“Brenden,” said the deputy. “Of course I’ll take your kind sentiments into consideration when determining the sentence for Peter and Mary. Come on now, let’s go back to the hall. They’ll all be waiting for us.”
Chapter 7
Rain streaked down the windshield of Amanda’s Clio. The young vampire had waited several minutes after parking her car in the hope that the worst of the weather would move on, but the uniform, heavy grey sky suggested that nothing of the sort was going to happen anytime soon. She turned the keys to 56 Balfour Lane around in her fingers while weighing up whether she could run down the O’Hare’s long drive without either getting too wet or covered in mud. She had to do it, she had no intention of hanging around in Radcliff for any longer than she needed to. After taking a moment to brace herself, she threw herself into the driving rain, slammed the car door behind her and then ran as fast as she could past the puddles and potholes to reach the house. The keys slipped from her already dripping wet fingers as she raised them to the lock, prolonging her exposure to the elements just long enough for her to have to suffer one more blast of rain-filled wind as she retrieved the damned things from the sodden earth. Finally, she was in. She put her back to the door, glad that the most that the turbulent weather outside could do to continue to disturb her was to send a howling wind down the building’s chimney. After the relief of getting inside faded, she looked down at her clothes and discovered that she had not been so lucky in avoiding pools of muddy water that had formed on the drive.
“Crap,” she muttered to no one.
Amanda did her best to knead the worse of the dirt and rain down to the bottom of her jeans, but she mostly just succeeded in making her hands filthy. While just about holding in her frustration, she tore off her jacket, freed her hands of as much mud as she could, took off her trainers, then peeled herself out of her wringing wet socks and trousers. After using her pullover as a makeshift towel - something she was not keen on doing, but left with little choice if she wanted to avoid leaving a trail of mud around the house – she ran to the kitchen to clean herself up as best she could before bounding up the stairs to find Mary’s bedroom. Once in the room, she delved into one of the woman’s wardrobes and selected a baggy pair of trousers as well as a pair of thick woollen socks to wear. She was not best pleased that she would probably have to spend the next hour or two in Mary’s old clothes, but she would rather do that than walk around in either next to nothing or the wet pile she had left near the door.
After hanging her soggy clothes on the radiator in the hall, Amanda went through to the kitchen to make herself a cup of black and sugary instant coffee. Though she was not sure if she would drink it, she knew that the smell of the coffee would help her relax. Indeed, as soon as she poured the hot water into the old brown mug she had selected from the cupboard, she could feel her frustration ease away. While looking out of the kitchen’s window, which provided a view on nothing more exciting than the side of a neighbour’s house, she took a sip. The water was still too hot and the taste of the coffee suggested that Mary had bought the jar some time ago. Amanda did not mind as the aroma was all she really needed. Her glance drifted over the assortment of potted plants that sat on the windowsill, most of them spider plants, until eventually, her eyes settled on the kitchen door, the door through which Peter had left to kill both Johann and Brenden.
She put her coffee down. She had a job to do and there was no point putting it off any further. She had been tasked by the deputy with clearing up the mess in the house and to remove everything she could find that could prompt the local authorities to suspect that there was something suspicious about the absent owners of the house. To help her with this task, the deputy had allowed Amanda to discuss, albeit briefly, what was in the house with both Mary and Peter. The most important thing they had stressed, apart from the small amounts of blood that still remained in the fridge, was to clear out the cellar. Mary had insisted that apart from the cellar, there was hardly anything she could think of that might suggest that anything was out of the ordinary as in the rest of the house they had lived their lives in just the same way as they had before her final Christmas visit to her sister’s. As Amanda looked at the severely outdated décor of the room around her, she could see that Mary had clearly been telling the truth. Amanda was even a little concerned that this very thing might cause an issue as the place was a virtual time capsule from the period of the couple’s death. In reality, there was little she could really do to solve this problem; it was not as if she had the time to redecorate.
There was also the little matter of her knowing that a story was being concocted by the school that could partly address this issue. Before she left, the deputy had informed Amanda that it was quite likely that, soon enough, a story would appear in the local paper about how a
