The Fallen Parler: Part One (A supernatural mystery thriller) (8 page)

‘Dead, him dead!’ Ma Joelle squealed, ‘me knew it, him muurdad…me told Sasha but she tink me mad!’

Mrs. Quabble nodded politely, feigning she had understood a word of what Sasha’s barmy g
randmother had said.
Dr. Willow however, appeared physically distraught at the news of Percy Williamson’s death. This was a surprise to Mrs. Quabble, who had not known the two men to ever be acquaintances. When she questioned Dr. Willow as to whether he had ever met the headmaster, she was answered with, ‘no, no... our paths never crossed, I’ve heard he was a brilliant man is all.’

‘He was,’ Mrs. Quabble replied, not completely convinced that the doctor had spoken the whole truth.

When the deputy head departed the Willow Lodge, Luchia, who had been eagerly eavesdropping from the kitchen corridor, appeared in the hallway. The Roterbee’s and Dr. Willow stood in silence. Any moment now, Junior was expecting the doctor to ask him to recount the events of his day – from waking up, arriving at school, breaking into the headmaster’s office and finding a dead corpse. The young man remembered his first day in Shorebridge, he remembered how Dr. Willow had questioned him so particularly on how he’d saved little Maddie Brown. Junior had not given him the satisfaction of knowing the truth back then, and he certainly wasn’t going to start now. In the short drive home at the back of Mrs. Quabble’s car, he passed Sasha a scribbled note:

If anyone asks – We were truanting from lessons, found Williamson’s office door open. Went in. We discovered him dead. I’ll explain everything tonight- get to the Willow Lodge for 9.

Sasha ripped up the note as soon as she had read it; Junior was not sure whether her reaction was solely a mechanism to prevent Mrs. Quabble detecting the note, or a demonstration that she had no intention of meeting him at all. If the latter was the true reason, Junior would understand why Sasha would want nothing to do with him. After all, it was Sasha who attempted to dissuade him from breaking into Williamson’s office in the first place, but he’d managed to drag her into the chaos. Sasha deserved to know why she had found herself assisting Junior’s raid of the headmaster’s office. Junior planned to come clean to both Sasha and Charlotte. He was to present them with the newspaper cutting that told of Arthur Mannox’s death and the thick file, which was still tucked away inside his school bag. The young man had less than four hours to ruminate over why his intuition about Mannox and his father was worth breaking and entering Williamson’s office. He hoped, though doubted, that the file would produce some concrete evidence. Strong evidence was what he needed to shape his theory that Allan Roterbee and Arthur Mannox were related. The news of Percy Williamson’s death had blurred his theory in some small, inexplicable way.

‘Up to your room then,’ said Dr. Willow, disrupting Junior’s trail of thoughts. The doctor appeared to usher the twins up a steep flight of stairs.

‘Doctor!’ cried Junior, astounded, ‘are you not going to ask me anything about what happened today?’

Dr. Willow creased his thick, dark brows, ‘do you want me to?’

‘Well, no but ... I thought’

‘Let me tell you what I think boy,’ said the doctor, ‘I think that you need to stay out of trouble. From the moment you stepped into Shorebridge, you’ve done nothing but–’

‘Doctor Willow!’ exclaimed Luchia, ‘do not tell me zat you really think ze boy knows anything about Mizter Williamson’s death!’

This was the first time the Roterbee twins had ever heard the housekeeper raise her voice to Dr. Willow. Their astonished expressions told that they were also impressed. Dr. Willow was briefly dumbfounded, but a second was all it took for him to recompose himself.

The doctor inhaled deeply and replied, ‘then how on earth did the boy find himself in Williamson’s secret chamber?’

‘Secret chamber?’ muttered Junior, his eyebrows creasing together dubiously. ‘Mrs. Quabble said nothing about a secret chamber… how did you know that?’

‘I’m sure she must’ve mentioned it,’ replied Dr. Willow, ‘yes…she said you and Miss Fling found the headmaster in his secret dorm.’

‘I’m pretty sure that’s not what she said,’ snapped Charlotte, puzzled by the doctor’s distortion of Mrs. Quabble’s words. ‘I remember what she said exactly
"If Miss Fling and Mr. Roterbee had not found Percy in his office, I would’ve thought he was still overseas"
- that’s what Quabble said.’

‘Yez, if I remember correctly, she said nothing of a secret dorm,’ Luchia concurred.

Reddening to a luminous hue, Dr. Willow barked, ‘to your rooms, ALL OF YOU!’

Directly at Luchia, the doctor spewed, ‘including you!’

If one had not known better, it would’ve been the general assumption that the Willow Lodge was not inhabited by two temperamental teenagers but three, for the manner with which Luchia forcefully slammed the kitchen door demonstrated that she no longer amassed any fear of the doctor. The twin’s, impressed by Luchia’s feistiness, mimicked her. When they reached the second floor, Dr. Willow was affronted with two more boisterous, slamming doors.

‘Need to establish order in this house,’ the doctor mumbled, before disappearing into his study.

‘The Oath of secrecy’

‘Strange.’

‘What’s strange?’

‘I had a feeling that this would happen,’ muttered Charlotte.

Junior creased his eyebrows incredulously, ‘Charley, I know you can somehow predict the weather, but no one is
that
good,’ he replied.

‘I could swear on it!’ exclaimed Charlotte. ‘Just like when dad died, I had a feeling that something bad was bound to happen today…poor Mr. Williamson.’

Shuddering as an image of the headmaster’s decrepit corpse reappeared in his thoughts, Junior muttered, ‘with all these strange disappearances, you’re not the only one feeling strange …even Luchia is on edge.’

‘I’ve never seen her so feisty before,’ sniggered Charlotte, ‘even Dr. Willow was stunned to silence.’

The mention of Dr. Willow’s name triggered an instant alteration in Junior’s countenance. If the doctor knew that Mr. Williamson had a secret dorm beneath his office, the two men must’ve been more than acquaintances. Why had Willow denied knowing the headmaster at all? From his reaction alone, Junior was certain that the doctor knew more about Percy Williamson’s death than he was letting on. But how on earth were these occurrences connected? The file that Junior had stolen from the headmaster’s office would soon shed light on who Arthur Mannox really was…that would be the place to start.

‘You are going to tell me, right?’ blurted Charlotte, ‘whatever it was that you and Sasha were doing in Williamson’s office.’

‘That depends…’

‘Depends on what!’

Junior pressed his nose to the window and observed the night’s sky. The moon was full and incandescent. He imagined that the outside world would’ve been bitingly cold by now. Much too cold for any strong spirited youngster to sneak out of her cosy home, where her grandma lay sleeping, jump onto her bicycle and pedal as fast as she could to the Willow Lodge.
She won’t come
. Junior closed the blinds slowly. If Sasha did not come, Junior feared he would not be able to reveal his suspicions to his sister. Sasha’s presence alone would act as a buffer. She would serve as a voice of reason against Charlotte’s always–factual explanations.

A sudden ‘
Tink’
reverberated from the window; the prickly clink of rough pebbles rebounding from the glass forced Charlotte to sprout up from her seat.

‘What in Merlin’s beard was that?’ shot Charlotte, worriedly. Charlotte spread apart the bedroom curtains and waved her torch into the dark lawn. Below, Sasha Fling had already parked her bike against the giant hedges, she had arrived at 9 on the dot.

‘Sasha!’ shrieked Junior, poking his head through the window, ‘you need to mount the wooden fencing… then leap onto the roof beneath the bedroom window.’

‘Bloody hell!’ cursed Sasha. She had cycled for ten straight minutes and was positive that Junior was overestimating her acrobatic abilities. Nevertheless, Sasha managed to scale herself up the staggered wooden fence until the bedroom windowsill was within reach. Charlotte and Junior pulled Sasha through the window head-first. It took a few minutes for Sasha to stabilise herself once she stood upright. From her appearance, it was easy to deduct that Sasha had cycled against a blustery night’s wind. Her flawless caramel cheeks appeared unusually flustered; her usually tidy dark curls were now a blown out mesh of tousled waves. Sasha plucked a crispy brown leaf from her dishevelled locks and grimaced.

‘It’s great to see you Sasha, but why exactly are you here?’ said Charlotte, straight to the point.

Dusting the last foreign particles from her raincoat, Sasha huffed, ‘I was hoping that I would find that out myself, Charley.’

The two girls turned at Junior, shooting threatening expressions.

‘Okay… I’ll explain everything,’ mumbled Junior, extracting a document from his school bag. Shaking Arthur Mannox’s folder, Junior muttered, ‘this…’

‘That file is what we went through hell for!’ shot Sasha, ‘this’d better be good...who is this man, Arthur Mannox, anyway?’

‘Arthur Mannox!’ exclaimed Charlotte, ‘him again?’

‘You’ve heard of Arthur Mannox!’ cried Junior, gawking at his sister.

A worry line worked between Charlotte’s brows, ‘sure, I told you about him all those weeks ago…just after dad died.’

‘What - do - you - mean?’ Junior enunciated every syllable of every word.

‘It was the Saturday after Dad’s passing,’ recalled Charlotte. ‘I was by the telephone accepting calls from everyone who’d sent their condolences…and then a woman called.’

‘You didn’t tell me this!’
shot Junior.

Charlotte tossed her brother a befuddled glare, either she was finally losing it or Junior had suffered terrible memory loss. The simplest explanation was that Junior paid her little attention in the days following his father’s death.

‘Anyway,’ continued Charlotte, slightly aggravated, ‘the woman kept repeating
‘Arthur, Arthur Mannox’
and before I had the chance to tell her that she’d dialled the wrong number, she hung up. Sonia said the same woman called every day since Allan had passed, asking for Arthur each time and then hanging up... I guess she must’ve given up by now.’

Junior was suddenly pale, ‘that is impossible,’ he mouthed.

‘What’s impossible?’ asked Sasha, bewildered by Junior’s sudden pallid complexion.

‘Read this...read it out loud,’ ordered Junior, removing a crumpled piece of paper from his blazer. Charlotte snatched the newspaper cutting and scanned it before regurgitating:

‘HOUSE FIRE KILLS COUPLE AT THE WILLOW LODGE

In the late hours of Thursday evening, a fire broke loose at the Willow Lodge, Shorebridge, turf of the recently deceased aristocrat, Lady Helen Willow. The fire claimed the lives of two residents of the Lodge, a newly married couple, Arthur (39) and Annie Mannox (34). A source close to the pair quotes ‘it is highly unlikely that one will ever meet another duo quite as pleasant as Arthur and Annie. God bless their souls.’ The source of the fire is still unconfirmed. We suspect that the tragic passing of these two upstanding citizens will do little to boost the morale of Shorebridge, and will only rouse the grievances against the police, who have yet to perform in this period of mourning.’

‘Woah!’ swallowed Sasha, ‘what does that mean?’

‘Look at the date,’ ordered Junior.

‘1947…this surely couldn’t be the same Arthur Mannox.’

‘Look at him, look at his face ... he looks exactly like our father!’ exclaimed Junior, ‘a carbon copy!’

Charlotte examined the paper, twisting it in every direction until she could find any plausible discrepancy with Junior’s claims.

‘It’s just a coincidence,’ huffed Charlotte.

‘This is no coincidence!’ cried Junior, ‘Arthur Mannox died here, at the Willow Lodge! He must be related to our father... just look at the resemblance.’

Rising from her seat hysterically, Sasha cried, ‘so this is the reason you broke into Williamson’s office…because you had a hunch!’

‘It’s not a hunch, I know it,’ shrugged Junior, ‘Charlotte just confirmed that a woman called our house several times asking for Arthur Mannox…now
that
is no coincidence’.

‘But –’

‘See how the article says
‘in this period of grieving’
, the late 40’s …they were talking about the killings.’

Sasha raised her brows tentatively, ‘killings?’ she muttered.

‘…And disappearances in 1947,’ explained Junior, ‘the murderer was never caught and now it’s happening again.’

‘So you think that Arthur Mannox, who is dead, has something to do with this?’ chortled Charlotte, in a tone that implied her brother was deranged.

‘Not just Mannox, but our dad. Mr. Williamson, Bart Bold. These are all high profile people. Luchia said that the last time the killings happened, the murderer targeted high profile people…can you see now?’

‘You’re forgetting one tiny detail Junior …one tiny, significant detail,’ said Charlotte, ‘our father committed suicide.’

The moment that followed was painstakingly silent. Junior suddenly came to the realisation that Charlotte would never believe him, regardless of how much evidence he acquired. She’d always think that he had fabricated a conspiracy theory (one that did not include Allan Roterbee’s suicide), a theory in which Allan had been ruthlessly and unjustly murdered.

Snatching the stolen folder from Junior, Sasha muttered, ‘you sure sound as loony as my grandma right now, but we went through a great deal of trouble to get this file, we might as well find out who Arthur Mannox is once and for all.’

She ran her finger down the seam of the folder and opened it dramatically.

‘Hmm,’ hummed Sasha, ‘Arthur Mannox was born in Sicily, 1908…he was an A-grade student, had a knack for chemistry and ... it says here that he was the captain of the football team…there’s even a picture of him.’

Sasha pressed the file to her face, absorbing the photograph of a young Arthur Mannox cradling the St. Andrew’s trophy.