November Lake: Teenage Detective (The November Lake Mysteries) Book 1 Page 2
“He killed her,” I insisted.
“How? Why?” Kale breathed his eyes still wide and face now pale.
“I knew he liked Anne,” I started to explain. “Over the last few weeks he has been flirting with her. You would’ve had to be blind not to see the way he was drooling all over her.”
“Just because Griffin thought Anne was hot, doesn’t mean he murdered her,” Kale said, his voice low, almost a whisper.
“She tried to tell him that she wasn’t interested,” I said. “I heard Anne tell him that she was engaged.” I looked over my shoulder at the photograph on her desk amongst her revision notes, then back at Kale.
“I still don’t see how you’ve made such a giant leap between Griffin chancing his arm with Anne and murdering her,” Kale said, running one hand through his brown messy hair. “What is it that you’ve seen in here that I haven’t?”
Without breaking Kale’s stare, I raised one hand and pointed up at the ceiling. Kale looked up and swallowed hard on seeing the covered loft hatch.
“All of these rooms are connected via the loft,” I said, looking at his upturned face.
“How do you know that?” he asked.
“On my second night here, I was woken by what sounded like scratching and clawing in the roof, but it soon faded away so I went back to sleep. But the following morning, I couldn’t help but remember how my sleep had been disturbed, and fearing that there might be an infestation of mice in the loft above my head, I decided to investigate. I lifted the hatch and peered into the loft. It was then I discovered that each of these four rooms on this floor has a hatch leading up into the loft space. I checked for any signs of mice but couldn’t see any, so I closed the hatch and dropped back into my room.”
“So you now think what you heard that night wasn’t in fact mice but Griffin,” Kale whispered as if pieces of a jigsaw were slowly coming together in his mind.
“Yes,” I whispered back, slowly nodding my head.
“But what was he doing up there?” Kale asked me.
“He was spying on Anne,” I said. “And that’s what he was doing tonight. He was watching her from the loft hatch as she was getting ready for bed.”
“You can’t know that for sure,” Kale said, pulling me close so we couldn’t be overheard.
“I can’t be sure, but what I’ve seen suggests that’s what happened,” I told him.
“What have you seen?” he asked with a frown.
“We know that the killer didn’t enter or leave the room by either the door or the window. So there was only one other way possible and that is the loft. Agreed?” I said.
“Agreed,” Kale nodded.
“So this is what happened,” I began to explain as I slowly stalked about the room. “Constable Griffin liked Anne more than perhaps he should. He had become infatuated with her. I had seen him on a number of occasions harassing Anne. But each time, she told Griffin to take a hike. I could see that he was angry at her constant rejections of him. I bet he would lay awake at night unable to get her from his mind. Perhaps it was on one of these nights that Griffin noticed the hatch in the ceiling of his room. Just like I had, he pushed it open and discovered he could climb from his room via the hatch undetected and crawl through the loft space. On the first night he must have lost his bearings as he scrambled about in the dark, and that’s what I heard. But the next time, he took a torch, and once he had worked out the lay of the loft space, he soon discovered the hatch that was cut into the ceiling of Anne’s room – after all there was only four to choose from and one was his. Then in the middle of the night when he suspected we were all asleep, Griffin would slide back the hatch and spy on Anne as she slept. But tonight, just like you, Anne stayed up late to revise for the upcoming exam. Her notes are spread all over the table where she left them. Believing that Anne was asleep and he was safe to pull back the hatch, Griffin peered down into her room. Anne was undressing for bed when she looked up to see Constable Griffin’s pale face leering out of the darkness at her.”
“How do you know that she was getting undressed?” Kale cut in. “You make it sound like you too were watching her.”
“While you were examining the window, I peeled back Anne’s duvet cover – just an inch. There was a lot of blood, but I could see her naked shoulder,” I explained.
“But she might not have been like you and worn pyjamas to bed,” Kale said.
Feeling my cheeks turn warm as I blushed, I crossed my arms over my chest and looked at Kale.
“No, she was undressing when she was startled by a sound above her. She looked up and saw Griffin watching her. Not wanting to be seen by him, she turned away. That’s when you heard her scream,” I said staring at Kale.
“She could’ve already been in bed when she was struck from behind,” Kale suggested, glancing over at the body.
“When I peeled back the duvet, I saw a large bloodstain on the underside where it had soaked up the blood, which suggests that her body was covered after she had been attacked,” I explained.
“Why did Griffin break the window? That only drew more attention to the fact that there was an altercation taking place in this room,” Kale asked me.
I shivered in the draught that blew in through the smashed window, and looked at my own cracked reflection that stared back at me. “Hearing Anne’s scream and knowing that he had been discovered, Griffin dropped through the hatch and into the room. In fear, Anne turned away from him. To prevent her from screaming again, Griffin hit Anne once over the back of the head and I’m guessing he used his torch. He would have had this in his hand. There is no other weapon in the room that I can see and he wouldn’t have brought one with him as I don’t believe his intention was to murder her when he crept from his room tonight. Constable Griffin had other things on his mind – he just wanted to watch.
“Realising that he had killed Anne and wanting to make it look like some intruder had broken into her room and murdered her, Griffin smashed the window. Then, hearing you, Kale, bolt from your room and start banging and thumping on the door, he tried to escape back through the hatch, but he couldn’t reach it. When I was inspecting the room earlier, I noticed that the armchair had been moved and positioned under the hatch,” I explained.
“How did you know it had been moved?” Kale asked me.
“Look here,” I said, crouching low again, and pointing at the floor. “There are indentations in the carpet, where the feet of the chair had once rested. This suggested that the chair had recently been repositioned so somebody could use it to stand on so as to reach the hatch in the ceiling. My theory was proved right, when I discovered a boot print on the back of the white police shirt Anne had hung over the back of the chair. After putting everything I had seen together, I knew that it was Griffin who murdered Constable Short tonight.”
Kale looked at me, a numb expression drawn over his now tired looking face. “That was freaking awesome November Lake. How come I didn’t see all that?”
“You did, Kale, but you just didn’t see how it all fitted together,” I said. I hadn’t wanted to show off – that had never been my intention. I had always seen things – the smallest of details – and it was just a case of fitting each piece together until I could see the whole picture. Looking at Kale, I said, “So what now?”
Before Kale had had a chance to respond, there was a shuffling noise above us. At once we both looked up at the hatch. My heart raced in my chest and my throat felt dry. Griffin had been listening to us the whole time as he hid in the loft space.
“Come down from there, Griffin,” Kale barked.
The shuffling came again, but this time louder. We twisted our heads on our necks as we followed the sound of Griffin crawling away above us. Kale raced from the room and out onto the landing as he tracked the sound. I snatched up the handcuffs from Anne’s discarded utility belt and followed Kale out onto the landing. The noise came again and it sounded like someone or something was being dragged across the ceiling.
The shuffling noise came again and it was disorientating as we spun around, both of us desperate to follow the sound. The noise suddenly stopped and all I could hear was my own racing heart in my ears.
“Where do you think he is?” I whispered, my eyes fixed on the ceiling.
Kale didn’t answer, he stood rigid and I couldn’t even hear him breathing as he waited for the sound to come again. Then, covering his lips with one forefinger, he looked at me from out of the gloom and tiptoed towards Griffin’s bedroom door. I crept across the landing and joined him. There was a sudden rumbling sound like thunder from above as Griffin raced across the loft space. Without further hesitation, Kale launched himself against the door. The wooden frame splintered as the door flew suddenly inwards. Shoulder to shoulder we stood in the open doorway and peered into the room. It was empty and the hatch in the ceiling was closed. A crashing noise came from behind us, and we spun around, hearts racing fast.
“That came from my room,” I cried, racing across the landing, cuffs in hand. Yanking the door handle with my free hand, I threw the door open. Glancing up I could see the hatch in the ceiling had been pulled aside. A blast of cold air hit me and I looked across the room to see that my bedroom window had been opened.
“He’s gone out of the window!” Kale snapped, barging past me and across the room in pursuit of Griffin.
Kale sprang up onto the window ledge. Before I’d had a chance to shout out any kind of warning, Kale had disappeared into the darkness too. Over the roar of the growing wind, I heard someone cry out in pain. With the handcuffs still in my fist, I raced across the room to the window. I peered down into the darkness and could see Kale lying in the grass below clutching his ankle. Icy drops of rain had started to fall and they splashed down into Kale’s upturned face as he looked at me peering out of the window.
“Get after him!” Kale yelled over the boom of the wind. He pointed towards a grassy bank that led away from the training block.
I looked in the direction he was pointing to see Griffin’s form outlined against a slither of moonlight as he struggled up the steep slope. Turning on the balls of my feet, I dashed from the room, across the short landing and down the stairs. I pushed hard against the training block door and raced out into the darkness. At once my bare feet sploshed into the puddles that were now forming on the pathway. Placing one hand before my eyes so as to see through the driving rain, I could just make out Griffin disappearing over the brow of the slope and into the darkness. There was no time for me to go back and get my trainers or throw on a coat. What sort of cop would I be if I let a killer get away from me? Wasn’t this one of the many reasons I joined the police force – to catch those who hurt others.
“Don’t let him get away!” I heard Kale shout.
I shot a glance to my left, to see Kale dragging himself to his feet in the mud. He slipped and dropped onto his knees again.
Looking back at the steep, rain drenched slope, I charged towards it. The wind buffeted into me, and I lurched forward, taking hold of a clump of grass with my free hand. In the other, I gripped the set of handcuffs. I kept my balance. With my heart thumping and my hair in my eyes, I clawed my way upwards. My feet slipped in the mud over and over again. I dropped to my knees, sending up sheets of ice cold rainwater. It spattered my pyjamas, face and hair. I wouldn’t give up.
Wispy plumes of breath escaped from my mouth. I gasped in freezing cold lungful’s of night air. I reached the top of the grassy slope. Arming lengths of my own wet hair from my eyes, I peered down the other side and into the darkness. There was a small wooded area. I looked backwards to see Kale still trying to claw his way towards me. His injured leg dragged out behind him in the mud. I looked back at those thick slices of darkness set between the trees and knew Griffin was hiding someplace in there. Half of me wanted to turn back or wait for Kale at least. But I was a police officer now and they didn’t get to run away from danger. They were expected to run towards it. I thought of Anne lying face down on the bed with that black sticky looking wound on the back of her head. Drawing a deep breath and clutching the handcuffs to my chest, I headed down the grassy slope. I had only taken a few steps when I slipped and landed on my butt.
I cried out as the air was squeezed from my lungs. The wind was blowing so hard now; I doubted anyone would have heard my cry. I rolled onto my front at the bottom of the slope. My feet were almost numb with the cold mud that caked them. My pyjamas clung wetly to me and my hair covered my face in thick black streaks. I looked more like one of the living dead than a cop. Spitting mud and grit from between my teeth, I pulled myself up and staggered towards the wooded area. I reached the treeline and stepped into the wood. The rain made a thrumming sound as it drummed against the leaves overhead. The wind sounded like waves crashing against rocks as it whipped the branches of the trees back and forth in the growing storm.
I stepped over broken twigs and winced in pain as they dug like slithers of glass into the soles of my feet. I thought again of Anne lying face down on the bed and pushed on. Staring ahead into the darkness I looked for any sign of Constable Griffin.
It seemed insane that I was hunting down another police officer for murder. Coppers weren’t meant to be killers – they were meant to catch them. I could only imagine how scared Anne had been when glancing up to see Griffin staring out of the dark at her. I didn’t have to imagine for very long, as a white ghost-like face suddenly loomed out of the darkness at me. I screamed and stumbled backwards. My stomach clenched like a fist. But it wasn’t the face of Constable Griffin that now floated towards me out of the dark – it was Constable Anne Short’s that I could see.
Was I seeing some hideous apparition? Some ghoul? Was it the ghost of Anne Short come back to hunt down the man who had killed her? It couldn’t be. That would’ve been just too weird.
“November,” she whispered. “You could let me go – tell Creed that you couldn’t find me.”
“Anne?” I whispered, taking another step backwards.
“I didn’t mean to kill him,” she said, closing the gap between us. “But he just wouldn’t leave me alone. And when I looked up tonight to discover Griffin leering down at me through the hatch…”
My brain scrambled and tried to make sense of what Anne was saying. “That wasn’t you lying dead on the bed? That was Griffin? You killed him?”
“It was an accident,” she said, closing the gap further still.
My legs felt heavy and unmoveable, like they had been screwed to the ground. I looked at her opened mouthed, the handcuffs dangling from my fist.
“You were right,” Anne continued. “I was getting undressed when I looked up and discovered Griffin. His lecherous face loomed out of the darkness at me. He looked grotesque and terrifying. I screamed out in horror and turned away. He dropped through the hatch and grabbed for me. I could feel his bare flesh against me. He was wearing only a pair of pyjama bottoms and his hair was a mess like he had just crawled out of bed. I pushed him off me. I knew I was in trouble. I knew he would hurt me. So I reached down and grabbed for my belt. I fumbled for my handcuffs, but plucked up my torch instead. He came at me and I managed to duck under his arm. With his back to me, I struck him about the head with the base of my torch. He collapsed face first onto my bed. I panicked. I didn’t know what to do. He wasn’t breathing – he was dead. I was a police officer and I had killed a man. I couldn’t bear to look at him, so I covered his body with my duvet.
“My scream had obviously drawn attention as I heard Constable Creed’s door open across the landing. I knew that I couldn’t escape via the door for fear of being seen by him. Throwing on some clothes and my boots, I tried to open my bedroom window and escape, but in my fear and confusion, I was unable to release the lock. The window appeared to be jammed. With the torch still in my hand, I smashed the window with it. But the glass was jagged and as I heard you point out yourself,
I would have cut myself to ribbons if I’d tried to escape out of the window.
“Creed was now hollering and thumping on my bedroom door so violently that I dropped the torch with fright. I felt like a trapped animal, and none of it was my fault. It was then, I remembered the hatch. I jumped up, but I couldn’t reach it. With Kale now beating down my bedroom door, I placed the armchair beneath the hole and climbed up into the loft. I slid the hatch into place, just as Kale came bursting into my room. But I was still trapped. I couldn’t move an inch for fear of you both discovering me. As I hid in the darkness, I listened to you slowly figure out what had happened. You came close to discovering the truth, November Lake,” Anne said.
I now realised and regretted the mistake I had made. Why hadn’t I made a closer inspection of the body? I had seen Griffin’s collar length blonde hair and the outline of his slender frame beneath the duvet and had surmised that it was Constable Short who was lying dead, face down on the bed, for she too had short blonde hair and a slim figure. Had I been too eager to prove my theories right to Kale or had I just been blind?
“I wasn’t close enough,” I said, looking through the rain at Anne.
The rain ran like tears down the length of both our ashen and cold faces. Anne took another step closer. “Please let me get away from here,” she pleaded over the howl of the wind.
My heart ached for her. There was a part of me that wanted to let her run – to get away. After all Griffin would still be alive now if he hadn’t crept from his room and into hers. But I wasn’t a judge or a jury. It wasn’t my place to decide who was right, who was wrong and whoever should be punished. I was a police officer. I investigated crime and put the facts before the courts. It was for them to decide, not me.
With my heart feeling as if it were breaking in my chest, I looked at her and said, “I can’t let you go, Anne.”
“Why not?” she said.
“Because you killed Constable Griffin,” I said back, tightening my fingers again around the handcuffs.