Snowed In With Death Page 4

  “It’s fine. Really,” Holly said, trying to make the other woman feel better. Nothing about this situation was fine. “At least we still have… electricity. Most of the time,” she added, reaching around for a silver-lining, before remembering what had happened earlier when Lawrence had been shot. “Come on, we’re probably not in danger anyway, right? We aren’t detectives!” In truth, Holly had no idea as to the motive behind the crimes, or if there was any pattern. One of their number could just be wiping the rest out for fun.

  Holly’s mind danced back to Emma’s feud with Pete, and then Jack’s logic that only someone sitting on the same side of the table as Lawrence could have killed him - and then had time to return to their seat without anyone noticing before the lights came on again. Jack had also been sat on that side of the table, meaning that he was a suspect too. Miranda had been standing when it had happened, so she was also under scrutiny. Although… Holly couldn’t really bring herself to think of the tear-stained organiser as a brutal killer. Appearances can be deceiving, she reminded herself and wondered if she was sat alone in the room with the killer.

  Where is the gun? the voice inside her head queried. She still couldn’t figure out how anyone could have managed to conceal a gun after killing Lawrence in time for the lights to come back on.

  “I… I suppose you’re right. These seven detectives, sorry - six - have met for a few years. Maybe one of them has gone crazy. They are under such a lot of pressure,” Miranda said - as if being under pressure excused violent murder.

  “I’m sure no one could ever want you dead,” Holly said to comfort the other woman, but was a bit miffed when the organiser didn’t return the sentiment.

  “You’re right. I’ve nothing to do with any of this! At least we’re in the company of great detectives. One of them will figure it out,” Miranda said, brightening up.

  “Yeah, you bet!” Holly said, privately thinking that if there was anyone she’d consider well-qualified to plan and commit the perfect crime, it would be a private detective. The way the deaths had happened… they weren’t impulsive. This had all been carefully plotted.

  And Holly was starting to wonder where she personally fitted into the deadly drama.

  Scooby Doo

  Holly did not sleep very well. A double murder has a way of making it hard to drop off into dreamland.

  For the first few hours, she’d lain in her bed staring up at the ceiling, listening to the sounds of the old house creaking. Once or twice, it had creaked so much she’d wondered if there was a ghost somewhere up in the rafters. That thought hadn’t made her sleep any easier - especially given the possibility that there were two brand-new ghosts running around the old house.

  When she finally opened her eyes (after what felt like five minutes of sleep) and looked out of the window, the world was still white. It was only now the storm had been vanquished that she realised how much snow had fallen. Judging by a telegraph pole she could see in the distance, the entire bottom floor of Horn Hill House must now be under several feet of snow. She tried not to think about the state her car would be in. Her insurance might not cover galavanting off to Scotland in ridiculous weather conditions.

  She was just thinking how muffled everything sounded when there was snow on the ground, when a scream cut through the air. The little voice inside her head whispered ‘And so it begins’ but Holly was already running out of her room and onto the landing.

  Emma White stood in the corridor, her hand still resting on the handle of the door she’d just pulled open.

  Before Holly could reach her side, she turned and spoke. “I was just going to ask if she wanted breakfast. Miranda is downstairs making it. I offered to wake people up. I’d almost forgotten…” Emma finished, her voice getting quieter at the end until no sound came out.

  Holly nodded understandingly. She inched towards the room, being careful to steer clear of Emma. Perhaps it was paranoia, but when you were staying in a house with seven other people, and they kept dying, one by one, exercising a little caution was a healthy attitude to hold onto.

  “What happened to her?” Holly asked, frowning at the inert form on the floor of the bedroom. Lydia Burns didn’t look nearly as polished as she usually did. Her hair was dishevelled and wavy, and her face - which was devoid of makeup and her trademark red lips - looked a strange shade of green. Holly stepped forwards for a closer look… and then retreated just as quickly when the smell hit her. It initially smelt like expensive perfume, with hints of spice and leather, but there was something off about it. Why was it present in such pungent quantities? Had Lydia spilt a container when she’d died?

  “The perfume…” Emma said and started backing away in horror. She dragged a bewildered Holly after her, so they were both out of the room. “Poisoned perfume. Breathing it in directly must be enough to kill you! Whoever is doing this… they must have persuaded Lydia to use it, or smell it, or something. Remember when she said she felt ill last night? It could already have been happening then.”

  Holly tried not to let her knees shake too much. She’d just taken a big whiff of the very thing that may have been responsible for Lydia Burns’ death, and she hadn’t had a clue! “Thanks, I might have stayed in there too long, or even touched it, if it weren’t for you,” Holly said, wondering why something was jumping up and down in the back of her mind. She couldn’t seem to catch hold of the unreachable thought.

  “What the heck is all of the noise?” Jack Dewfall strode out his room, already dressed in a tailored military-esque suit. Holly wondered if he wore it to bed.

  “Lydia’s dead,” Emma said without a trace of the emotion she’d displayed to Holly.

  Jack just nodded in acceptance. “I assumed that would probably be the case. One of us was bound to die in the night. The killer is keeping this to a tight schedule.”

  Holly felt like smacking him around the head. If he’d had a theory, why hadn’t he shared it sooner?

  “Case… cases… this is to do with cases!” Holly said, thinking out loud, as her brain finally connected the dots. “Pete’s most successful case of the past year was that knife-crime gang he stopped.” Emma made a noise of derision and muttered something about them being harmless schoolgirls, but Holly ploughed on. “Lawrence’s case was probably an assassination attempt of some type, right? And Lydia… Lydia solved the lipstick murders, where models were being poisoned by their lipstick. Now she’s been poisoned by perfume. She may not have even worn it. Perhaps it was in her room already in a bottle designed to leak, or someone might have crept in last night and covered her mouth and nose with it while she slept, just to finish the job.” Holly bit her lip, unsure if she wanted to analyse exactly how Lydia had met her end. It seemed all too likely that similar ends were planned for the rest of the detectives.

  “Yeah, I was thinking that, too,” Emma said, nodding like it was obvious.

  Jack mimicked the movement. “Pretty clear when you think about it.”

  Holly felt crushed for a second, before she realised what they were doing. Despite a murderer picking them off, these detectives were still in competition and could never concede anything to anyone in their field of work. Holly tried not to sigh too loudly. It was probably partially due to their own arrogance that they’d been caught out. But the real question still remained: Who was murdering the detectives, and why?

  She was about to open her mouth to put that question to them when Rob strolled around the corner, dressed in a fluffy rabbit-print onesie. On anyone else, it would have looked ridicu… Wait.

  No.

  It still looked ridiculous. Even with Rob Frost wearing it.

  “Did someone say breakfast?” Rob asked, smiling benignly around.

  “No one said breakfast,” Jack corrected, his mouth set in a grim line of disapproval.

  Rob frowned and scratched his head. “No, someone definitely said it approximately five minutes ago. It was before you all started talking about horrible Lydia’s death?” He frowned. “
Or is that Lydia’s horrible death? It’s too early for good syntax.”

  Rob looked around at the blank faces and fixed his gaze on Holly. “Nice work on the case theory. It seems to fit. It’s so obvious that we all completely missed it!” He laughed in what seemed a genuine manner and headed for the stairs.

  Holly frowned at the backhanded compliment. You couldn’t win with these people!

  “Come on, if we wait any longer, one of us will have died before we can dish up the scrambled eggs!” he called back.

  The detectives standing on the landing shrugged and followed him.

  Miranda’s worried expression was immediately replaced by her usual sunny smile when they poked their heads into the kitchen.

  “Good morning, I’ve already set the table in the, ah… main room,” she faltered, her mind clearly flashing back to the violent demise of Lawrence Richards and his final resting place in the dining room - where he presumably still sat, face down in his stone-cold dinner. A different group of people would probably have moved him, or covered him as a mark of respect, but Holly suspected that these detectives had concluded that they wanted everything as untouched as possible. They must already be deep into their own investigations. It was just too bad that none of them trusted her enough to share their ideas, and with the way they were dropping like flies, it didn’t look likely that their trust would be increasing anytime soon.

  “Thanks Miranda,” Holly deliberately said, after they’d filed into the room and crowded around the large, but rather low, coffee table. The blonde organiser looked startled for a second, and then shrugged, like whipping up a full English breakfast had been a piece of cake. Perhaps it was, Holly thought, remembering last night’s packaging and wondering if there was such a thing as a re-heatable breakfast. She decided she’d rather not know.

  “Great job everyone! We’ve made it through a meal with no one dying,” Rob said when they’d all finished eating and were drinking the filter coffees that Miranda had again brought out all by herself. Holly wondered how much she was getting paid.

  “Shut up, Rob,” Jack said, without batting an eyelid. “We need to get to the bottom of this right here and right now. Yesterday, we were all tired and we ran out of time. Today is a new day, and it’s not the day that I am dying.” The heavy detective leaned forwards and spread his hands wide on the table. “I’m proposing a mission for help. The white stuff is pretty deep out there, but the blizzard has ended. I’ll go for help while you all wait here. Then we’ll get to the bottom of this matter.” He eyeballed them each in turn, his thoughts visible on his face. Whichever one of you is the murderer, you aren’t getting me.

  He stood up and went to grab his coat, returning a few seconds later looking even more like the Michelin Man in his down jacket.

  “You all hang tight and try not to kill each other. I’ll be back before you know it,” he said, leaving the other detectives, Miranda, and Holly no time to argue. He thrust open the large French doors, letting the snowdrift fall in, where it formed a big pile at his feet. Miranda squeaked in protest (presumably because of the venue deposit) but then stuffed a fist in her mouth. Jack turned around to grin at them all, one final time, the military genius about to go on another rescue mission.

  “See you later, suckers!” he said and trudged up the hill of white powder. They could all just see his feet through the top of the glass doors, walking away across the snow into the distance.

  The glass doors rattled when an explosion sent the snow, and whatever remained of Jack, high up into the air. When the white powder cleared, all they could see were Jack’s boots, one still upright on the snow. The rest of Jack was gone.

  “I did not see that coming,” Rob said, his mouth the mirror image of the three other gaping holes in the room. Rob tilted his head. “With hindsight, it seems rather obvious, doesn’t it? He’s a military detective. Boom. Landmine.” Rob glanced, nervously, at the boots in the snow. “Having said that, I’m not going to assume that there was just the one landmine that Jack happened to step on. I reckon we’re stuck here until whatever happens, happens.”

  “So, we’re all going to die,” Emma said.

  Miranda choked on her coffee. “There are only four of us left. One of us has got to be the murderer. Isn’t that right?” she said, surprising everyone by having an opinion.

  Holly resisted the urge to yell ‘not it!’, knowing that everyone would claim the same - whether guilty or innocent. “We still aren’t certain that we’re on our own here,” Holly reminded them, remembering the creaking noises she’d heard last night. “Is there an attic? We should start there. If not an attic, the cellar…”

  Emma and Miranda made sounds of agreement, but Rob just rolled his eyes. “Why does it always take someone else to make the same suggestion I’ve made for people to actually do it?” He shook his head.

  Holly felt guilty for a second, before Rob flashed her a genuine smile. “Don’t worry about it,” he said, dropping out of character for once. “So gang, let’s split up and solve this mystery! Daphne and I will take the attic. Shaggy and Scooby, you’re down in the cellar. If there is such a thing…” he said, reaching out and pulling Holly to his side. Apparently, she was Daphne, although she’d always considered herself more of a Velma. She was the smart one of the group.

  “Shut up, Fred,” Emma said, before stalking out of the room with a baffled looking Miranda trailing behind her.

  “Excellent! I’m sure absolutely nothing at all will go wrong with this plan,” Rob said, his tone dry.

  Just like Nancy Drew

  “Any idea where the attic could be in a big old pile like this one?” Rob asked as they hiked up the stairs.

  “Somewhere near the top of the house?” Holly offered, her mind still going through the deaths of the four other detectives. She was trying to piece together something - anything - that would give them a clue as to what was going on.

  “No kidding, Sherlock,” Rob commented, but Holly was starting to notice that even his usual humour seemed strained. It was as if he could sense his own death approaching.

  Now that she thought about it, Holly wasn’t feeling so great herself. So far, it had only been the detectives who’d been targeted, but without knowing the motive behind these murders, it could still be open season on them all. Perhaps the killer was just an exceedingly creative psychopath.

  “Hey, I hope you didn’t mind being assigned to attic duty. I just don’t want to go anywhere that could be classed as underground right now,” Rob said.

  Holly nodded. At least one of them had figured a few things out. “None of this makes sense,” she commented rhetorically.

  “Welcome to my world. It always feels that way until you crack the thing open. Usually, you’ve got a bit more breathing space. This case is more along the lines of how many breaths do we have left? Ah-ha!” Rob said, when the broom handle they were using to check the ceilings finally knocked on something hollow.

  “If that’s a loft hatch, it looks like someone papered over it years ago,” Holly observed, squinting up at the apparently flawless ceiling.

  Rob rubbed his stubbly chin. “Or that’s what someone wants us to think,” he said, grabbing a sturdy looking - probably very valuable - antique table and placing it beneath the suspected entrance. “Hi-yah!” he yelled, jamming the broom handle up and tearing a hole through the thick paper. He ripped the rest apart. Then, with an admirable lack of hesitation, he pushed open the loft hatch. Rob placed it back down a couple of seconds later.

  Holly discovered she’d been holding her breath.

  “Yeah, uh… it probably was covered up for years. There is absolutely nothing up there. All I could see was a broken window, and it looks like birds or bats might use it as a roost,” he said. Holly wondered if that was what she’d heard last night. It sounded likely.

  Rob looked up at the rip in the ceiling. “Hmm, if we use a bit of sticky tape, they might not notice?”

  Holly bit her lip but said nothing.
If they all died at Horn Hill House, a ruined ceiling would hardly be anything to worry about.

  “Look, I’ve been thinking some more,” Holly said when they walked back down the stairs, hoping to find two not-dead people waiting for them in the living room.

  “Thinking is a good thing to get into the habit of doing,” Rob said, probably for the sake of hearing his voice out loud.

  “Whoever has been killing detectives obviously knows you well and knows all of your cases, right? How many people can know all of that stuff?” she asked, and then realised how silly it sounded. She herself had found out tons just by searching for the detectives on the internet.

  She blushed and carried on before Rob could tell her she was nutty. “I mean, I know there’s general information out there, but how could they know that Jack would be the one to go for a rescue mission? Or that Pete was going to take a nap? Or even that Lawrence would be sitting at the table and not decide to move, or something like that?” She wondered if it could possibly be that - so far - the murderer had just had an unfair share of dumb luck.

  The more she thought about it, the more it didn’t feel right. It was as if everything had been planned and put in place before they’d even come to Horn Hill…

  “Hey, Rob… How much do you trust Tom March?” she asked, remembering the seventh detective who had cancelled at the last minute.

  Rob’s expression immediately darkened. Holly wondered if she might have just hit the nail on the head. “Well, it’s probably him, Miranda, or Emma… I took the liberty of excluding myself, because I know I didn’t do it, and you, because I actually suggested the competition that you won. Hmm… I suppose you could be a genius at computers and have fixed it so you could win somehow, just so you could come up here and kill us all.” He frowned. “Probably not, right? We were just alone together for ages and you didn’t try anything. There was no hint of an evil mastermind speech at all. Unless I talked over it. Did I talk over it? I have a habit of doing that.”