As dawn dispatched fissures of apricot and salmon light through the leaden sky to the east, Rosie peeled open her eyelids. It took her a few seconds to remember that she had chosen to spend the night curled up on the sofa, but the change of scenery had meant her brain had worked out a plan whilst she slept. She rubbed her fists into her eye sockets and raked her fingers through her wayward curls, knowing she must look like she’d been dragged through the fields behind one of Farmer Giles’ tractors.
With a quick glance in Matt’s direction, she slipped from the room, showered, dressed and went down to the café where she spent the next hour whipping up a feast of breakfast muffins – two dozen with dried cherries, cranberries and cinnamon, two dozen with pumpkin and oats and a handful of toffee pieces, and two dozen with bran and prunes. The baking activity served to allay her nerves and the subsequent stint of extreme cleaning – during which she eradicated every tiny crumb – nudged her spirits even higher.
A delicious aroma rippled through the deserted room, tickling at her nostrils and she almost swooned. How she wished someone would bottle the fragrance of freshly baked cakes and distribute it to the needy. Coupled with freshly ground coffee and the offer of scrambled egg on toast, she hoped she wouldn’t find it too difficult to lure her prey into the café so she could ask the questions she had finalized at 5 a.m. that morning.
She wrapped her old grey hoodie around her shoulders and sprinted to Brad and Emma’s lodge, praying that Brad would answer her knock and not Emma. She hadn’t been able to formulate a believable enough reason if Emma asked her why she’d chosen to invite Brad for breakfast and not her. Even to Rosie, it looked like a shaky excuse to get her clutches on the buttocks of steel that belonged to Brad Cookson. She had noted the excessive possessive streak that inhabited Emma’s character and was loath to be the one to inflame her jealousy.
‘Oh, hi Brad,’ sighed Rosie, wisps of air lingering at her lips when she saw him crouched on his veranda busily untying the laces of his trainers. Clearly he’d been out for an early morning run to dispel the anxiety demons and she was a little surprised that Emma wasn’t at his side. ‘Erm, I’ve made some breakfast muffins if you fancy coming over to the café?’
‘Sounds great. Emma’s still asleep, though. We … well, we both overindulged on the vodka last night and I think she came off worst.’
‘Mmm,’ Rosie said, averting her eyes from the closeness of the fit of his Lycra running shorts. She knew Brad had seen her because a flicker of a smirk flared in his eyes, the colour of liquid chocolate. He really did ooze sex appeal. Every muscle in his body had been honed to peak condition, not overblown from multiple sessions in the gym – just perfectly in proportion. A fleeting image of his naked torso floated across her mind and she felt a spasm of heat radiating from her chest to her face and she cringed.
‘Okay, lead the way.’ Brad grabbed his Gore-Tex cycling jacket and followed Rosie to the café. ‘Do you need any help with the … oh, hi, Matt. I didn’t expect to see you here so early?’ A knowing smile lingered on Brad’s lips as his eyebrows shot into his forehead.
‘How can anyone resist the smell of freshly ground coffee?’
‘Exactly! It smells amazing, Rosie.’
Brad folded his six-foot-three frame into one of the café’s white-washed wooden chairs and dug in to his plate of scrambled eggs, relishing every mouthful before sampling the pyramid of muffins.
‘So, we heard on the news last night that the chisel the police found at the priory belonged to you,’ began Rosie, conversationally.
She saw a shadow of panic flitter across Brad’s handsome face, but he recovered well. She knew he would never be the sharpest tool in the box, but with Emma by his side, that area was amply covered. However, his girlfriend was tucked up in bed nursing a hangover and he had to fend for himself and if the tremble of his fingers on his mug was anything to go by his acting skills would win no awards.
‘Yeah, I carry all sorts of useless stuff with me when we come on trips like this. I didn’t even notice it was missing until they called me about it. It’s not worth much but I’m glad to have it back.’
Brad’s flippant response caused Rosie’s conclusion over the discrepancy between his explanation and the evidence contained in Dan Forrester’s article to crystallize. She levelled her gaze to his and he shifted uncomfortably in his chair, flicking his eyes towards the door.
‘So, can you explain how a chisel can accidentally fall out of a rucksack and land underneath a rock?’
‘I…’
Rosie scrolled through the Willerby Gazette’s website until she arrived at the photograph accompanying the article and shoved her phone under Brad’s nose.
‘And if it didn’t fall out, then you must have hidden it.’
‘No, I…’
‘Which means that you didn’t want anyone to find it in your possession,’ continued Matt, keen to ratchet up the pressure on Brad.
Beads of perspiration had started to collect at Brad’s temples, his fidgeting was becoming more pronounced and he held his lower lip between his teeth to stop it from trembling.
‘So, that leads us to assume that you could have hidden a few other belongings that you didn’t want anyone to find.’
‘No, I…’
‘Like a quiver full of arrows and a recurve bow…’
‘Maybe it just started as a bit of a prank to frighten Rick, but unfortunately one of the arrows actually hit the target and you panicked.’
‘I didn’t…’
‘And you had to get rid of the weapon quickly.’
‘Or perhaps,’ said Matt, snatching the deduction baton from Rosie. ‘You were actually aiming for Rick’s chest and missed?’
‘Stop it! Stop it! I had nothing to do with Rick’s injury! Nothing!’
‘Well, we only have your word for that, don’t we? And I might not be a seasoned detective, but it’s not difficult to see that you’re hiding something, Brad, and if that’s the attempted murder of…’
‘Attempted murder?’
Brad’s mouth gaped open and he blanched. Every muscle in his body seemed to deflate like a pricked balloon and Rosie wondered why she had ever found him attractive. His jaw was too angular, his eyes had taken on a heavy, haunted expression and his pallor told her he used fake tan. The outward-bound daredevil had retreated into his protective shell.
‘I did not … I haven’t…’
To Rosie’s astonishment tears began to trickle down Brad’s cheeks. She shot a glance at Matt whose expression displayed a hint of surprise too. She decided to switch tactics by scooting forward to the edge of her seat and offering Brad a smile of sympathy which only caused his face to crumple even more. He dropped his face into his hands and his body began to heave with silent sobs. He looked like a wounded animal, cornered, cowering and expecting the next blow to finish him off.
‘Brad, I’m sorry about asking you all these questions, but after the piece on the news last night, Matt’s business is facing ruin. All we want to do is find out who did this to Rick so that we can just get back to normal. If you know anything, anything at all, you have to tell us.’
Brad accepted the handful of tissues Rosie offered and worked hard to control his emotions. He inhaled a steadying breath and met Matt’s eyes straight on, an expression of intense agony written boldly across his face.
‘Okay. I’ll explain. My brother died five years ago – cancer.’
A spasm of shock ricocheted through Rosie – those heart-breaking words had been the last thing she had expected Brad to utter. She watched him swallow down hard and a determined expression replaced his tears.
‘I’m ashamed to say I didn’t cope very well with his death. I should have been there for my parents who were devastated beyond anything I’ve ever known, but instead I went off the rails. Oh, I didn’t do anything illegal, not really. I thought that if I used up every ounce of energy, physically exhausting myself, my brain would be wiped clear of the never-ending trauma I couldn’t get rid of any other way. So, I trained, and trained, and trained some more. It did help. I found that working out was a distraction from the constant agony of guilt; from the constant loop of questions that circled around my brain. Why had Karl died? How come I got to survive and not my brother? He was younger than me, only fifteen years old, for God’s sake!’
Rosie reached across the table and squeezed Brad’s hand, her own emotions churning as she fought to supress her memories of the same feelings of loss, bereavement, guilt.
‘I became an adrenalin junkie, an extreme risk-taker. It was as though I was goading some invisible force to come and take me too. After a couple of years, it became an obsession. I had to run in every marathon going, had to join as many Three Peaks challenges as I could, had to cycle the Pennine Way, had to jump out of a plane. I’d have taken up sky-diving as a hobby if I could have afforded it. Yet here I am, still fit and healthy. Not even a sprained ankle. I’m ashamed to say that I even wished it had been me who got that arrow in my foot!’
Brad let out a sigh of disgust at his good fortune – as if he didn’t deserve it.
‘All these activities and expeditions were expensive. Much more than I could fund out of my salary. I couldn’t go to Mum and Dad to ask for money. I didn’t want them to know about what I’d become or the reasons behind it.’
Brad paused to blow his nose and to steady his voice. His demeanour had calmed but the haunted expression deep within his eyes was clearly evident. Rosie wondered why she hadn’t noticed it before, but perhaps she had and hadn’t wanted to dissect what it meant for fear of giving a platform to her own demons. Her heart ached for what Brad and his family had been through, were still going through probably, just like she and her family were.
‘And the Myth Seekers Society?’ Matt urged him gently.
‘I had joined a couple of months before Karl passed away. The guys were so supportive when it happened. If it hadn’t been for them … well … Anyway, when Rick joined and started to flash the cash I saw a way of satisfying my craving for more extreme challenges in more exotic places. Then I met Emma. She showed up one night outside the club. I couldn’t believe a girl like her was into myths and legends, much less wanted to attend a club dedicated to them. I mean, what girl does? I thought she’d made a mistake and had intended to come to the Wednesday night yoga club, that she’d stay for one session and we’d never see her again. But she stuck around. She even seemed to relish the most obscure theories of folklore Phil and Rick and some of the others had researched. It was amazing. And when she agreed to go on a date with me, well, I couldn’t believe my luck. I thought that at last something good had come into my life.’
‘And she went on one of the trips organized by the club?’
‘Yes, someone had to drop out of the trip to Morocco and she leapt at the chance to take their place. We really got the chance to connect, and it turned out she was even fitter than me. Of course, she works in a gym so that’s no surprise, but she’s done the Three Peaks challenge loads of times and the London and Edinburgh marathons. We did a couple of charity half marathons together in support of Cancer Research UK before we went to Marrakesh.’
‘What I don’t understand is what you were doing with a chisel for the trek to the priory?’
Colour flooded Brad’s cheeks and he averted his eyes. ‘The trips, the marathons, the sky-diving, it was all becoming expensive – especially with Emma on board. Rick did subsidize our trips but there were still personal expenses to pay for, so I tried to help her out as much as I could and I had to get the cash from somewhere.’
‘And…’ urged Matt, earning himself an eye roll from Rosie. She thought it was best to let Brad tell his story at his own pace, not to rush him to the conclusion which risked him missing something out that could be enlightening.
‘Well, I’m not proud of what I did.’
‘What did you do?’
‘It started as a sort of dare at first, really. Last March, the Myth Seekers went up to Holy Island off the Northumberland coast. I wanted a souvenir of my trip so I helped myself to a chunk of the Lindisfarne Castle. I didn’t think too much of it at the time but when I got back I was in one of the internet chat rooms us myth seekers frequent and I showed a photo of it to one of the guys from the US. He offered me a hundred quid for it. I was astounded and snatched his hand off. I mean, a hundred quid?’
Brad ran his fingertips through his cropped hair, his eyes flicking between Rosie and Matt, his expression filled with shame, yet pleading for understanding at the same time. Whilst Matt’s face remained stern, Rosie gave a slight nod of acknowledgment so that Brad would continue with his confession.
‘That started me thinking. If I could collect a little piece of history from all our trips, home and abroad, maybe I could make a bit of extra money for me and Emma. Easy. I didn’t think of the legalities. I mean, Marrakesh is littered with discarded artefacts. Who would mind? So I brought back a small piece of mosaic and flogged it on the internet; made some cash again.’
‘Did Emma know what you were doing?’
‘Yes, I’m not good at keeping secrets. She thought it was a great way to supplement our funds. But when she suggested we did that statue in the museum in Athens, well, that got me wondering if we might have gone just a bit too far. So I decided I’d lay off for a while, but when we got back to the hotel, Rick was waiting for us. He ordered us to turn out our bags and our pockets, and when we did he went mental.
‘I thought he was going to have a coronary right there in front of us. He went on and on about priceless relics, irreplaceable artwork, stuff like that. At the next Myth Seekers meeting after we returned home he pulled me to one side and told me that if he saw anything else posted on the internet for sale he would involve the police. I didn’t want to sell the stuff after that, but, well, Emma said we already had it and we should just get rid of it, and then call it a day. So I did and Rick found out. He was even angrier this time. I don’t blame him. I shouldn’t have listened to Emma. I knew it was wrong.’
‘So Rick was going to report you to the police?’
‘Yes. I apologized. I confided in him about my addiction to adrenalin surges and other extreme risk-taking behaviour since the death of my brother. I promised to get some counselling and in return he said he’d think about whether to report me over the course of this week. He seemed sympathetic. I hoped … well…’
‘And yet you had a chisel with you when you went up to the priory? Did you intend to chisel off a souvenir of your visit there too?’ Matt asked, his jaw working hard at remaining still.
Brad swallowed down hard again and tears gathered along his lower lashes whilst he scrutinized his fingernails. Rosie held her breath, praying he was about to deny any more involvement.
‘Yes. I’m ashamed to say that’s exactly what I intended to do. But when I saw Rick lying there with an arrow sticking out of his ankle I panicked. I wanted to get rid of the chisel before anyone could search me. I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have done any of it. I just needed the money. It’s no excuse for what I’ve done, but it’s the truth. I’m terrified Rick’s going to inform the other members and they expel me from the group. But whatever happens to me, you have to believe me, I did not shoot him with that arrow.’
As Brad crumbled for a second time, Rosie felt a surge of sympathy. Sitting there at the table, wiping his cheeks on his sleeve, he looked like a desolate puppy threatened with being left out in the rain after a misdemeanour. Her instinct told her he wasn’t the culprit, but she had to reach her conclusions using logic, not instinct, and it did look like all the evidence pointed to the undeniable fact that Brad had a strong motive for wanting Rick out of the way. Quite apart from Rick’s threat to go to the police, the Myth Seekers had become a surrogate family to Brad and the risk of being excluded from their meetings would have had a devastating impact on his life, especially if Emma continued to attend without him.
Rosie poured Brad another cup of tea, added a heaped teaspoon of sugar, and he sipped it gratefully. ‘Brad, the night of the wild camping, did you notice anything unusual? Anything at all?’
‘No, I don’t think so. Emma and I went with Rick to collect water from the stream for our evening brew, then we huddled together in our sleeping bags. We knew we had to be up early for the trek over to the priory before sunrise. I slept surprisingly well, but Phil’s already told me that was because Rick had put something in our coffee so we’d all miss the show. Rick was no angel either, Rosie.’
‘So we are finding out.’
‘I think I should be getting back to the lodge before Emma freaks out and thinks I’ve been shot by a random archer, too. Thanks for the breakfast, Rosie, and I’m sorry about … well, about the, you know, the crying.’
‘You’re welcome, and don’t worry about it, Brad. I’ve lost someone close to me too and I understand how emotions can just ambush you at the most inopportune of times.’
Rosie watched Brad walk back to his lodge, his hands shoved deep into his pockets, elbows flapping, head bowed, and her heart softened further. The sudden death of a loved one changed a person for ever, sometime for the better, sometimes not, but nevertheless, you were never the same person you were before. You struggled to make sense of your new world with a huge void at its centre.
‘You know, I thought we were getting better at this mystery-solving stuff,’ groaned Matt. ‘But I feel like we’re going around in circles. I need to get out of here. Fancy a walk over to Willerby? I could do with the exercise. We can call in at Adriano’s Deli for an espresso and a couple of their delicious cannoli to sustain us on the walk back?’
Rosie hesitated. She should really stay at the Windmill Café and wait for Mia to arrive for another morning of Hallowe’en-inspired baking. They still had the pistachio macaron frogs and the cheese straw twisted fingers to triple-test before the party on Friday, as well as a run through with the spicy pumpkin punch and the chocolate Matchmaker spiders Mia had been working on. On the other hand, she wanted to help Matt comb through all the information they had gathered over the last two days.
Matt was right, every single one of the five suspects staying at the Windmill holiday site had a motive, as well as the opportunity to shoot Rick whilst he relaxed in the cloister of Garside Priory enjoying the solitary pleasure of watching the sun rise through the archway. However, within moments, the pendulum of doubt swung back the other way and she was forced to conclude that, in her opinion, none of them were really capable of perpetrating such a vicious deed, even to someone as unpopular as Rick.