Chapter 44
STEPHEN
Stephen watches while Graham takes the two officers up the hill.
He stays in the yard, unwilling to climb that damn hill again in his still weakened state.
He knows what he saw. Both he and Graham had seen, touched, the body of Frank Hammel, so he knows it’s nothing to do with his delusions, or whatever is going on in his head with regards to his grief and brain tumour.
Frank was very much dead. There’s no doubt about that. He couldn’t have faked his own hanging. Stephen had seen straight through his deceit when he’d spoken with him in the pub. The man couldn’t lie to save his life, let alone stage a fake suicide.
Something else, much more sinister, is at play here.
There had been a body hanging from that tree. He could still smell the musty aroma coming from the corpse, still see the glassy look in Frank’s eyes, even in death, as he hung there, gently swinging in the breeze.
It doesn’t make any sense. Dead bodies don’t get up and walk away. Someone must have taken it down in the time he and Graham had been in the lounge looking at the map and waiting for the police to show up. It hadn’t been more than five minutes, ten at most.
But who would remove a dead body from a crime scene?
Is this still about messing with their heads or is someone, whoever is behind this mystery, trying to make he and Graham look stupid?
If Frank did hang himself, then who removed his body?
Did they know he was going to do it? Had they been watching while he carried the ladder up the hill, propped it against the trunk, slipped the noose over his head and jumped?
Another thought pops into Stephen’s head. One that makes him shudder.
Perhaps someone has set it up to look like a suicide, just like a hundred years ago with John Hammel. Were he and Graham meant to see the body, or was it a silly mistake, one they quickly tried to rectify by removing the corpse before the police arrived?
It’s all one big sticky mess.
Stephen groans, rubbing his eyes again as a dull pain settles there. He goes into the kitchen, pops more painkillers and slurps the rest of his now cold coffee. The map is still clenched in his hand, his grip barely loosened since he grabbed it.
He has a place to be. He needs to leave soon.
He can’t waste another minute here when whoever it is who’s messing with them is already one step, if not two steps, ahead.
They always have been. Stephen and Graham have been playing catch up this whole time, but clearly they’ve reached a point of no return.
Here they were, thinking Frank was the kingpin behind everything going on in this village, but what if it’s not been Frank who’s been leading the charge against them, against this curse?
What if Frank was also the victim to some extent?
Someone else has a lot to lose, and they aren’t about to let two out-of-towners mess up their plans.
It doesn’t take long before Graham and the officers walk back down the hill.
A few heated words are exchanged and Stephen sees a glimpse of the old Detective Williams for a moment.
Then, Graham bids the officers goodbye. Once the police car is gone from the driveway, Graham storms into the kitchen, a little red in the face.
‘That’s it,’ he says roughly. ‘I’ve had just about enough of this bullshit.
Someone in this village is messing with us, and I want to know why.
Dead bodies don’t just get up and walk away.
’ Stephen smirks. He’d been thinking the same thing not a few moments ago.
Graham grabs his jacket from the hook by the back door.
‘Let’s go and find that location on the map. ’
‘Right you are,’ replies Stephen.
‘All this time, we’ve been thinking that Frank is behind this, but he’s clearly been trying to tell us something all along. Hell, maybe it was him who put the clues in the pocket of the scarecrow from the start. He wants us to find his daughter. Now, he’s dead.’
‘And gone.’
Graham grunts as he nods his head. ‘Yes, but in death he has provided us with a vital clue. One that, whoever has stolen his body, doesn’t have. He wanted us to find him first. Let’s go and see what he’s been keeping on his farm besides ducks.’