by Adam Croft
Contents
Copyright Information
Thursday 12th March
1
2
Tuesday 17th March
3
Wednesday 18th March
4
5
6
Thursday 19th March
7
8
9
10
11
Friday 20th March
12
13
14
15
16
Saturday 21st March
17
18
19
Sunday 22nd March
20
21
22
23
Monday 23rd March
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
Tuesday 24th March
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
Wednesday 25th March
40
41
42
43
44
Thursday 26th March
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
Friday 27th March
53
54
55
56
57
Saturday 28th March
58
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Acknowledgements
This book is entirely a work of fiction.
The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
The author’s opinions are not representative of those of the publisher.
Published by Circlehouse
1
First published by Circlehouse in 2015
Copyright © Adam Croft 2015
Adam Croft asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.
Thursday 12th March
1
Elliot Carr closed his eyes and turned his head upwards as he tried to blot out the inevitable argument which had ensued. They could never go anywhere — anywhere — without some sort of drama from Scarlett.
He’d known she was a drama queen when he’d first met her, but that was one of things that had first attracted him to her. It was certainly far less irritating than that erroneous extra ’t’ at the end of her name, which her parents had added in order to make her name ‘unique’ and ‘different’. Everything her parents had ever done had been unique and different, so why would they stop at naming their child?
If the truth be told, it was Scarlett’s parents he disliked. Sure, Scarlett had her pretensions, her airs and graces, but she couldn’t be blamed for them. It was purely down to her parents, who’d led her to believe that she had some sort of divine right over other people just because her father was a banker and her mother had delusions of being a successful novelist. Elliot had always tried to stifle the laughter when Irma told people she was a full-time writer. Sure, she spent all of her time writing, but she’d never earned a penny from it. That didn’t bother her. She didn’t need to, what with Robert raking home in a week what most people could only hope to earn in a year.
Where Elliot came from, money didn’t make someone a better person. In fact, he found that the opposite was usually true. His more modest upbringing though, had brought with it a certain talent for tact and tongue-biting, which was serving him well now as Scarlett launched into another tirade.
‘This is meant to be our anniversary, Elliot!’ she yelled, emphasising the occasion as if he could have somehow forgotten.
‘Yes, I know it is. But you can hardly blame me for the traffic problems, Scarlett. Or the car breaking down. Or the mix-up with the hotel room.’
‘How am I supposed to know it wasn’t you who mixed up the rooms?’ she asked, wrenching a phone charger from her suitcase and throwing it down on the bed. ‘After all, it was you who booked it.’
Yes, because I’m the one who always does these things, Elliot thought. Maybe if you got off your privileged backside and— ‘The receptionist said it was to do with their new computer system. Just one of those things.’
‘Just one of those things,’ Scarlett repeated, with mock laughter. ‘Just like the car breaking down. Again.’
‘And what do you want me to do about it now?’ Elliot asked, trying desperately to keep a lid on his temper. ‘It’s been back in to the dealership three times now and they’ve said they can’t find a fault.’
‘Well maybe if we’d gone for the Mercedes instead, like I wanted, then we wouldn’t have to keep taking it back to the bloody dealership, would we?’ she replied, tugging her make-up bag loose from under Elliot’s neatly folded shirts.
Elliot sighed. There was no point. They’d been over this a hundred times before. How, in fact, it was he who’d wanted the Mercedes but Scarlett had twisted his arm into buying the BMW. How he’d pointed out that the Mercedes would be more reliable but that Scarlett had preferred the interior on the BMW. How she was always bloody right, even when she was wrong.
‘Is that it?’ she said, thrusting her hands on her hips. ‘A sigh?’
‘What do you want me to say?’ Elliot asked, hoping for some sort of tip as to how he could end this daft charade. After five years of marriage, though, he knew there was only one way.
‘Nothing. There’s nothing you can say.’
‘Right. Well I’m going to the bar, then.’
2
‘Large scotch, please,’ Elliot said, the barman’s permanent smile putting him on edge. He was never sure how to react when people were overly nice. Should he drop his defences and smile back, no matter how upset or annoyed he was, or should he allow it to infuriate him even more to the point where he wanted to punch him in the face? Rise above it, he told himself. He wasn’t angry at the barman; he was angry at Scarlett.
He was amazed at how often he had to tell himself that. As far as he was concerned, it just went to show that Scarlett’s attitude and behaviour had permeated every fibre of his being and was starting to affect so many different areas of his life. He wasn’t one for confrontation, though, and preferred to keep things bottled up. That wasn’t a problem, as he never stayed angry for long. At some point tonight he’d have calmed down, Scarlett would have just pretended the whole thing never happened, she’d flounce down to dinner, they’d have a bottle or two of wine, head back upstairs and... Well, she had her uses.
Right now, though, his attention was fixed firmly on the glass of scotch, for no other reason than to take his mind of the fact that he’d just paid twelve pounds for it. Way to calm a man down, he thought.
He sloshed the amber liquid around in his glass, clinking the ice off the side of the glass as it slowly melted, releasing the potent fumes of the whisky.
‘Long day?’ the barman asked as he wiped between the beer pumps with a cloth.
‘Hmm? Oh. No, sorr
y,’ Elliot said, waking himself from his stupor. ‘Silly argument with my wife. Just one of those things.’
‘Ah. I did wonder,’ he said. ‘Not often you get men drinking scotch at six o’clock in the evening.’
‘No. Well, it’ll be my only one, I suppose. Especially at these prices.’
The barman laughed a knowing laugh, as if he’d heard that line a few times before. ‘Funny. You don’t seem like the marrying type to me,’ he said.
Elliot allowed himself to smile for the first time that evening. ‘No. I’m starting to think that might be the case myself.’
Tuesday 17th March
3
The comfort of the Freemason’s Arms seemed like luxury to Ellis Flint. He was a firm believer that holidays were meant to be relaxing affairs, but the one he’d just returned from had been anything but.
‘You two are bloody murder magnets from what I hear,’ the landlord, Doug Lilley, said as he pulled on the pump to pour Ellis’s pint. ‘In fact, perhaps it’s in my best interests that I bar you,’ he added, laughing.
‘I think you’re safe,’ Ellis said. ‘Lightning never strikes twice.’ Indeed, the very first murder that Ellis and his friend Kempston Hardwick had investigated had taken place in the Freemason’s Arms a little over three years earlier.
‘Bloody strikes constantly when you two are about,’ Doug replied. ‘Rate you’re going, you’ll turn this place into some sort of cheap detective series location.’
‘Well, at least we’re doing our bit for the community. I can’t see them closing down the police station if the murder rate stays this high.’
Tollinghill Police Station had been earmarked for closure by the county force in the previous few months as part of the present government’s cost-cutting exercises. It was all about ‘streamlining’ and ‘centralising services’. Once all of the corporate-speak had been cut through, the bottom line was that it came down to money. Liberty and safety had been reduced to mere commodities.
‘Heh. Every cloud and all that,’ Doug said, leaning in towards Ellis. ‘Here, that reminds me. Did you hear about that bloke topping himself down at the Manor Hotel in South Heath last Thursday?’
‘No,’ Ellis said. ‘What happened?’
‘Hung himself from the rafters on the top floor. Nothing suspicious, like. Well, not officially, anyway. But it’s a bit weird, ain’t it, after all them stories about the ghosts and that?’
‘Ghosts?’ Ellis asked, his interest piqued. Ellis’s interest in the paranormal had come to the fore on more than one occasion recently, and he was sure that many of the odd goings on in and around Tollinghill could be attributed to supernatural forces. He vaguely recalled a ghost story concerning the Manor Hotel but couldn’t remember any details.
‘Yeah, an old woman supposedly haunts it,’ Doug said. ‘Story goes, a child died there, back when it was a private manor, back in Victorian times. They reckon it was the nanny who had poisoned the young lad, and they sacked her on the spot even though she said she didn’t do it. Few years later, the old dear dies in poverty and never got to clear her name. Legend has it that it’s her ghost who still haunts the manor, trying to protest her innocence.’
Ellis felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up and realised his breathing was becoming more and more shallow.
‘Apparently it all kicked off when they converted it into a hotel,’ Doug continued. ‘The builders had been doing some renovation work and took some tiles off the roof. Turns out there was a secret hidden room on the top level, which no-one knew about. They reckon it’s what would’ve been the servants’ quarters. The room where the nanny would’ve lived. That’s when it all started kicking off.’
‘Kicking off?’ Ellis asked.
‘Well, they gradually turned the top floor rooms into more hotel rooms, as well as keeping a couple for the staff. Housekeepers and that. Few weeks later, people started seeing things. Couple of people reckon they saw an old woman sat at the end of their bed, crying. Quite a lot of footsteps coming from the room where she would’ve lived, too.’
‘Sounds like a nice little bit of marketing to me,’ Ellis said, not believing his own cynicism but trying desperately to come up with a rational explanation in order to stop himself getting completely spooked.
‘That’s where you’re wrong, see. The hotel owners went and spoke to a couple of the families who lived there, back when it was in private hands. Turns out the previous owner said his mum used to hear someone knocking on her bedroom door at night, even if she was the only person there. And other people saw things, too.’
Ellis sat back and thought for a moment. ‘Doug,’ he said, leaning forward once more. ‘What’s this got to do with this bloke’s suicide, exactly?’
‘You tell me, Ellis,’ Doug said, standing up and brushing down the bar with a cloth. ‘You tell me.’
Wednesday 18th March
4
‘So what you’re trying to tell me is that a non-existent spiritual being has somehow wrapped a rope around a chap’s neck and left him swinging from the rafters in a hotel, yes?’ Kempston Hardwick said, sounding completely serious but with that subtle tone of underlying sarcasm that Ellis had come to know so well.
‘No, what I’m trying to say is that it’s a good story,’ Ellis said. ‘It’s interesting. All that weird stuff going on, and then a bloke goes and tops himself in the same room. Bit of a coincidence, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, Ellis. That’s exactly what it is. A coincidence and a good story. Tell me, do you know how many people die in hotels every year? Thousands. Think how many people pass through a hotel in a year. And how many people must have stayed in that room? I hardly think one suicide is a worrying statistic. Besides, it was converted to a hotel nearly twenty years ago. It’s hardly all happening at once, is it?’
‘Things have been happening for years, Kempston. This is just the tip of the iceberg.’
‘Who told you that?’ Hardwick asked.
‘Doug, at the Freemason’s, last night,’ Ellis replied.
‘Ah yes. Doug Lilley. Award-winning licensee and master storyteller. You can’t believe everything you’re told, Ellis. Especially not in a place like Tollinghill. You should know that by now.’
‘Ah, but that’s not all. You said about how many people must’ve stayed in that room. This bloke, Elliot Carr, wasn’t even staying in that room. He was staying in a suite on the room below with his wife. So why was he hanging from the rafters in room thirteen?’
‘Room thirteen? Oh come on, Ellis. That’s not even imaginative.’
‘That’s how many rooms there are, Kempston. Thirteen. It’s on the top floor and they’re numbered upwards. Hardly my fault. Anyway, why was he up there hanging from the rafters if he was staying down in room seven?’
‘Does room seven have exposed rafters?’ Hardwick asked.
‘I don’t know. I shouldn’t think so,’ Ellis said.
‘There you go, then. Mystery solved. Mr Carr rightly deduced that he couldn’t hang himself from an Artex ceiling and, in a moment of groundbreaking genius, went to the room with exposed rafters.’
‘But why?’ Ellis asked. ‘He was there enjoying an anniversary break with his wife. They’d been married five years. Why would he want to kill himself?’
‘I think you just answered that question, Ellis,’ Hardwick replied. He’d never been one for marriage, or for any type of relationship or romance at all, for that matter. As far as Hardwick was concerned, romance and courtship were unnecessary distractions from the seriousness of life.
‘I don’t know, Kempston. It just doesn’t seem right. According to Doug, Elliot Carr hung himself with a cord from one of the dressing gowns they keep in the storage room. He didn’t take anything up to the room with him, so it doesn’t sound like he planned it. He’d even set his alarm for the next morning. Why would you do that if you’d planned to kill yourself?’
‘Perhaps it was a spur-of-the-moment thing,’ Hardwick offered.
‘What, so on the spur of the moment he just decided to walk up to the top floor where he happened to know there was an unoccupied room with exposed rafters and a handy dressing gown cord which he could hang himself with? Doesn’t sound all that likely to me.’
Hardwick was silent for a few moments. ‘No. Now that you put it like that, it doesn’t sound too likely to me, either.’
‘Go on,’ Ellis said. ‘What’s the punchline?’
‘Hmmm?’
‘Well, I don’t often manage to talk you round that easily. I presume there must be some sarcastic comment or quip on its way at some point.’
‘Not at all, Ellis,’ Hardwick replied. ‘In fact, I was just thinking about how easily you do manage to talk me round.’
5
Detective Inspector Rob Warner was not someone who liked having his time wasted. Although he’d had cause to call on Kempston Hardwick’s assistance and expertise in the past, he largely found him an irritation, more often than not getting in the way of his own investigational procedures.
Indeed, it was only recently that he’d had to bail Hardwick out of a Greek prison after Hardwick had been unable to manage even a week’s holiday without getting himself muddled up in a murder case. He presumed Hardwick must have his reasons for being constantly compelled to get involved, but as far as Warner was concerned it was just another added complication that he didn’t need.
With the police service having to work around stringent budget cuts at the present time, enlisting the help of outside contractors was not high on the agenda. Rather infuriatingly for DI Warner, this was not a reason he could use for keeping Kempston Hardwick at arms’ length, as Hardwick never charged for his services.
This had always intrigued Warner. Try as he might — and he had — he could never find out anything about who Kempston Hardwick really was. How he earned a living. Where he came from before he moved to Tollinghill. Whether he had any family. This, in itself, had made him more than a little suspicious of Hardwick over the years, although he could never quite pin anything on him.
