“Perfect, Amanda, you have our boy,” said the deputy without even acknowledging Brenden. “Everything should be ready when we get there. As they’ve already confessed to us, this is all just a formality; but such things need to be done nevertheless. Public forum and all that; lets everyone know that everything is above board, and of course that such actions will not be tolerated.”
“Have you managed to get in contact with Milch yet?” asked Amanda.
“Not yet, not yet. Shame he won’t get to see the sentencing, but that can’t be helped now. Anyway, I’m sure we’ll get to him in the end and clear the whole thing up.”
“I’m not sure how he’ll take the news,” replied Amanda. “When I spoke to him, he was so convinced that the man who killed him had to be from the Tunnels that he took personal offence at even the suggestion of any other possibility.”
“Sometimes the truth can be a difficult fellow to live with, especially when you thought he was someone else. But this is all a topic for another time. I’m afraid that I’d better get on or we’ll soon have a rowdy mob amassing on the school premises with no event to descend upon.”
After an awkward nod goodbye, the deputy strode a couple of paces down the corridor. Before he got too far, he stopped himself abruptly and quickly returned to Amanda.
“You know, there was something else I really wanted to say to you. I’m so very glad that I got you to look into all this now. I don’t want to say that it came as a surprise that you got him, but that’s the first attack that’s really been solved in years; discounting those that needed no one to investigate them to find the culprit, of course. I was thinking, would you consider lingering on here at the school a while? There might be a few other matters with which you could lend a helping hand. Don’t answer me now,” interjected the deputy as Amanda was about to say something in reply to his request, “have a little think about it first.”
With a burst of energy, and before waiting to hear what Amanda had to say, the deputy marched off down the hall. Amanda, with Brenden beside her, was left behind, thinking to herself that she had fallen into being some sort of a fraud as she in no way felt that she had really solved the case. She tried to tell herself that she had endeavoured to inform the deputy and others at the school that she had not really cracked the case at all – it had just fallen into her lap - and that there was still the significant mystery of the unknown figure she had seen behind Mary’s home. However, she could not convince herself that she had done enough. Indeed, as the deputy walked away, for the glimmer of a moment, she lied to herself that she might just call him back and try to explain again. She recognised the lie for what it was; a confirmation that even if others had falsely attributed the solving of the case to her, she was complicit in not overturning the misconception.
“Come on Brenden, let’s go see what they have in store for us.”
***
The first person to arrive in the space that was to function as a makeshift court that morning had been Ms Halford. She had heard long ago that the small hall - with its rising stone fan vault gothic ceiling - was one of the oldest surviving rooms in the school and that it had often been used in the past for the very purpose planned for it that day. However, the grandeur that was suggested by the carvings above her had mostly disappeared; now there were only bare whitewashed walls where tapestries once held pride of place; the room’s fine carved wooden pews had been replaced with plastic chairs; the windows had been bricked up and even the ceiling itself was in quite a poor state of repair: more evidence to the teacher of the gradual decline of the school.
Slowly, teachers, students and even former attendees of the school started to appear and take their places. Ms Halford herself found a spot near the back of the hall, from which she could inform the often lost looking people entering that they were indeed in the right place. Soon enough, the silence Ms Halford had been pleased to experience when she first entered the hall was replaced by the low hum of the various vampires, ghosts, zombies and other creatures of the undead’s discussion of the strange event that lay before them.
One group in the crowd were clearly some of the elder vampires, those who had remained in the world for much longer than many of the struggling younger undead would believe was possible given their own difficulties in attempting to survive. These individuals were marked out by either their notoriety in the community or by their oddly ancient formal attire. Some even seemed to be dressed in clothing that had last been fashionable on the other side of the 1890s, though it was sometimes difficult if this was due to the age of the individual or just for show as the number of years a vampire had collected was considered by many as a sign of merit. These vampires mostly kept to themselves, collected together in the first few rows of seats. For the most part, they kept their silence. However, a few newer members of this self-designated elite attempted to comment on the case in the slight hope that their betters might take note of their presence. Many of the others gathered in the small hall - especially the younger students - discussed the differing
