What pen?
The murder weapon that had been protruding from Thomas’s chest was gone.
Ellie’s gaze darted around the room, searching for any sign of the missing pen. Her breath caught as she found on the seldom-used back door. As a child, it had spent several years hidden behind boxes before a fire inspector deemed it a fire hazard.
“But the alley only has one way out, and it’s right at the other end,” Maggie had insisted when Ellie helped her move the boxes. “If I wanted to get to New Lane, I’d walk down South Street the front way, even during a fire emergency.”
Ellie had been about fifteen then, and the boxes had since crept back to blocking the door. Not as many, though, and they’d been pushed over as though the door had been forced inwards from the outside. She stepped over the boxes, filled with what appeared to be second-hand book donations given the random selection of dog-eared thrillers and romances, and held her hand out. The gentle breeze from the alley licked at her fingertips through the gap in the slightly ajar door.
Whoever had taken the pen could be on the other side of the door, but Ellie wasn’t sure if that made her want to pull it open or back away. Without trying to overthink what she would do if faced with a ruthless killer clutching a bloody killer pen, she pulled open the door. It opened just enough against the smashed-up boxes for her to slip through and pop out into the dim alley. Dripping gutters loomed overhead, and overflowing bins lined the walls, creating a claustrophobic atmosphere.
Then footsteps, rapid and urgent, echoed around the alley. She listened for a moment, sure they were getting closer. It sounded like they were wearing boots from the thuds. If Ellie stayed just where she was, she’d see them rounding the curve any second.
Maggie hurried in after Ellie and asked with concern, “What’s got you running around this place like a mouse up a drainpipe when…” Her voice faded away to a gasp. “The pen. It’s gone… Ellie, get away from that door.”
“We were only out of the shop for a few minutes,” Ellie said as she pulled away from the back door. An unsettling feeling shivered across her shoulders. The kind that superstitious people always claimed meant someone from the future had walked across your grave. “We weren’t alone in here when we found Thomas. They must have been hidden somewhere. Neither of us checked those wardrobes at the back of the room.”
“Overflow book storage,” Maggie explained. “Someone left it out in the village, so I got handyman Joey to fetch it over, but I haven’t started filling it yet.”
The approaching footsteps echoed from the alleyway, growing louder with each thud of heavy boots. Ellie tensed, her breath catching in her throat as she braced for a confrontation with a killer. The back door heaved open, crushing the cardboard boxes even more, and Ellie backed away, nearly tripping over Thomas’s outstretched legs. Maggie swiftly pulled her aside.
“Always so clumsy,” Maggie whispered.
The sight of authority put Ellie immediately at ease when a tall, young man with boyish features and large brown eyes burst through the doorway. He wore a white police uniform shirt, a black tie, and a padded vest, his face flushed and breathing laboured from exertion. Catching his breath, he leaned against a stack of hardback encyclopaedias, causing them to topple over in a cascading avalanche.
Maggie glanced at Ellie and offered a tight smile as though to say ‘sorry for calling you clumsy.’
The man bounced up in a Charlie Chaplin-esque slapstick tumble, his limbs flailing as he tried to regain his balance. He straightened up and adjusted his collar, giving them a goofy, apologetic smile.
“I’ll pick them up,” he said, gesturing to the fallen encyclopaedias. “I thought I’d come through the back way to avoid causing a scene, but that didn’t go according to plan, did it?” He offered an awkward chuckle. “I was having my lunch at The Old Bell. I’m sure Sammy is trying to fatten me up. Wouldn’t stop getting me to try the new menu items, but when I heard there was more trouble at the bookshop, I ran as fast as I could to get here.”
“And we’re appreciative of that.” Maggie nodded, a fond smile playing on her lips. “Finn Walsh was the PC who attended during the first burglary attempt,” she explained to Ellie. Turning to Finn, she added, “This is my granddaughter, Ellie. You would have still been at school when Ellie left.”
Finn extended his hand, shaking Ellie’s with enthusiasm. “I’ve heard a lot about you,” he said warmly. His eyes didn’t hold the scandalised look that Sylvia’s eyes had, and Ellie wondered if perhaps he’d heard the good things about her from Maggie. Suddenly, Finn’s brow furrowed in confusion. “Sorry, Maggie, did you say ‘first’ burglary attempt? Don’t tell me it’s happened again. It’s a crime wave! With all these break-ins, anyone would think this was New York City and not a sleepy Wiltshire village.”
“Then I’m afraid to tell you this is worse,” Maggie said, her voice heavy. “This time, they succeeded in taking what I didn’t want them to take during the first attempt, and even worse still.” She stepped aside, revealing the grim scene behind her.
Finn’s eyes widened as he caught sight of Thomas Blackwood’s lifeless body on the floor. The young officer’s face paled, his earlier clumsiness forgotten in the face of this shocking discovery. He gulped as he tugged at his tight black tie.
“I... I gave Thomas Blackwood another speeding ticket just last week,” Finn said, his voice wavering. “He was always zooming about the village at ridiculous speeds. Bit of a nuisance, really.” He swallowed hard. “But he... he didn’t deserve this.”
“Nobody does,” Maggie said solemnly, resting a comforting hand on Finn’s arm.
The young officer inhaled and planted his hands on his hips, regaining his composure. “We shouldn’t be in here. It’s a crime scene now. I need to radio this in and get forensics down here right away.”
Maggie held up a hand. “We know. We were leaving but—”
“I came back in to check something about the pen,” Ellie interjected.
Finn looked around, bewildered. “What pen?”
“The pen that was jutting out of his chest minutes ago,” Ellie explained, her voice tinged with frustration as she pointed at the bloody shirt. “The pen the murderer snatched out of his chest after creeping out of wherever they were hiding...”
Maggie hobbled over to the large wooden wardrobe covered in ornate carvings of birds dancing around trees and used her cane to nudge open one of the doors. It creaked open and she sniffed the air, wrinkling her nose.
“There’s a strange smell in here that wasn’t before,” Maggie whispered, inhaling again. “Like... fruit?”
Ellie walked carefully around Thomas and joined her gran to inhale the air. It was fruity, and thanks to the recent ten-step spring cherry blossom iced fruit tea she’d been forced to make for months, she knew the scent.
“Cherries.”
“Cherries?” Maggie sniffed again, this time nodding. “Yes, I think you’re right. Cherries.”
“I—I must insist you vacate the crime scene at once,” Finn called, clearing his throat. “We could be destroying vital evidence.”
“Or discovering it,” Maggie muttered to herself as she shuffled away on her cane. “Cherries… interesting…”
PC Finn Walsh ushered them through the bookshop and out the front door. Once on South Street again, Ellie tried to recall every detail about the pen as Finn called in the details about the murderer on the loose somewhere in the village. It wasn’t long before the ambulance soon to pronounce the death official, and the penny dropped all across South Street as the shopping ground to a halt and customers and shopkeepers alike mingled on the cobblestones to find out what was happening.
Hooking his radio back in place, Finn returned to them and asked, “So, about this missing pen? You say you wanted to check something?”
“I’m curious to hear this too,” Maggie said, hobbling over to stand between them. “You shot back in there like a bat out of hell. What did you notice, Ellie?”
Ellie hesitated as she watched the thickening crowd creeping closer towards the bookshop at the street’s opening. She could almost imagine the locals were being held back for a scene about to be filmed and that any moment someone would call out, “Quiet on set!” followed by “Action!”
“This might sound morbid,” Ellie started, turning away from the vaguely familiar faces. “When we first walked in and saw Thomas there, I couldn’t help but look at it like I would a film scene. Maybe that’s how my mind processes things after doing it for as long as I did.” She paused, a gut-wrenching reminder that her previous career was in the past, at least for now.
“And you saw something about this pen?” Finn prompted.
