Author's Note:- Thank you to everyone who has read and reviewed the chapter.
Warnings: This chapter and all the following chapters will contain either character death or mention of character death. It is a crime fiction after all.
Thank you to my twin sister Anjuna who gladly typed out this chapter from its manuscript version. Without her, I would still have been busy typing.
Story so Far:- Nancy goes camping with her best friends. On the second day, one of the owners of the campsite goes rolling down the cliff. Later Nancy comes across Mr. Derek whose house is eventually set on fire. The suspense continues.
Chapter 7: Uh-oh! Not a Coincidence
I knew something was wrong even before I had opened my eyes. The first thing I heard as I lay inside my sleeping bag was two people screaming at each other. Even though the camp was silent, the people were a fair distance away, and I couldn't distinguish the words.
My phone's clock said that it was 6:26 in the morning. I sat up and moved closer to the mouth of the tent. George, Bess and Amelia were stirring. I tried to pay attention to the words.
The voices were no longer screaming but they had moved closer.
"I can't believe it. I just can't believe it," I heard Mr. Jones say wearily, "All these mishaps, and that too right after we camped here," he added.
"I am sorry Mr. Jones, but it does look like the setting up of the camp and this...this incident, are related," I heard Mr. Malcolm's voice, "And please excuse Miss Jenny Willin for her behaviour today."
"Oh no, it's ok, I think she is pretty upset about the whole matter."
The two men had reached our tent. "Mia!" Mr. Jones called out.
Amelia was already sitting up. "Coming in a second!" she shouted. Having pulled on a jacket and loosely tied back her hair, she went out. Bess and George were also sitting up by then.
"What's up?" George asked stifling a yawn.
"Something's happened. Up in the bungalow. Guess we will find out soon," I replied.
Outside, Mr. Jones and Amelia were talking in low whispers. I heard Amelia gasp and say, "Oh my God!"
After a couple of minutes, she returned with a pale face. Her voice shook as she said in a low voice, "Guys, Ariana Willin was murdered last night."
When I headed out of the tent with George after fifteen minutes, hardly any of our fellow campers were out. Amelia had been given the task of informing everyone about the latest incident.
Apparently, most of the campers had woken up halfway through Mr. Jones' and Jenny Willin's shouting match and were wondering what had happened.
We were watching Amelia trying in vain to explain to everyone that she didn't know a word more than what she had just conveyed, when we heard the wail of the police sirens for the second time that week. I nodded to George and we headed to the front of the house hoping to get to know the whole incident.
It was Inspector Ropkins again. He listened intently as Jenny Willin narrated all that she knew. Last night at 12 o' clock the two sisters had gone to sleep. They slept in neighbouring rooms. Apparently Jenny was a heavy sleeper and she fell asleep within the next 10-15 minutes only to wake up the next morning at 6 am to hear Mr. Gordon banging on her door trying to wake her up.
According to Mr. Gordon, he had gone to give Ariana Willin her bed tea as he had always done. He found the door which wasn't very uncommon but on stepping inside he met a sight which shocked him out of his wits. His mistress was lying spread-eagled on the bed with a knife sticking out of her chest. He had roused up Miss Jenny Willin, who despite being shocked had called up the police and stormed over to the campsite.
At this point, Mr. Ropkins intervened, "Hmm I can understand, Miss Willin, that you accused the campers in a fit of rage and frustration, but that's baseless. I had personally ensured that ever since the rock-climbing incident, a barricade was to be put up around the campsite at nightfall and be removed only at dawn." He sharply looked at an officer and growled, "I expect it hadn't been tampered with."
The officer nodded, "Yes sir, everything was in place as of this morning."
"What!?" Mr. Jones asked in anguish, "How come I, the camp-in-charge, was never notified?"
"Because, you sir, as a part of the camp was a potential suspect as well," Mr. Ropkins said harshly, "We can't ensure that you, or for that matter anyone in the camp, didn't know the victim beforehand or held a grudge against her."
Mr. Jones scowled but remained quite.
"Miss Willin, did you hear any noise or any sort of commotion in the night?" Mr. Ropkins asked.
"What...oh no, I happen to be a very heavy sleeper, most of the days I don't get up even once. Yesterday, it was no different, I woke up only in the morning," Jenny appeared to be extremely nervous. The murder seemed to be getting to her.
"What about you, Mr. Malcolm?"
"My room is on the ground floor and Ariana's room was on the first floor. So even if some disturbance was there, I couldn't have heard it," he said.
"And you, Mr. Gordon?" the inspector asked a little harshly than was needed.
Mr. Gordon however replied coolly, "I sleep in the outhouse, from where it is not possible to know what is going on in the house."
"Just like it is not possible to know what goes on in the outhouse from the house, isn't it." Mr. Ropkins asked, clearly hoping to startle Mr. Gordon into a confession.
Mr. Gordon didn't react.
After a long stare at him, Mr. Ropkins said, "We will carry out a routine investigation. First I would like to have a look at the crime scene. And then I would..." he went off towards the bungalow talking to apparently no one.
Another car arrived. Two men stepped out. One of them carried a briefcase and had a stethoscope hung around his neck. He had probably come to provide the medical information. Another man had a camera in his hand. I was surprised to see it was Julian, one of my friends from River Heights. Our eyes met and he smiled and made his way over to us.
"Hi Nancy, hi George, where's Bess?" Julian said.
"Hi Julian," we said together. "Bess will be here as soon as she is done with dressing up," George said.
"Oh, nice to see you, wherever there's a crime, I can expect to see you Nancy," he joked.
"We came here for camping," I smiled, "Do you think you can give me the details, you are here to take photographs, right?"
"Yes that's my new job, and sure, I would give you all the info," he smiled, walking towards the bungalow, "We want to see this mystery solved, right?"
We walked over to our camp to find the breakfast arrangements ready. Having nothing better to do, we sat down to eat. John joined us appearing rather glum. It was the first time I had seen him without Michael. No, wait, last night also he had dined alone.
"What's up with Michael?" I asked.
"Don't ask," he huffed. He took some time to arrange his words which was rather unusual for him. I put it down to stress. "He isn't doing well these days. Last night he stayed in the tent from the very moment we returned. I had to bring him his dinner. Today, he said he will come down to breakfast, but as you can see, he isn't here yet. I don't know when he will come," he said lacking his usual verve.
"How long do you know each other?" George asked.
John took time to finish his mouthful of sausages and then said, "Six months. Right after his accident."
"Uh, John," I hesitated before asking, "Will Michael's memories ever return?"
"It's, it's uh really difficult to say, Nancy, right now, the best option we have is to go to different places and see if he can remember anything," he said.
"What all places have you been to?" I asked.
To this, John pulled out his phone. He went to the Gallery and scrolled down to about a few months ago. He said, "We have been out and about for almost a few months now. We have this technique-we open a map of America, then Mike puts on a blindfold and randomly drops a dice on the map. The number on the top of the dice indicates the number of weeks we will be spending in the place and the position of the dice gives us our destination. So far, we have been to Montana, Southampton, Barceló and San Carlos. We were to be in River Heights for 5 weeks and we decided on this one-week camp." While telling us about the places, John also showed us pictures of the two of them taken in all these places.
"Interesting," Bess said. She had arrived silently. "Where is Michael?" she asked.
"There he is," John said looking in the vague direction of their tents.
Michael walked over to the table and sat down beside John as always. He looked even pale and forlorn than usual. Did I feel sorry for him!
The rest of the breakfast was an uncomfortable affair. Michael did not open his mouth even once, and John was also pretty down. We made attempts at small talk, but we only got a few feeble responses.
Once we were done with breakfast, Bess and George accompanied me as i made my way over to the logs.
"So, what happened?" Bess asked, "Nancy did you get access to investigate?"
I filled her in on the details, telling her about Julian as well. While I was doing this, George had discovered something on her phone and was bursting to tell me.
No sooner did I finish than George started, "You remember Jenny saying that she never got up in the night, but see...," she waved the screen of her phone in front of my face. It was Jenny Willin's whatsapp chat. The chat was blank but what drew my attention were the words 'last seen today at 03:22 am'.
"That's simple," Bess shrugged, "she might have woken up and checked her phone for updates and later forgot all about it. It happens."
George appeared to be stumped. She had clearly not considered this scenario. She tried to form a suitable counter-argument but couldn't think of anything.
We heard a bell ring signalling a camp meeting. We hadn't noticed Mr. Jones coming out of his tent.
Once all the campers had assembled, Mr. Jones let out a deep breath and said it aloud, "In light of today's incident, any activity planned for today is going to be cancelled." With that one curt sentence he turned around and went back to his tent.
Amelia, who came over to sit with us, sighed, "Dad blames himself, you know," she absentmindedly rolled a twig between her thumb and forefinger, "He thinks that it was due to the lack of his responsibility and attention that one of the campers murdered the owner of the very estate where we are camping."
"How come he is absolutely sure that it was one of the campers? For all we know it could be anybody," I said.
"I know, but how am I supposed to make him understand that?" she huffed, "I should go and try at least," and with that she stood up.
Around us, people had finished their breakfast and were heading back to their tents. Some remained on the logs. The day's activity was supposed to be based on gathering edible, non-toxic fruits and a lesson on how to start a fire. Nobody was much bothered about its cancellation.
We noticed Mr. Malcolm, Jenny and Mr. Gordon wandering around the camp awkwardly. That caught my attention.
I walked over to Mr. Malcolm, who wasn't scowling today. "Why is everybody outside?" I asked.
"Mr. Ropkins got the idea that the murderer might still be lurking in the house somewhere. He is carrying out a search operation and he told us to-err-he told us to get out of harm's way," he said, "I might join you all tomorrow, you know, for the swimming," he added as an after-thought.
My eyes landed on Jenny. For some reason, she was looking sternly at John and Michael. I mean she looked at almost everybody sternly, but this was somehow even sterner than usual.
John noticed her glare and feeling uncomfortable, he told Michael to come with him to the tent. Michael, who hadn't noticed anything, calmly followed his best friend.
Jenny called out to them, "Hold on a second...," They stopped and turned around. Unable to contain my curiosity further, I walked closer.
Jenny addressed Michael, "Could you come with me, say, for a couple of minutes? We could have a small chat," she placed a hand on his shoulder and literally proceeded to drag him.
Michael's stammer, which hadn't been much noticeable the last few days, returned, "W-Why? What-what...have I done? L-Leave me..."
Thankfully, John intervened, "Excuse me. Whatever there is to be said has to be said here, or not at all." Jenny scowled, but left Michael and walked away.
"What do you make of it?" George asked.
"Nothing," I said.
Author's Note:- I hope you enjoyed the new turn of events. Do review the story. And please, can someone advise me if I need to change the rating to a T. I am not sure whether I am supposed to. Your suggestion would help a lot.
By 'outhouse' I mean a small one-room compartment with attached washroom and maybe a small kitchen which might be used as servants' quarters.