Chapter 5 #2
“Investigation? Oh,” it suddenly occurred to me what she was talking about. “The student who died on the train? Sorry, I forgot about that. How long will it take, because it’s an emergency that I leave?”
“What sort of emergency? Perhaps, I could arrange a temporary leave of absence, but you’d have to come back within the week to be interviewed by the police,” she explained.
“And the investigation hasn’t started yet until police arrive on today’s train.
It will take a while because there are so many students to interview who are now witnesses to… ”
I swallowed over a lump in my throat and leaned forward to whisper, “Was it murder? Was someone murdered?”
She brushed my comment aside, “We don’t know yet until the authorities arrive to examine the scene,” she replied carefully.
“So, I’ll have to ask the police if you’re allowed to leave, and that won’t be for the next couple of days.
But the entire train had become a crime scene, which had created a holdup with the next batch of students arriving, so even if you were granted leave, it might be difficult to find a train that was heading back within the next at least.”
“Okay, I hadn’t thought of that,” I stated, feeling guilty for placing my feelings over the poor person who died. “I’ll rethink my plans.”
As I left the castle, I perused the map for the campus police and found them at the back part of the castle near the cafés, restaurants, and food stores.
To catch my bearings, I walked through the high-ceiling castle, stained-glass windows, dark wood, and a grand staircase up to the next level, as I walk under the creepy gaze of the faun statues.
Marble flooring, enormous arches, macabre faces carved into the walls that changed appearance as you moved passed them.
It was quite a contrast to step out the back doors onto a busy 1950’s 1950s-themed street lined with cafes, restaurants, and food stores that were well-stocked at this point, but if the trains can’t come up over the next couple of weeks bringing supplies, then there might be shortages occurring.
At the very end of the road was the campus police station, and my body relaxed knowing that there was help if I needed it.
I also added their number into my phone, just in case I needed them before crossing the road to walk down an alleyway that led, according to my map, to the social sciences school.
Behind the SS school, leading up a hill, was the business school where my classes were, if I stayed.
Despite the size of the campus and how many students it accommodated, it seemed empty. My footsteps echoed, and my breath was raspy in my ears as I swore I thought I heard a voice yell, “Boleyn girl.”
I paused to scan he area of classrooms and laboratories and saw no one, then caught a figure in the classroom window on the second floor, but I thought it was smarter to keep moving. I didn’t like being there alone. Gosh, I’m going to be a nervous wreck by the end of this term.
My ringtone scared me half to death. Dad. Finally. I leaned against the classroom wall and swiped to answer.
“What do you mean, the Warwicks are there?” he was angry, and I didn’t blame him. “Do you mean Leon Warwick’s son? Are you sure?”
I sighed, so relieved to hear his voice, but he was just too far away. “Yes. It’s them.” I dithered to compose myself, forcing back tears. “I’ve met one of them, and he knows who I am. I really don’t think I should be here.”
“Okay, I’ll organize someone to retrieve you, ASAP,” he snarled, pissed off. The person he’d be pissed off with would be the wicked stepmother, since it was she who pushed me to go to Castlehill because that’s where she went, apparently.
“Oh, my god, thank you…” Then I remembered the conversation with the admin worker, and tears gathered in my eyes, but I sniffed them back. “No. Wait. I can’t.”
“What? You can’t?” he growled, confused.
“No one can leave because there was a…” I paused to check there was no one around, “murder on the train and the police are coming.”
He fell silent, then grunted his least favorite word, “Police?”
“Yeah, they're coming on the train, so I’ll have to be interviewed because I might be a witness,” I told him. “So, I don’t know when I could go.”
He sighed heavily, and I could almost hear the disdain in his breath at how infuriated he was. “I’m sorry, A, if I knew, I’d never…”
“I know,” I replied, and was close to blaming my stepmother, but held back because I didn’t want to seem bitter, even though I was.
“I always knew this day would come, where we meet our enemies head on, but I just…didn’t imagine it would play out like this,” he specified smoothly.
“Me neither,” I said softly, feeling hopeless.
Silence fell down the line, but I could hear a female voice in the background asking him something, possibly his secretary, then a door closed. Several beats passed before my father spoke again.
“There is a secret compartment in your trolley bag,” he said in a lowered voice. “The orange bag that I gave you. Please tell me you took it with you.”
“I did. Confession, Dad, I hate the color, but it’s easy to find it in a barrage of bags, which was why you gave it to me,” I answered proudly. “It has a secret compartment?”
“Yes,” he replied sternly. “Look for it. There’s something in there for you.”
“Okay,” I whispered as an older man appeared before me with silver hair and smiled as he passed. He was dressed in a white button-down shirt and black pants, holding a coffee cup from one of the cafes. I waited until he was gone before I said, “I’ll look when I get back to my room.”
“Good.”
“Dad,” I hesitated to find the right words, “you’re the only one who uses your phone, right?”
“This phone? Yes,” he replied with certainty, but I wasn’t so sure. It took only half a minute for that woman to search his messages while he was in the shower or in bed, asleep.
“I have trust issues, Dad. I need to know that you’re the only one who reads our messages,” I needed clarification.
“I promise,” he asserted, “that no one else would dare to snoop on this phone.”
“Okay, I'd better go. I’ll message you once I check the secret compartment,” I told him.
“Good. Keep safe, A,” he ended the call, leaving me hanging, not feeling any better than before we spoke.