Page 49 of Fortune's Ashes
I reached into my pocket and pulled out a pair of the disposable gloves I always carried. Putting them on, I reached for the rope and tugged hard. Whatever it was connected to was heavy.
‘Be careful,’ Lukas cautioned. ‘The rope is rotting in several places. If it snaps, it’ll be impossible for us to bring up whatever’s down there without professional help.’
That was probably why Fred and Grace hadn’t tried to do it. I had no doubt they had found the well but, in the absence of a search warrant or a werewolf’s keen sense of smell, Grace would have erred on the side of caution and planned to return when he was better equipped.
I was willing to throw caution to the wind because circumstances demanded it, but I noted Lukas’s words. I raised the rope slowly and tried not to yank too hard. Buffy reached across to help but I muttered her away; I only had one pair of gloves and I couldn’t risk any further contamination of the scene, not if this was what I thought it was.
My phoenix skills endowed me with strength and speed; every time I died, I grew stronger. I now had considerable muscle – but the strain of heaving that rope upwards, inch by careful inch, made my arms ache and sweat break out on my brow.
‘Jeez. Just how deep does this thing go?’ Buffy asked.
I answered her through clenched teeth,. ‘Deep.’ I heaved some more. Even I could smell it now; the nasty reek of rot, decay and death was filling my nostrils. I squeezed my eyes shut as I yanked on the last few metres of rope. Not long to go now.
Buffy gasped aloud and I sensed Lukas stiffen. I opened my eyes to take a look then stumbled backwards as the ancient bucket and its gruesome contents came into view.
‘Don’t let the bloody thing fall back down!’ Buffy shouted
I hissed under my breath at her, righted myself and moved the loose rope out of the way to grab the bucket’s rim and pull it out. The skull inside, with its sparse tufts of matted hair and few remaining scraps of decaying flesh, grinned at me emptily.
ChapterEighteen
Isat on the old, worn garden bench, sucking clear air into my lungs and reminding myself that Laura had told me not to vomit at crime scenes. The combination of morning sickness and physical effort, not to mention the decapitated head, was doing my stomach no favours. I was used to dead bodies by now – hell, I was often a dead body myself – but I didn’t often come across rotting body parts.
Lukas handed me a lukewarm bottle of water from the car. ‘It’s definitely a gremlin,’ he said. ‘But whether it’s Quincy Carmichael or not isn’t clear.’
I nodded. Formal identification would have to be via dental records because there wasn’t enough of him left for anything else, but there was little doubt that it was Quincy, however. The gremlins were a small community. There were no other recent or historical investigations or reports about dead or missing members.
‘Buffy thinks the rest of him is still down at the bottom of the well,’ Lukas went on. ‘It’s only chance that his head ended up in the bucket. He was probably cut up before his body was thrown in.’
How lovely. I swallowed hard and took a sip of the water then wiped my forehead with the back of my sleeve. The fresher air and the liquid were helping. I was going to manage to hold my stomach together after all.
‘So years ago somebody murdered Quincy Carmichael and threw him down that well,’ I mused aloud. ‘They made it look as if he’d just run away. Tony was suspicious and investigated, but eventually concluded that Quincy had indeed run off.’
I took another glug of water and thought about Phileas’s reaction to his missing nephew. Even Quincy’s family and friends believed he’d simply done a runner. The poor man.
I sighed and continued. ‘Then Supe Squad re-opens the case and the killer, who must still be around and be part of the supe community, finds out. He gets scared that his actions will be discovered so he takes drastic steps to halt the investigation.’
Buffy ambled towards us, avoiding the worst of the brambles and nettles. ‘How long is it since Quincy Carmichael disappeared?’
‘Thirteen years,’ I said.
‘Some bastard killed that damned gremlin thirteen years ago and then tried to kill my Fred yesterday. What happened in between? Has he been murdering other people and getting away with it?’ Sudden fury sparked in her eyes. ‘Have you been allowing a fucking serial killer to wander around murdering people for thirteen fucking years, detective?’
Lukas stood up. ‘Watch it, wolf.’
‘Watch it? Watchwhat? She’s the one who’s supposed to be the detective! How many people are dead because this wanker wasn’t caught thirteen years ago?’
‘None of this is Emma’s fault.’
Buffy bared her teeth. ‘Somebody is to blame!’
Lukas snarled back at her, giving as good as he got. ‘Werewolf or not,’ he said, ‘I am not beyond sinking my fangs into your damned jugular and—’
‘Enough.’ I got to my feet and inserted myself between them. ‘Buffy’s question was a good one.’ She stuck her tongue out at Lukas. ‘But your attitude,’ I told her, ‘was not.’
She stuck her tongue out at me.
I counted to ten in my head. What I wouldn’t give to be here with Fred and Grace. ‘Unless the clans are holding out on us,’ I looked at Buffy, ‘or the vampires,’ I looked at Lukas, ‘there are no other unexplained disappearances or deaths from the supe community apart from Simon Carr and Adele Cunningham, who were murdered over the same weekend. Whoever killed Quincy could have been targeting humans in the interim years. There are obviously far more humans than there are supes so it’d be far easier to murder a few of them and conceal their deaths. But thirteen years is a long time, and if our killer has been on the go for that long a pattern would have emerged. Somebody would have noticed something.’
