Memories of Murder:

Chapter 8:

It felt strange walking to sixth form with Ciel by his side, but it was not an unpleasant feeling. Ciel kept looking around with wide eyes at all the new scenery.

"Can we go somewhere after school?" he requested with pleading eyes.

Sebastian considered it for a moment before relenting. "I am out of teabags so yes, we can go out shopping."

For that he received Ciel's special smile. The heart stopping one. Ciel's nice smile was lethal. It was fortunate no one else could see him. Ciel was lucky that Sebastian was such an intelligent and considerate person. Anyone else would have tired of his battiness easily.

"Any suggestions on how to persuade everyone else to visit the old school building again? William in going to be the hardest to persuade," Sebastian sighed. "You are manipulative enough, surely you can think of something."

Ciel appeared to take that as a compliment rather than an insult.

"Tell them what you found and explain your theory. Emphasise that it is a mystery and you are the mystery club. As for William Spears, I think he knows something about the school and is keeping quiet."

Sebastian could see the logic in the first part and as for the second he had noticed William's nervous behaviour the previous day.

"How are you so sure about that?"

"Because no one else can see me it means I can stare at someone for however long I want. He looked very nervous in the meeting yesterday and went pale after the others said they wanted to continue. Actually I predict he will drop out the club."

The living teenager remembered another point. "He did attend the school at the time of your murder so perhaps he does actually know about you."

"I think you could crack him if you cornered him and applied the right pressure. You did a good job with Tanaka," Ciel complimented him unexpectedly.

Sebastian was about to tell the truth about how he got the key from Tanaka when Finny's conflicting description of Tanaka came to mind.

"Tanaka is suspicious as well. There is something not quite right about him."

Ciel groaned and ruffled his hair. "At this rate I will be stuck here forever. Please solve it before you leave."

They turned into the school gate which meant Sebastian could no longer talk to Ciel in a normal tone of voice.

"I promise," he whispered.

At lunchtime there was another mystery club meeting arranged and Sebastian intended to broach the subject of another night time exploration. He and Ciel found William, Bardroy and Mey-Rin waiting outside the classroom that doubled as the clubroom.

"Finny has gone to get the key," Mey-Rin informed him.

"Do we have to wait here? It is getting quite cramped in this corridor," William complained as they squashed against the wall to allow people to walk past them and down the stairs which were right next to them.

As he spoke another class of pupils streamed down the corridor with a white haired female teacher behind them. Sebastian moved out the way and as the teacher walked past she brushed against William causing him to pitch headfirst down the stairs.

Immediately Sebastian reached out and tried to grab him before it was too late. He caught William's wrist at an awkward angle and managed to stop him from falling any further.

"I am ever so sorry," the teacher said and loomed over them. "You should go to the school doctor in case you injured yourself."

As he was still holding William's wrist, Sebastian could feel his pulse and the rate of it rapidly increased once the teacher spoke. He wondered why until he saw the threatening glint in her purple eyes.

"We'll take him," Bardroy piped up and thankfully broke the tension.

"I'm sure you noticed that it was not an accident," Ciel said on the way to the doctor's office. "She was aiming for him and he knows it. Look at him."

Sebastian cast a look at the oldest member of their club. His skin had turned deathly pale and there was a faint sheen of sweat visible on his face.

"He definitely knows more than he is telling us," Sebastian whispered.

"I do not like doctors so I will not come in," Ciel said once they were outside the door. "I will stay here."

Sebastian nodded at him and knocked on the door. He opened it when he heard a reply from inside. The doctor's office smelt of a combination of medicine, disinfectant and something he could not identify. It was a brightly lit white painted room with a few beds along one side and a vase of white flowers on the windowsill. The doctor was standing by her desk dressed in a white coat which set off her red hair. Sebastian was of the opinion that her lipstick was too heavy for a doctor.

"Which one of you is the patient?" she asked with a faint trace of an English accent.

Bardroy pointed at William. "He had an accident on the stairs and hurt his wrist."

The doctor pushed him onto a chair and began examining his wrist. She appeared to be touching him more than necessary to the extent that Sebastian began to question her suitability as a school doctor.

"It seems like it is going to start swelling very soon. You can have an icepack if you want and stay here over lunchtime or you can have a compress," she paused. "Or you can go to hospital and have an x-ray."

The first option confirmed her nationality. He was surprised she didn't offer a wet paper towel too. That was a staple of first aid at British primary schools.

"I think I like the last option the best," William said with a very forced smile. "Thank you for your diagnosis."

"It's no problem," she smiled. "Try to avoid what you were doing to cause such an accident."

To Sebastian it sounded like a threat and considering how William froze up , he thought so too.

The club meeting was suspended until after school the next day to avoid William getting annoyed with being left out which meant discussing a return to the old school building to check the poster in the clubroom had to wait.

"Remember your promise to go out with me later," Ciel reminded Sebastian after school.

Sebastian smirked at Ciel's terminology. "Of course. Tea is a priority."

They passed a row of cherry blossom trees lining the pavement which caused Sebastian to realise they had yet to investigate one of the Seven Mysteries.

"We didn't check the cherry blossom tree after we found the skull."

Strangely enough Ciel looked unconcerned. "You wouldn't have been able to. It is impossible to find it even during the day. The trees surrounding the old school building are peach blossom trees. Trying to find a cherry blossom tree there is hard."

There was a chance there wasn't even a cherry blossom tree there. However the stairs, the well and the mask had proved that there was some basis of truth of the Seven Mysteries in some places.

"I don't suppose you would have found it," he said to Ciel hopefully.

The ghost gave him a disdainful glance that Sebastian had seen so many times that it didn't bother him anymore.

"I have been stuck here for six years. I have noticed there is a tree there that is different to the rest. It is directly in the middle of all the trees outside the building. There is nothing untoward about it."

Sebastian felt an overwhelming feeling of relief. The only other way to find it without being seen would be at night and walking around in the trees with a torch checking the shape of petals was not enticing at all.

"You are quite useful," he said.

Sebastian checked the address Elizabeth Midford had given them and they went off in search for some decent English tea. Ciel was completely taken aback at the sight of the crossing in Shibuya and Sebastian momentarily envied him for simply being able to walk through people instead of getting jostled and pushed.

Once they reached the shop Sebastian gravitated towards the tea whilst Ciel ambled off towards the sweets section. He was halfway through calculating how many days 150 teabags would last for when Ciel suddenly appeared beside him.

"Is the name of the company my father owns Funtom?" he asked.

Sebastian realised Ciel must have found some Funtom sweets and he followed him towards the sweets. Ciel pointed at some lollipops with the Funtom logo on and Sebastian picked up a caramel flavoured one.

"They only sell toys in Japan so you will never be able to see the full range of products here," he explained to Ciel. "Do you want me to get you one?"

"Please," Ciel said and looked up at him with wide eyes.

"You should do that more often," Sebastian answered and kept hold of the lollipop.

"It would lose effect if I did."

He ended up buying five tins of tea and five Funtom lollipops that he was never going to eat. Neither was Ciel for that matter, but he bought them anyway.

"Is there anywhere else you would like to go?" Sebastian asked after checking the time.

"Can we visit my cousin?" Ciel requested.

The request was unprecedented but not unexpected. It had been likely that sooner or later that Ciel would want to see his family with his own eyes instead of relying on him for descriptions.

"Don't you want to see your parents more?"

Ciel gave him another disdainful look. "I am not being soppy. Elizabeth Midford should be acquainted with my handwriting. I want to know if the messages written underneath the desk were written by me. You haven't had any prior contact with my parents so it would be strange if you asked them."

Of course that was it. It had sounded unlikely to be for emotional reasons. From what he had knew about Ciel he was not an emotional person.

"How did you think of that?" he asked wonderingly. Checking the handwriting should have been something obvious.

"I don't sleep. I had to occupy myself with something last night," the ghost informed him.

It turned out that Elizabeth Midford lived in a fancy and expensive looking apartment block in a residential area of Tokyo that was more high class than Sebastian's.

"This place is so much posher than yours," Ciel commented as they went up to the tenth floor in the lift.

"I am not the child of a Marquis," Sebastian replied dryly. "I'm sure your parents live somewhere fancier than I do too."

The inside of Elizabeth Midford's apartment was far less pink that he had envisioned. It would be completely average if not for the occasional sight of ruffles and lace. She was also wearing a light blue dress instead of a pink one. She offered him tea which he accepted.

"What do you think of her?" he asked Ciel once she had left the room to make tea.

Ciel did not reply and Sebastian noticed his gaze was fixed on a set of photo frames on the sideboard. Sebastian picked one up and realised it was an old photo of the Phantomhive family. Ciel looked even younger with rounder cheeks.

"That is your parents and you."

Ciel stared silently and burst into a smile. "They look familiar. That means I could be getting closer to remembering."

There was an awkward moment when Elizabeth returned with the tea tray to find Sebastian peering at all the photo frames with Ciel in that he had lined up. There turned out to be a surprising number of them. Ciel appeared in more photos that she did although they were often pictured together.

"I see you remembered what Ciel looked like. To be fair, he did not change a lot as he grew up," she said and kindly didn't mention how weird he looked staring intently at photos of her cousin. "I made some nice Earl Grey. I have it imported directly from Harrods."

Her description enticed Sebastian and even Ciel to join her on the sofa. She waited until the tea had been poured before starting to ask questions.

"What do you need my help for?"

"We- I mean I, found a few things in the room that used to belong to the mystery club. I was wondering if Ciel wrote any of them. Can you identify his handwriting?"

Instead of asking why he hadn't told her before when she had phoned him, she simply nodded. Sebastian produced the photo of the old school building from his school bag and showed her the writing on the back.

"No. That is nothing like Ciel's handwriting," she said. "Have you investigated the mask yet?"

"No," Sebastian admitted reluctantly. "There was an incident today at school that was more important. I am planning to investigate the mask tomorrow."

Next he showed her the messages from under the desk and watched her face as she read them. He knew the answer before she said it.

"That is his handwriting and 'Shelling Ford' is something he would write- he was a very avid Sherlock Holmes fan."

If the clues were written by Ciel it could mean he had wanted to leave something behind in case he died which showed they were going in the right direction.