your nose into it.”
“This is absolutely absurd!” Rupert shouted. “What possible evidence have you got that I murdered my brother? I could never do that! I have a room full of witnesses that say I was the one who pulled him from the lake!”
“Yes, and I also have a forensic team telling me that your brother was long dead by the time you pulled him out, even before the apparent murder. I don’t know how you did it, but I’ve got more than enough evidence that points the finger at you to keep a jury happy. Your brother made your life hell, didn’t he?”
“Not to the extent where I could kill him!”
“You can tell me all about it at the station,” Gresham replied, smiling broadly. “Come on! Out!”
As he finally managed to get his captive over the threshold, Rupert cried out to his wife who was now standing by the door, with her hands over her mouth, tears in her eyes. “Polly! Call our lawyer! I want every bit of legal representation we can afford!”
Polly watched her husband being taken off and as his voice faded away, she shut the door and put her head against it.
“Are you alright, Polly?” Blake asked her, putting a hand on her arm. “Stupid question, I know.”
“Not really, no,” Polly replied, before taking a long deep breath. “I am exhausted. I spent all night up at the hospital with Patricia, I don’t know whether you heard, she had a seizure. It’s a symptom of the lymphoma.”
“I did hear, yes,” Blake said gently. “Harrison said that Rupert stayed here?”
“Yes, that bloody inspector wanted to talk to him, not that it should have prevented him from going, but what can you do? Things aren’t exactly normal round here at the moment.”
“How is Patricia?”
“She’s been discharged,” Polly replied, turning round to face him at last. Blake was slightly taken aback by how exhausted Polly actually looked. She had bags underneath her eyes and her hair looked unkempt and dishevelled. “She’s in the bar. If you’ll excuse me, I think I need a long, hot bath.”
Blake stepped aside to let her pass, then glanced at the bar, debating whether Patricia would be in any state to answer questions.
“What do you think?” Harrison asked him quietly once she was o
ut of earshot. “Do you think Rupert did it?”
“He might have done,” Blake replied. “But if he did, I doubt Gresham knows for sure. Do you fancy a drink?”
Patricia was sat at a table in the empty bar on her own, cradling a glass of water. As Blake and Harrison walked in, she looked up and watched them as they approached.
“You’re still here?” she asked weakly.
“Yes,” Blake replied, sitting down. “We thought we might be of some help.”
Patricia took a sip of water, her hands trembling slightly. “One of my sons is dead, the other has just been arrested for his murder. I would try upping your game.”
Blake nodded. It was difficult logic for him to argue with. “I understand you had to go to hospital last night?”
“Yes, I had a seizure. Not that the doctors seemed all that bothered. You’d think with the state of the NHS at the minute, they’d want as many good reports as they can get, but I wasn’t treated very well at all last night. A seizure and they discharged me! They always used to be so thorough. Nothing’s like it used to be anymore.” She sighed and stared out of the window, taking another sip of her water.
“You’ve had a lot of bad luck with your health, I understand?” Blake asked her. “Sorry, I don’t mean to be personal.”
“You policeman are just full of questions, aren’t you?” Patricia replied, turning her wheelchair around while letting out a singular violent cough. “But yes. The big ‘C’ has rather haunted me throughout my life. It’s most people’s worst nightmare for it to even come up once. It’s been a feature of my family for generations though. My mother died from it, hers was in the skin. Some of us are just dealt with an unfair lot in life, I suppose.”
Again, she coughed loudly and violently, then began rubbing her chest, wincing.
“I get these chest pains,” she murmured, closing her eyes. “Another symptom.” Again, she began coughing, loudly and violently.
“Would you like another glass of water?” Harrison asked her, leaning forwards concerned.
