02 The Case of the Hidden Flame by Alison Golden & Grace Dagnall

Author:Alison Golden & Grace Dagnall [Golden, Alison]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2015-12-12T06:00:00+00:00

Graham drank tea with a mechanical, heedless air, sitting alone in the Inn’s tea room. It was fairly quiet, perhaps half an hour before the lunch crowd would begin to arrive. And rather than bringing together the facts in an orderly, determined way as he had before, Graham was letting the thoughts come as they may. The tea helped, as it always did. Perhaps the sea air, also. Sometimes, he found, an investigator needed to simply shut up and allow a well-trained mind to do its work.

“Constable Roach?”

The young officer was standing discreetly in the lobby, almost hidden by a giant coat stand. “Morning, sir.”

“I need you to do something for me.” Moments later, Roach was on his way down to the harbormaster’s office, searching for news of an arrival early this morning. Graham believed that he knew genuine grief and a genuine story when he experienced them, but he’d never be able to look his colleagues in the eye if Carlos turned out to be the murderer and all Graham had done was sit with the man for a sympathetic chat.

“Sergeant Harding, do you have a phone that can play videos?”

Harding proudly showed him her phone, one of the latest models. It had cost well over a week’s salary and worked like a charm. Graham explained what he wanted, and they sat together to review some of the search results.

“You see, we’ve been going about this all wrong,” Graham told her. “We’d assumed that the journey from here at the Inn,” he said, tracing the path on the table in front of him with his finger, “down to the beach would have been awkward and painful for Sylvia.”

“I’m sure it would,” Harding agreed.

“But what if…” he said, turning the phone to give them a larger view. “What if it were absolutely impossible?”

The video showed part of the trials of a new drug. A lady of Sylvia’s age, perhaps a year or two older, was struggling to walk. Sweating, pale, and in immense pain, she could barely take three steps together, on level ground, clasping a handrail as though she would drown without it. “Sergeant,” he said with a smirk, “I don’t know how often you find yourself saying this, but…”

“Constable Roach was right,” she conceded. “There’s no way on God’s green earth that Sylvia Norquist walked down those steps. No way at all.” Harding raced to put two and two together. “So she was carried?”

“In broad daylight. At lunchtime. On a beach at the tail end of summer.” Graham grimaced. “That, believe it or not, is our best theory, as it stands.”

Harding thought for a second, then shut down the phone and looked square at her boss. “If I may quote the distinguished philosopher, Jim Roach, sir… I think that’s bollocks.”

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