Author's note
This is one of my favourite chapters so far.
I hope you'll enjoy it too.
In case you forgot: The story I tell here about Midsomer is my own invention, and it is not purported or believed to be part of Caroline Grahams story canon. The show is based on Caroline Graham's Chief Inspector Barnaby book series, as originally adapted by one of my favourite authors Anthony Horowitz. This story is for entertainment only and is not part of the official story line.
Now that sounded professional.
Without further ado, here's the next part:
Chapter 6 -Blue
"No one is allowed, to go into her room at any time. Absolutely no one.", Barnaby said in his most intimidating voice.
His loud voice echoed in the almost empty hospital floor. The policeman, standing in front of Audreys room nodded. His expression didn't show any emotion. Jones rubbed his eyes. They had been awake for way too many hours.
The Sergeant sighed and added: "Except for the nurses and doctors. But you have to check their identities, before you let them in. We can't afford having another death, because someone walked around in their Halloween costume again. ...You won't believe how often this has happened before."
"Also Jenkins will come at eight and replace you. You will only leave, when it really is Jenkins, standing in front of you. Don't believe anyone making an excuse, that Jenkins was sick or something similarly stupid. I talked to him, this morning. He is fine. No one else but him will be sent here by us. Have I made myself clear, Fredericks?"
"Of course, Sir.", the policeman said.
~~~M~~~
Elyas, Jeffrey and Grace stood outside of the hospital. They stared up at the windows.
"Why are we not allowed to visit her?!" Grace yelled more than she asked. People on the street walking by, turned around and looked at her, as she pointed a finger at Barnaby accusingly.
"Because we don't know who tried to kill her.", he answered calmly.
"Why would we want to kill her!? We are her friends!"
"We are not even going to answer that.", Jones said.
"Where were you last night, before you came to 'The Pink Feathers'?'"
"We were at home, just like Grace and Jeffrey."
"What did you do? What did you drink? What did you eat? Who made dinner? Did one of you make drinks or something?", Jones asked.
"I'll make a list.", Elyas said, glancing at Barnaby, who acted, like he didn't notice or didn't care.
"Yeah, we had a lot of stuff mixed up yesterday. But we kinda all ate and drank the same stuff.", Jeffrey mumbled.
Grace started crying again.
This time quietly.
Elyas sighed. "Is there anything else we can do to help you, detectives?"
"That list would be helpful."
"Instead of searching for crime, where nothing is, you could concentrate more on finding our dear friend Walter.", Elyas said with a hint of accusation in his voice.
"We know very well how to do our jobs, thank you.", Jones said, more furious, than he had intended.
"What about your sister?"
"Wouldn't be the first time though, that old Aud had drank too much. Might not even be anything to be concerned about.", Jeffrey said.
Grace boxed his arm angrily and Elyas looked disappointed with those words.
"Anything else?", Jeffrey asked.
"Don't leave midsomer.", Barnaby answered weakly.
~~~M~~~
Back at the office, they sat in silence for a few minutes and stared at their blank desktops. Jones checked his phone a few times, while Barnaby stirred his tea.
Then the phone rang. Jones answered it.
Moments passed.
And then he hung up.
"It was the hospital, Sir."
"What did they say?"
"What do you think, they said?"
"They found nothing.", Barnaby mused, as he started pacing back and forth in front of his desk, "Didn't they? Just too much alcohol. Wasn't it?"
"Right. ...As always. She had alcohol poisoning which was most likely self-inflicted. She'll be fine.", Jones sighed. He looked tired.
"Do you want to know why?"
"You are going to tell me anyway. Aren't you, Sir?"
"If you say it like that, I won't tell you."
Moments passed. Then Barnaby leaned against his desk, facing Jones and said: "What if Audrey did this on purpose to make herself look like a victim?"
"I don't think, it's her. I think, it's Elyas wanting to get your attention."
"I don't think, it's him."
"Why? Because you like him? Sir?"
"He does have a good taste, doesn't he?"
The Sergeant glared at him.
"Of course I don't like him, Jones."
"He is hiding something."
"What could Grace's and Jeffrey's motive be?"
"But Elyas-"
"Maybe it is about money or something. Or something blog related."
"But Elyas-", Jones emphasized.
"Could you stop being jealous for just a second, Please? Thank you. We are trying to solve a murder."
"I'm not jealous!"
They stared at each other, then Barnaby started to arrange a few documents on his table differently, acting, like nothing had happened.
Jones sharpened a pencil, until it broke again. Then he threw it on his desk angrily and said: "What about taking a break? I'm exhausted."
"Some tea would be nice, thank you.", Barnaby said, without looking up. So he didn't see Jones staring at him.
When the Detective Chief Inspector didn't react, the Sergeant got up and left the room.
~~~M~~~
"Is it true?", a familiar voice behind Jones suddenly asked, as he stood in line at a nearby café to buy some tea for Barnaby and himself.
"What? Oh. Hi, Jessica." In the moment of surprise, he was barely able to hide his disappointment or his irritation, when seeing his exgirlfriend standing behind him.
"Is it really true, that you met Elyas, the blogger? You've been seen.", she asked in a false sugar sweet voice. "Lucy saw you. At least she said so. But I wouldn't believe her. And then she insisted. Lucky me I found you."
"Yeah. He's a suspect in a murder case."
"Tell me more." She leaned towards him, but he stayed distant.
"First: You know, that I can't. And second: you never cared before."
"But I do care. I realised how much I still care about you, Ben." Her smile didn't reach her eyes.
"How pathetic!"
"Why pathetic? You only know what you had, when you lost it. We were a good couple. I had a great time with you. Please, take my apology.", she said in a sweet voice. "Pretty please?"
Jones turned away. Disgusted.
"I certainly won't. You only want to meet Elyas. Just ... leave me alone, already."
Always being the one to break up a relationship or making decisions in general, Jessica wouldn't take a 'no' for an answer and got angry: "How dare you say that?"
"Jones! Why aren't you answering your phone?" Barnaby suddenly stood next to him.
The Sergeant looked at the DCI, then at his phone.
"The battery died.", he said with a surprised expression.
Barnaby nodded and said: "Well, it isn't the only thing, that is dead, now. Would you please-",
"Erm, excuse me, Sir, we were having a conversation!", Jessica said in an annoyed tone, her long fingers on his shoulder.
"No, we had just finished it. Sir, I'm coming."
"You aren't seriously leaving me because of him, again!", Jessica yelled and everyone waiting in line, looked at them curiously.
Before Jones could answer, Barnaby stepped close to her and whispered something, so only she could hear it.
Jessica first looked, like she wanted to argue back, but then she turned white and walked away fast, disappearing in the crowded streets.
"What did you tell her?"
"Just that we are needed at a crime scene. Jeffrey Gardner was found dead."
"Are you serious?"
~~~M~~~
Jeffreys body lay in the bathtub, although a toaster in his hands, he had a rather surpised expression.
His skin tone was blueish, maybe because of the cold water, but it might also be because of something else.
"Do you see the Tattoo?", Barnaby asked.
"Where? -Oh shit." He looked and looked away again. "There is no way, I can make this unseen again."
There was a Tattoo on a very private part of Jeffrey Gardner.
"Why would you put a Tattoo there?"
"Why not?"
Barnaby sighed and tried to have a closer look, without coming too close or even touching him.
" . + J.G. = 3"
"We don't often see something as tasteless as that.", Jones mumbled under his breath and walked over to the sink, pretending, like he admired the blue towels. There were beautiful roses on them.
"Now we have to find the person, he was so much in love with, that he put a Tattoo of her name ... over there."
"Or we don't. This one does look like a suicide quite a lot. Doesn't it?", he said, his back towards Barnaby, as he looked at a dark spot on one of the blue tiles.
"Why a toaster? Don't they usually use a hairdryer? And I think he looks rather surprised."
"Well, you are not wrong. It might be suspicious, that those people of a small group of friends are dying like flies on a windshield, Sir."
"I wouldn't have phrased it like that, but yes. Yes, it is.", Barnaby nodded and observed the little bottles of shampoos, conditioners and god-knows-what. There was a lot of it.
"What if Grace got jealous? She was his current girlfriend. Wasn't she?
And there it is. Another name." He gestured towards Jeffrey without looking in his direction.
"Maybe it isn't a name, but the shortform of something else..."
"No, that makes no sense."
"Where is his mobile?"
"I don't think, that they found one."
~~~M~~~
The chairs in the interrogation room back in Causton felt cold, when they sat down. This case seemed to take longer than usual.
"I need your undevided attention-", Barnaby began.
"You couldn't handle my undevided attention.", Elyas purred with a smirk.
"This is not a joke, Mr Sanchez.", Jones said, a tad too loudly.
Barnaby stood up and began to pace back and forth, doing his best to stay calm.
"If it really is one of us, at least now it's over.", Elyas said bitterly after a long moment of silence.
"Is this a confession?", Jones asked.
Elyas smiled mildly.
"How do you come to that conclusion?", Barnaby asked.
"If one of us kills the other one, only one of us is left. Then it is pretty obvious, who the killer is." Elyas rolled his eyes.
Grace just sobbed quietly. She bit on her fingernails. "And what if there is someone out there-"
"But you don't think there is someone. Don't you, Benny?"
"It's Sergeant Jones, Mr Sanchez.", the Sergeant spat.
"Whatever.", he said, rolling his eyes.
"You have nothing to hold us here.", Grace suddenly said and stood up, whiping the tears out of her eyes.
"Ms Myers. One of your friends is in the hospital, two are dead and one is still missing- Do you have any idea-"
"I'd like to talk to my lawyer, now.", Grace said in a low voice.
Elyas looked at her in surprise. Jones wasn't sure, if he had seen a flash of fear in his eyes.
"Sit down, please. Ms Meyers-"
"NOW.", she yelled.
The room seemed to get colder.
"What about you, Mr Sanchez?"
All eyes were on him. He hesitated.
"Well, I'm fine. Thank you. A cup of tea would be nice, though."
The detectives nodded and let the two left suspects alone.
After the door was closed, they started to whisper in angry hushed voices.
~~~M~~~
As it was much too often for Jones' taste the case, half an hour later, a lawyer seemingly materialized out of nowhere and ten minutes after that, the suspects were free to go.
"You've made a mistake, Jones.", Barnaby said.
Jones didn't even argue back.
It followed a long period of silence.
"Audrey might now be strong enough, so we can talk to her.", Barnaby suddenly said as he searched for the car keys.
When they got to the right hospital floor and saw, that no one was standing in front of the room, they ran the last few metres as fast as they could.
"What has happened here?"
On the bed laid Fredericks in handcuffs, wearing not more than one of his socks.
But luckily for him his most important bits were covered by the thin hospital blanket.
"What the hell happened here?"
"That's a bit hard to explain, Sir.", Fredericks said.
Jones started to chuckle, while Barnaby looked furious.
"To be fair, Sir. You didn't tell him, he wasn't allowed to let her out.", Jones said, not being able to suppress his laughter.
"What were you thinking?", Barnaby yelled.
Fredericks shrugged.
"When did she leave?"
Fredericks groaned. "I don't know."
And without further questions Barnaby stormed out of the room.
"Would you help me with the handcuffs, please?"
"Haha. No.", Jones said, before he turned and followed Barnaby.
"Hey. HEY!", Fredericks yelled after them.
~~~M~~~
"Do you know what it means?", Barnaby asked, waiting at the elevator.
"What?", Jones asked.
"We might have another suspect for the murder of Jeffrey Gardner."
He pushed the Button for down a few more times.
"If she could just have stayed in her damn room, she would have an alibi, now."
~~~M~~~
Even before they could ring the bell, Audrey opened the door.
"Thought you would come..."
Barnaby stared at her angrily: "Ms. Sanchez, you are supposed to-"
"I know. I know. But they wouldn't let me drink. -Come in and sit down.- Do you know the festival rule? If you don't stop drinking, you can't get a hangover. Oh, you sure want to know where I have been. Let me see... Ugh... After I left the old man at the hospital, I went to the grocery store, bought a sixpack and drank it in the parking lot. People will remember me, I believe." She grinned.
"We are going to check that. Anything else you want to talk about?"
"It's funny. The moment your shampoo says damage repair, but you are still broken on the inside.", Audrey said, crossing her arms and sitting back.
Jones was at a loss for words.
"I'd like to sleep a bit, before Ely and Grace come back. Would you leave me alone, please?"
"Ms Sanchez, you should really do something about your ...drinking problem."
For a moment it looked like she was going to get angry, but then she said quietly: "I know.", and shrugged, "I'm pathetic." She closed her eyes. "Total trash."
Barnaby and Jones left, silently.
~~~M~~~
"A new Blogpost is up.", Barnaby said.
"That is a damn lot of likes for a post about someone who was murdered."
"We should read that and all of the comments."
He scrolled down, very unhappy with that. "He labled it as a suicide. Isn't that something, we would have to decide?"
"Of course. But I'm sure, he already knows."
"We should-"
"We should wait and see.", Barnaby said and gave his Sergeant a warning look.
~~~M~~~
"We haven't considered it to be a hate crime yet.", Barnaby said out of nowhere, which made Jones, who had started to fall asleep, jump.
"A hate crime?"
"I'm referring to their ... lifestyle."
"We have seen other sorts of 'lifestyles'."
"Then have a look at that. It's a petition."
Jones looked over Barnabys shoulder at the computer screen.
"I see.", he said, and then he said nothing for a long time.
~~~M~~~
It was almost midnight, when Barnaby and Jones sat together, eating dinner and watching TV.
Then there was commercial break.
They had silently agreed, to not talk about the case in this night.
"Would you mind, if I asked, what happened between you and Jessica?"
Jones stared at him thoughtfully for a moment, then he said bluntly: "I came home from working late and caught her cheating on me with that one guy from the fire department."
Then they sat there avoiding to look in each others eyes for several seconds. They were in such a depressing mood, that even Sykes laid his head on his paws and winced quietly.
"Now you have to tell me, what happened to Sarah. Why... What happened?"
"No, I don't.", Barnaby answered, focussing on the TV-Screen once more.
And the only thing that followed, was an uncomfortable silence.
~~~M~~~
It was short after midnight when a taxi came to a hold under the still lit up livingroom window, where Grace and Elyas sat together, each one torturing the other with their silence.
Audrey had fallen asleep on the floor next to the sofa.
Until they couldn't take it anymore.
"No one ever asks me, how I feel.", Grace stated.
"How do you feel?", Elyas asked.
"If I were a bird, I would fly into a ceiling fan."
Elyas took a dramatically deep breath and said: "And I feel like that fairy skeleton meme. I'm dead inside, but I still want to cheer up other peoples lifes, so spread your wings, honey. I'll leave the window open."
Grace suddenly started to giggle hysterically and couldn't stop at the image of this, which woke up Audrey. She groaned and rolled to her side. "That meme sums you up so bloody well.", Grace said between snorts, "A skeleton in a fairy costume."
Suddenly the doorbell rang with an unpleasant shrieking.
It made Audrey cover her ears and Elyas muttered something remotely unfriendly before getting up to open the door.
As he did so, only seconds after that, he stumbled back in surprise, speechless.
He searched for words.
"Who is it?", Audrey yelled from the living room.
The person in front of Elyas stepped forward and out of the shadow. "Hey, girls, I'm back. Did you miss me?"
AN
A cliffhanger *yay* XD.
Ok, You can probably guess who it is.
Thank you for reading.
Pretty, pretty please let me know what you think and if you liked it.