The Midnight Caller

6. The Second Murder

Charlotte didn't quite know what to make of Mr Bedford's mood. She was, of course, extremely upset about the Chief Constable's death, but the detective seemed to have hit a new low.

Earlier that day, she had returned to find him on his beloved couch, his eyes wide open and staring into nothing. When she had produced the documents that she had so painstakingly acquired and carried all the way over to the detective, he had merely gestured for her to leave them on the coffee table and dismissed her without ceremony. Unsure of where she was to go, she had settled for a seat facing him, a decision she now came to regret.

With not as much as a word of acknowledgement from her employer, Charlotte's mind began to wander.

Her eyes traced an empty plastic cup roll across the floor. The detective, she noted, had alarmingly unhealthy eating habits, with a diet that constituted mostly of sandwiches and instant noodles. The evidence had accumulated all over his apartment, which she was positive she had cleaned not long ago. Mr Bedford, however, was swift in his retaliation. Never one to back down from a challenge, he had managed to undo all her hard work and turn the space back into the garbage dump it had once been.

Charlotte briefly toyed with the idea of quitting.

She didn't entertain the fantasy for long. The eccentric detective had undeniably begun to grow on her, perhaps more than she cared to admit. Besides, she would be a liar if she claimed the mystery didn't intrigue her as much as it baffled her. This, combined with the unusual abilities of her employer, ensured she was sure to see it through to the end.

Eventually, her thoughts drifted to her encounter with Mr Johnson. You're wrong, the Chief Constable had said. What had he meant by those words? She thought back to the preceding line of conversation. Mr Bedford had only recounted certain details and his views on the case, she recalled. He had mentioned Carter Hill being falsely convicted and his opinion on what must have happened following the trial. What, then, had the dead man meant? Had he meant that the convict had, after all, not been innocent? That the evidence had not been altered? Or had he meant that the hypothesis of the investigators being subsequently murdered was inaccurate?

She realised that the detective, who had opined and been contradicted, had understood the implication of Mr Johnson's cryptic words. This, to some extent, agitated her. She wished she wasn't made to feel as though she were groping about in the dark, blind and oblivious. Was she so incompetent that no one was willing to share anything with her about the very case she was working on? Not even Mr Johnson had been inclined to speak in her presence.

At the memory of the dead man, a fresh wave of sorrow washed over her. Even though she had met him only once, his death had been a nasty shock to her. The irony that the man who had taken great pains to cheat death for years had been murdered in his own home as soon he had resurfaced was not lost on her. But the incident made her fear for the detective's life. Would this be the fate of those who ventured near the mystery?

"Ms Thompson." His voice jolted her out of her reverie.

"What?" she jumped, wide-eyed. Clearing her throat, she looked up at the unimpressed detective. "Yes, Mr Bedford?"

"I believe you've gone through the list?"

"Yes?" Her answer came out a question. She failed to see the relevance of studying the names of a group of complete strangers.

"And you didn't think of looking them up?"

Oh. "I- I thought you would have liked to take a look first," she explained meekly. He didn't answer.

"I could go back and enquire for them," she offered after a moment of silence, her voice growing smaller with each syllable.

"And discover more dead bodies, I suppose," he said drily.