When the party died, p.1
When the Party Died, page 1
When The Party Died
A Brock & Poole Mystery
A.G. Barnett
Copyright © 2018 by A.G. Barnett
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
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
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
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* * *
Chapter
One
“Do you think they’ll remember to let him out after he’s had his dinner?”
“Yes, Sam,” Laura replied, sighing.
“That’s if they even remember to give him his dinner,” Sam Brock grumbled.
“For goodness’ sake!” Laura snapped. "He will be fine; he’s four months old now, which in dog years makes him about twenty!”
“It would make him two, actually,” Brock replied. “Anyway, you know what your parents are like. I went around to their house and found the front door wide open the other day, and they’d gone out!”
“We’ve done that at least twice as well, Sam,” Laura said. “Now can we try and at least pretend that you want to be coming out tonight?”
Brock felt a stab of guilt.
Tonight was the grand unveiling of a new exhibit at Bexford Museum. Which, along with this being its one-hundredth-anniversary year, had prompted a party. Which was why they now strolled through the centre of Bexford, in the glow of the afternoon summer sun. The yellow stone that the town was built from reflected the warm orange light around the streets, giving the place a surreal quality.
“So, tell me about this new totem pole then,” Brock said, looking down at the leaflet in his hand.
“You mean tell you again?” she said, giving him a look that could have melted steel. “Well, like I said to you the other day when you were so clearly listening to me, it’s a mortuary pole.”
“A mortuary pole? What on earth’s that?”
“They were carved when someone important in the community died. Sometimes, like ours, they had the ashes of the person in a small door at the back.”
“So it’s like a giant wooden gravestone and grave in one?”
“Yes, Sam,” Laura sighed.
“Are you OK?” he said as they reached the path that led off the road and towards the museum.
“Yes, fine. Just got a lot on my mind, that’s all.”
“It’s all going to be great,” Brock said. “Try and enjoy yourself.”
They climbed the shallow, well-worn steps that led up to the arched doorway and were greeted by a young, pale woman with jet-black hair and eye makeup so dark it made Brock think of a panda.
“Hi Laura,” the girl said, flashing a grin that contained a pierced upper lip.
“Hi Nancy, has anyone turned up yet?”
“Only Byron and Jemima,” she said, grinning. “Don’t worry, it’s early!”
“I know, I know!” Laura said, taking the brochure that Nancy handed to her and passing it to Brock. “This is my husband, Sam. Sam? This is Nancy.”
Brock grunted a greeting at the young woman, who returned the noise with a suspicious look.
“Oh, right,” she said with barely disguised disdain.
Brock noticed that Laura was smiling as they moved through the hallway towards the main building.
“What was that about?” Brock asked. “She couldn’t have been frostier if she’d been sitting in the freezer.”
“Nancy’s not a big fan of authority,” Laura said, still smirking. “She’s got a lot of rebelling to get out of her system. She’s a bright girl though, she wants to get into science.”
Brock was about to ask at what time he could expect a glass of bubbly and some food when the sound of arguing echoed around the high stone walls.
“I’m well aware that this place doesn’t run on hot air,” a well-spoken female voice said in a sharp tone. “But what’s the point in us being here if we’re not trying to get the best pieces we can and display them?!”
They stepped into the enormous main room of the museum and saw a tall, slim figure standing in the middle of the main central aisle.
The room was bathed in the same golden light they had walked in outside. It filtered down through the glass roof whose frame was built from solid iron and covered with ornate mouldings of flowers and depictions of animals.
“We’ll talk about this tomorrow,” the woman said angrily. She pressed her thumb onto the screen of the phone to hang up and then stared at it as though it had personally offended her.
“Everything OK, Jemima?” Laura said as they approached.
“Oh, you’re here!” Jemima said, turning. The annoyed expression on her face vanished to be replaced by a broad smile.
The two women embraced, kissing air on either side of their cheeks as Brock waited in dread for his turn.
He had always hated the continental habit of kissing people on both cheeks. He found it even stranger when he was expected to kiss a woman on the cheek and then shake the hand of a man standing next to her. On the continent, of course, they kissed everyone. But the British weren’t quite ready for that, and so had adopted this strange hybrid that left the inspector never quite knowing what he was supposed to do.
Jemima left him in no doubt though, grabbing him by his broad shoulders and air kissing loudly to either side of his face.
“Nice to see you again,” he said gruffly.
“So, is everything OK? Sounded like a bit of a heated conversation,” Laura said, her face still concerned.
“Oh, yes,” Jemima said. “Just the usual, you know, I think if Byron and I didn’t argue at least once a day we’d both go mad!”
Laura laughed. “More like every hour for us,” she said, linking her arm through Brock’s and giving it a squeeze to let him know she was joking.
“Well, the catering team are all ready,” Jemima said, looking over her shoulder. “I’ve left them filling the last of the serving trays and opening the champagne.”
“Is the band here?” Laura asked.
“Yep, they’ve already sound-checked and are now sampling the canapés. We’re all ready!” she said enthusiastically. “Now all we need is people to show up.”
“Well, we’ve got half of my station coming so they should make up the numbers,” Brock said.
“They’ll definitely put a dent in the champagne at any rate,” Laura said, smiling. “So, is there nothing else to help with?”
“No, you’ve done enough all week. Why don’t you go and show Sam the mortuary pole?”
“Will do, give me a shout if you need anything.”
She pulled Brock along down the central avenue of the room where pathways set off left and right between rows of displays.
“Come on then,” Brock said, hitching his suit trousers up. “Give me the lowdown on this pole’s history and why it's such a big deal.”
“Well, mortuary poles are the rarest kind of totem pole. Like I said before, they were basically a kind of tomb with a recess that the body or ashes could be buried in.”
“And does yours have a body in it?”
“Sadly, no.”
He looked at her, his eyebrows raised.
“I just mean it would be a better find for the museum that’s all, but there was nothing in ours.”
“Where did you find it again? Some manor house, wasn’t it?”
“Otworth Manor. It was in one of the barns on the estate, been there decades apparently. The Pentonvilles have lived at the manor for centuries and some ancestor of theirs brought it back from Canada at some point. We’re still looking into it. Anyway, William Pentonville died a few months ago, and this piece came to the museum.”
“Well it’s bloody impressive,” Brock said as they reached the base of the wooden pole. The main trunk of it was carved into two large figures, each with a smaller figure on its lap. A second carved trunk ran across the top of the pole to form a “T” shape; it too was ornately carved, but this time with a single figure.
It was roughly fifty feet high, reaching up to the second floor of the building, which consisted of a balcony that ran around the entire room.
“So, thi
“I think so, yes. Why?” Laura said, recognising the glint in Brock’s eye.
“Just odd, isn’t it? I mean, why this thing in particular? Especially if it had just been stuffed in some barn for years. There must have been other stuff there that the museum could have benefitted from, not just this.”
“Can you just turn yourself off for one moment? Not everything needs an investigation.”
“Sorry,” Brock said, somewhat surprised by her reaction. He pulled her towards him. “I’m proud of you, you know? This stuff is amazing.”
“Sam,” she said softly, looking down at her own shuffling feet.
“What is it?” he asked, suddenly concerned. Laura was never nervous like this. She was the one who always had everything together.
“Just wait here a minute,” she said suddenly, turning and heading back the way they had come.
Brock stared after her. She had been in a strange mood all day and for some reason, she was putting him on edge.
He turned slowly and looked back up at the totem. The thing was somehow beautiful and ugly at the same time.
He heard voices echoing in the large room behind him and turned to see the group from the station approaching. They were an odd bunch, seen from a distance.
Daniel Davies was on the left; a tall, gangly lad whom he was fairly sure had an ancestor who was a pencil. Next was Roland Hale, an overweight, small-eyed man who had a sense of humour that centred around irritating other people. Then there were Sanita Sanders and Guy Poole. He noticed how closely they walked to each other, their arms in danger of brushing together at every step. Ah, young love, he thought.
“Hello, sir,” Poole said as they arrived. “We’re a bit early, but we were told you were down here.”
“Is this it?” Roland said, looking up at the totem behind them.
“It is,” Brock said, turning and looking at it. “What do you think?”
“I think it’s blooming ugly,” Roland replied. “What’s the point of it?”
“You bury someone important in it, apparently.”
“Blimey,” Roland said. “Just set me on fire and go and have a pint. Don’t bother carving anything.”
“Thanks,” Poole said. “Duly noted.” He turned to Brock. “Where’s Laura?”
“Nipped to the loo I think.” Brock's eyes twinkled in the dim light of the museum. “Shall we sneak up to the next floor and have a look at where the body goes?”
There was a chorus of approval, and the group moved towards the lift. They squeezed into it, with Roland taking up more than his fair share. They arrived at the mezzanine level with its bizarre arrangement of weapons, voodoo dolls and shrunken heads.
The local kids liked to spread rumours that they were specifically the heads of schoolchildren, shrunk by a former deranged teacher of the local school. The truth was they were long-forgotten tribesmen from South America, but the stories were somehow more fun.
They moved around until they were level with the top of the pole’s crosspiece and stared at it. It ran right up against the gangway, and Poole ran his hand over the smooth surface of the wood.
“Not much from the back, is it?” Davies said.
He was right. The back of the pole was a flat plane of wood with no sign of the decoration on the other side.
“I guess people aren’t meant to look at this side,” Poole said. “Is that where the body was kept?” he said, pointing towards a crack in the horizontal section of the pole which formed a perfect rectangle.
“Looks like it,” Brock said, leaning over. He frowned as his eyes focussed on the upper line of the panel. “Someone hasn’t been very careful with it,” he said, standing up. “Look at those chips in the wood.”
Poole leaned over with the others.
“Looks like someone’s used a crowbar on it,” Sanita said. “Was there anything in it when they opened it?”
“No,” Brock answered thoughtfully. Something was coming back to him from when Laura had been talking about this piece a few days ago. “I’m not sure it was the museum who opened this though,” he said, running his large hands over the fresh marks in the wood.
“What do you mean opened it?” Laura asked from behind the group. She was heading from the elevator with a frown.
Brock turned to her. “Laura, did you say that the museum never opened this panel?”
“Of course not, we didn’t want to damage it. When we went to see it at the manor, we took ultrasound equipment to check there was nothing in there. Why?”
She moved past him to the edge of the railing and looked across at the pole, her hand reaching out immediately to the cuts in the wood. When she turned back to them, her face was pale. “Sam, we never opened that panel, and it wasn’t like that when we looked at it at the manor. There were no chunks out of it like this.”
“When was that?”
“On Wednesday.”
Brock nodded and turned back to the pole. He reached out and knocked on the wood. The sound came back with a dull noise. He continued knocking, moving his hand along the wood until the noise changed and became lighter. He turned to Laura as he moved his hand back and knocked where the sound became muffled.
“There’s something in there.”
“There can’t be!” Laura said, shaking her head.
“Those marks show that someone tried to open this,” Brock said, pointing to them. “You said the ultrasound showed it was empty, so if it’s not empty now, then whoever tried to open this must have succeeded and put something in it.”
“But why would—” Laura began and then stopped, turning to her husband.
Brock took a deep breath and turned to the rest of the group. “Poole, Sanders, stay here and make sure no one comes near this thing. Davies, Hale, get down to the bottom and make sure no one comes up in the lift or the stairs.”
He watched the two young officers nod back at him. “Well, go on then!” he prompted. They jumped into action, as though someone had jerked them on a piece of string. Davies headed off with his gangly, awkward gait and Hale next to him with his tubby waddle.
“We need to get this panel open,” Brock said, turning back to Laura who was still standing in shocked silence.
“Where’s your caretaker chap? Frazer, isn't it?””
“Yes.” She nodded, her brow furrowed. “He’ll be in the basement, I’ll come with you.”
They headed towards the lift and stepped inside in silence. Brock half turned to her, and she folded her arms, staring resolutely ahead.
“Is everything OK?” he asked.
She sighed. “No Sam, everything is not OK. Someone’s chipped our new bloody exhibit and hidden God-knows-what inside it.”
“Well, yes,” Brock said, turning to her. “But you just seem, I don’t know. Like there’s something else going on.”
She snapped to him, and he saw tears in her eyes. “Yes, there’s something else going on!” she screamed at him as she rooted around in her handbag. Brock stared at the brown leather accessory with suspicion. Laura’s wretched bag had always held a certain amount of fear over him. When on the odd occasion she asked him to find something in it, it was all he could do to not come out in cold sweats. The thing was a labyrinth of bits and bobs and you could be stuck there for hours looking for the desired object.
She pulled her hand out and held up what looked at first like a pen. He frowned, and peered closer as the lift pinged, and the doors began to open.
“Is that—?” he said, his eyes widening. He took the object from her and stared at the small digital screen on one side. It had a line running down the right-hand side and a much fainter one to the left. He looked to the key which was printed next to the display and stared at it. A single line meant you weren’t pregnant, two lines meant you were. “Does this mean that—?” he said, looking at Laura as the lift doors closed again.
