Lightning strikes twice, p.1
Lightning Strikes Twice, page 1
Lightning Strikes Twice
A Mary Blake Mystery
AG Barnett
Contents
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Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
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Chapter
One
Mary looked around the space with a satisfied smile. OK, it wasn’t your usual sort of office. Your standard office tended not to have a snooker table as a desk. At least the chalk scoreboard was proving a useful way to keep track of notes. So far, the only thing written on it in large capital letters was “GET CLIENTS!” but the point stood.
So far, in the three weeks since they had announced to the world that they were starting a detective agency, they had received eighteen requests from people supposedly wanting help from the newly formed Blake, Blake and Tanner. Unfortunately, fourteen of these had proved to be fans of the hit crime show Her Law, in which Mary had played the lead role of Susan Law.
That part of Mary’s life was over now. The TV executives had decided that at the age of fifty, she was no longer an acceptable sight for the viewing public. A fact which had initially made her furious at the injustice of the world, but had now cooled with time as she began to find a new life for herself.
This was in no small part due to the events that had taken place since her career had received such a fatal blow. The largest of which was undoubtedly the discovery of a long-lost family heirloom which had then been sold for a sum so huge, Mary still had to count the noughts each time she looked at her bank statement.
Although the discovery was the biggest in terms of national intrigue and journalistic appeal, two other events had made a far more significant impact in Mary’s life. She had found herself embroiled in two separate murder cases and, along with her brother Pea and her old friend and assistant Dot, had been integral to solving them both. The thrill, rush, and sense of accomplishment this had given her surpassed anything else she had done in her entire life.
She had caught the bug of detection, a role she had played for so long on television, and yet had never dreamed of doing in real life. Now, with enough money to choose whatever path she wanted in life and a fierce determination to make it count, she had started her own private detective agency. Well, along with Dot and Pea, of course.
Once they had dismissed the fourteen enquiries from starstruck fans, they had dealt with the remaining four. Three had been missing person cases, all of whom had promptly turned up again before they could even get stuck in, and the last... the last was a local affair.
“I’ve got the pamphlet thingy,” Pea said as he came through the door. She turned to see his tall frame striding across the old and threadbare carpet, his red hair flopped to one side and sticking out at varying points as it always seemed to. He was waving a small booklet in his left hand and held it out to Mary as he reached her. She took it from him and looked down at the front cover. On it, etched in black and white, was the outline of an oak tree, its thick trunk split dramatically down the middle, leaving a large oval hole at its centre. Above it, in gothic writing, were the words “The Lightning Tree.” Her eyes drifted to the name at the bottom.
“It was written by Ethel Long?” Mary said, one eyebrow rising.
“Yep,” Pea replied as he stretched his long arms and yawned, before flopping into an office chair that rolled backwards slightly. “Funny, I wouldn’t have pegged her as an amateur historian.”
“Maybe not,” Mary agreed, “but this isn’t exactly history, is it? It’s gossip and nonsense, something old Ethel Long excels at.”
“Just because you don’t understand it, don’t dismiss it,” Pea said.
Mary gave a small laugh and shook her head as she took a seat on the opposite side of the snooker table desk and opened the booklet. Inside was a brief description of the lightning tree and the legend surrounding it. Mary already knew the story; everyone who lived in the village of Bloxley or its surrounding areas did. Rural England is the kind of place where legends and myths thrive, and the north of the county of Adderbury was no different.
The tree, which dominated the village green at the village of Bloxley, had not always had such a dramatic name. It had once been known as The Giving Tree, a symbol of hope, rebirth, and fertility. It had been used in rituals that dated back to pagan times and had formed the centre of countless May Day ceremonies. Welcoming in the spring and all the hope and promise it brought for the local community of people who lived off the land.
Legend had it that a little under one hundred years ago a terrible storm swept across the rolling green hills, a storm like no one had ever seen. Fingers of lightning crept over the land as though seeking something, thunder rumbled and crashed as though the sky was splitting and the rain poured down in sheets that swelled the rivers for miles around.
The villagers battened down their windows and doors and hid in their houses until morning, when it had blown itself out around dawn. They emerged blinking into a world of fallen branches, cracked tiles, and collapsed walls. None of this, though, had prepared them for what they had found at the village green.
The Giving Tree had been split by a violent bolt of pure energy that had cracked its old, gnarled trunk down the middle. Far worse, though, was what lay at the bottom of the newly created blackened hollow. A woman named Emily Blankforth, dead, from a vicious blow to her head.
Mary flicked through the pamphlet for a few moments as Pea browsed a magazine that had run a story on their new business.
“This is a great photo of you, Mary,” he said, “it could have been taken right out of Her Law!”
“That’s because it was,” Mary answered, “They took it from a photoshoot I did a couple of years ago.”
“Oh, right. Well, the article makes the new firm sound pretty exciting!”
“I think that’s part of the problem,” Mary answered, “no one’s going to take it seriously after reading that. It sounds like we’re making a new TV show.”
Mary hadn’t told the others, but this was truer than they knew. Her agent Terry had called her yesterday, furious that she had started talks on a new spin-off series without him.
“So,” Mary said, deciding to bring matters back to the case in hand. “Ethel Long’s theory on the original case is that Emily Blankforth wasn’t a witch at all?”
“That’s right,” Pea answered, sitting upright, “caused quite a stir apparently when she put it out there. You know how much the Cauldron likes to big up the witch connection.”
Mary smiled. The Cauldron, the village of Bloxley’s only pub, enjoyed a central position in the village, at the back of the triangular village green. As the lightning tree dominated the pub’s view, it made sense that thirty years ago, the then owners would have attempted to cash in on the legend. The pub had been renamed to the Cauldron from the Fox and had lined its walls with various objects of the occult. Sometimes, these objects were entirely devoid of magical overtones but were so strange looking or odd (like the vintage set of false teeth which stood in a small glass case on the mantelpiece) that they were deemed acceptable. Its six double bedrooms were similarly themed as “spooky,” which had the added benefit of reducing the amount of cleaning, which pleased its landlord Frank Roach. Cobwebs only added to the authenticity.
“Well,” Mary said with a sigh, “The Cauldron obviously has the most to gain, but Frank swears he had nothing to do with it. But the decision to ask us to look into it doesn’t exactly scream innocence.”
“What do you mean?” Pea blinked at her. “Why would Frank ask us to look into it if he’d vandalised the tree himself?”
Mary rolled her eyes.
“You’d better not be this dim in front of clients, you know. He’d do it for the publicity! Think about it. We announce we’re starting a private detective agency and get a bit of press. What better way to drum up business for the pub than to have a real-life mystery outside that drags us in?”
“I see,” Pea said thoughtfully. “Good point.” His slightly receding brow furrowed.
“You really need to start being more cynical,” Mary said, shaking her head and standing. “Come on, Dot’s train should be getting in soon. Let’s pick her up and go and look at this bloody tree.”
As Mary walked across the former snooker room of her family home at Blancham Hall, her mind drifted to her childhood in the large and slightly crumbling building. Her mother, a smiling, kind woman with a fire behind her eyes that often caught people off guard if they pushed her. Her father, a brilliant
She remembered a family picnic, taken on the village green at nearby Bloxley, underneath the lightning tree. Her father, animatedly telling the story of its legend as she and Pea rolled on the ground with laughter.
Something had happened to the lightning tree. It had been vandalised with a message that harked back to the past, and in particular, to witchcraft and murder.
Chapter
Two
The station at Bloxley was little more than a raised stone platform alongside the tracks and a small wooden shelter that leaned precariously to one side. As it had tilted like this since she had been a child, Mary held no fear that it would collapse any time soon. She picked at the peeling blue paint.
“We should spruce this place up a bit,” she said to Pea as her eyes scanned the weeds which had forced their way through the cracked and broken brickwork.
“I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that,” Pea said, leaning out over the track and peering down the line towards Tanbury, from which direction Dot’s train would arrive.
“You think we should write to the train company?” Mary asked. “I doubt they’d be interested. It’s a miracle the trains still stop here as it is.”
The horn of a train rang out in the distance.
“Here she comes!” Pea said, his cheeks reddening.
Mary couldn’t help but smile. Her brother and her best friend were in the early stages of a romance that seemed to have turned them into teenagers. Well, Pea at least. Dot had indeed shown uncharacteristic signs of soppiness, but they were just small cracks in her general business-like demeanour compared to the full puppy-dog look that Pea seemed to have whenever she was around.
Mary’s smile faded slightly as her thoughts drifted to her own love life: or lack of one. She still got messages from old flames asking her out to dinner or a show in London, but she’d stopped that side of life almost as abruptly as her acting career had been cut short. She hadn’t just lost her job; she had lost her identity. Now, she was rebuilding it, but what that meant for her love life, she had yet to figure out. Inspector Joe Corrigan rose into her mind as he always seemed to these days. She shook him clear from her mind as the train pulled to a stop, and Dot stepped down from the third carriage.
“Hello!” Pea said enthusiastically, helping her down the small step to the platform and kissing her on the cheek. “How was the journey? OK?”
“Fine, thank you,” Dot said, “only a half-hour delay which is better than usual.”
Pea took her suitcase from her as Mary gave her a welcoming hug.
“Good to have you back, Dot. Pea was driving me mad, I need a buffer.”
Dot Tanner laughed but then gave Mary a slightly disapproving look at being referred to as a buffer.
“Well, everything’s in hand in London. So I can stay for a while.”
“Great!” Pea exclaimed, then looked sheepish at the outburst. “I’ll just get this in the car.” He turned and wheeled the suitcase towards the small car park.
“He’s been pining after you like a lovesick puppy,” Mary said in a low voice as she linked her arm through Dot’s and followed.
“Don’t be silly, Mary.”
“I’m serious! If you were going to take any longer in London, I was going to send him up to you to get rid of him!”
Dot tutted, but Mary saw the smile on her face.
“We’re not going straight to the hall, I’m afraid—we have a case!”
“What is it this time?” Dot said sharply. “Someone wants you to sign a poster or something?”
“No! It’s a real one! Well, sort of.”
“What do you mean by ‘sort of’?”
“I think it’s best we take a look at it and go from there,” Mary answered as they reached the car where Pea held open the front passenger door for Dot.
Mary climbed into the back seat, realising that this was now her place in the group. She was the third wheel.
“Come on, don’t keep me in suspense. What is it?” Dot asked as Pea pulled the car out of the parking space.
“Someone’s defaced the lightning tree,” Pea answered in a dramatic voice.
“That old, dead tree in the village?”
“It’s not dead,” Pea corrected, “it’s still alive even with the split in the trunk. Amazingly hardy things, trees.”
“So,” Dot said with a sigh. “Village vandalism. I can’t imagine this is going to pay very much, who’s asked us to look into it?”
“Frank Roach,” Mary answered from the back, “he’s the landlord at the Cauldron, and it’s a bit more than just village vandalism.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’ll see,” Mary answered as they rounded the sharp bend that turned into the village of Bloxley. The warm-coloured stone buildings topped with thatch crowded the short, narrow lane which opened out to the village green.
“There it is,” Pea said as he pulled the car alongside the large triangular grass area, the lightning tree at its centre.
“Bloody hell,” Mary said in shock. “Whoever did this wasn’t messing about, were they?”
They climbed out of the car and walked across the still-damp grass towards the tree in silence. All three of their gazes were locked onto the writing burnt into its trunk.
“How on earth did they do that?” Dot asked, squinting up at it.
“With a ladder, unless they were ten foot tall,” Pea answered.
“I don’t mean how high it is, I mean burn the letters in like that?”
“They must have used some kind of accelerant,” Mary said confidently, stealing a line she had used on her TV show numerous times.
“Tree bark isn’t as easy to set on fire when it’s still on the tree,” Pea added. “Once the stuff they’d put on had burnt off, it would have just fizzled out.”
“What does it mean?” Dot asked.
Mary and Pea exchanged glances.
“I think,” Mary answered slowly, “that rather depends on how much you believe in legends.”
She looked back up at the writing that was crudely burnt into the side of the tree that still maintained the integrity of its trunk.
1 MORE WITCH
Chapter
Three
“Come on, Frank,” Pea said, leaning on the bar of the Cauldron. “Are you sure this isn’t just some publicity stunt?”
Mary glanced at him, impressed with how quickly he had absorbed this point of view as his own.
“I’m telling you,” Frank answered, “I know nothing about it!”
Frank Roach was a portly figure with a slick, teddy-boy haircut despite the receding hairline. His thin moustache and black silk shirt were adding to the sense that he had just time-travelled from a dance hall in the 1950s.
“I mean, it’s going to be bloody good for business, that’s why I got a photo over to the Gazette sharpish, but I wouldn’t want someone doing that to the tree. It’s not right, is it?”
“It happened right outside,” Mary chimed in. “Are you telling me you didn’t hear or see anything?”
“No! They must have done it in the middle of the night. I didn’t close up until…” He hesitated.
Pea realised that Frank’s license only allowed him to serve alcohol until eleven o’clock at night.
“Ha! Don’t be ridiculous, Frank,” Pea said laughing, “we’ve been at enough of your lock-ins for you to know it’s fine and we’re not police.”
“Right, well,” Frank said, leaning back and shrugging his shoulders, “we had some of the regulars in, and we were all ‘having a good old natter about the to-do we had in here last week, so it ran a little late. Anyway, everyone who was here says nothing was happening at the tree when they walked home.”
