Jon was out of the drawing room as fast as his failing legs could carry him. He ignored all the questions coming from the remaining family members and slammed out into the corridor. He chanced a look at the tablet – there was still a dot in the study.
How was this possible? How could someone else be here? He had been checking the tablet periodically and there was no one. Speck had shown him the tablet at dinner, and one fact was empirical. No one else was here.
There it was – on the screen. The thermal dot of a person. The King was dead. Crockley was dead. Miss Darcy and Tony Speck were worlds away. Who could this possibly be?
He passed the stopped grandfather clock and was in the corridor with the study. Now there was no escape for whoever was in there – he could see the door, and he was upon it in mere seconds.
He steeled himself with one final look at the tablet. The dot was in there.
He barreled through the door, almost throwing it off its hinges. And stopped. The room was empty. He stared at the tablet. Still a red dot in the study. He wheeled around – behind the door, under the desk, anywhere a person could hide. No one.
He went back to the tablet. Still a red dot. But only one. Surely now there should be two. Now he thought of it though, he had not made a dot in his journey between the drawing room and here. How was that possible? The map was thermal, wasn’t it? And he was quite sure he still made enough heat to show up. And why was something showing heat in here that made it look like a person?
Jon threw his hands up in frustration, and his eyes fell on the desk and what he had abandoned there. Suddenly he understood, and the rules of the day came crashing down around him. He had been so naïve, so stupid. He’d believed everything he was told.
What Jon saw on the desk was the family crest he had found in his pocket. He had thought the King had secretly given it to him as a gift, but no, nothing so quaint. If he had to guess, he’d say the actual person who had slipped it in his pocket was Tony Speck, most likely while they were standing outside the dining room, just before he had shown Jon the security tablet.
Jon picked up the family crest in one hand and held the security tablet in the other. He propped the tablet on the windowsill and opened the window. The wind ripped it open, but he didn’t care. With one swift motion, he threw the crest outside. The red dot in the study travelled about ten metres away from the castle walls.
The readout wasn’t thermal. And the crests weren’t decorative. They were trackers.
Crockley and the cat – Crockley had never been outside, Crockley’s crest had been put on Churchill’s collar and Churchill had been put outside. So then why didn’t Matthew mention it? Because Matthew didn’t know about the trackers.
Something Matthew said came back to Jon. Matthew had killed his father but not made it to look like it was suicide. Someone else had. Someone else had also transferred the tracker to Churchill.
The figure in the red coat.
The biggest revelation came crashing into Jon as a gust of wind whipped through the open window. He closed the window dutifully. He grabbed the tablet again and started hurrying back to the drawing room. Anyone who didn’t have a crest would not show on the readout. Any number of people could be in the castle.
He started flying up the corridor before skidding to a horrified halt. The grandfather clock ahead of him was opening. As the person inside unfolded themselves out of it, the pendulum started swinging again and the clock resumed. The person was at first all limbs, and then a familiar face roared at him. Speck.
Jon was frozen as Speck launched at him. ‘You stupid meddling moron,’ Speck snarled. ‘You couldn’t just leave well enough alone, could you?’ Speck gripped him and managed to lift Jon off the ground with ease, his hands around his neck just as David’s had been around Maud’s. He felt as though Speck were going to crush his windpipe. He braced himself for it. ‘You have ruined everything.’
Death did not come. In fact, Speck’s grip loosened. Jon opened his eyes in time to see a blur of a boy come out of nowhere, jumping on Speck’s back. ‘Get off him!’ Martin clawed at Speck’s face, careful to keep hold of something in his hand. A folder. The folder. Martin had found it.
Speck got Martin by the back of his shirt and easily swung him over his shoulder. Martin slammed into the wall and yowled with pain. Speck started to go back to Jon, but there was a loud, distinctly feminine clearing of the throat.
All three males looked around. Miss Darcy stood there, in front of the grandfather clock. Unlike Speck, who had been cramped and squashed, it seemed as though Miss Darcy had just strolled in from a lovely soiree. ‘Boys, really. We don’t want to get blood on the carpets, now do we? Shall we all return to the drawing room? I’m sure the others are getting worried.’
Jon coughed and heaved. ‘I’m not going anywhere with you. We are not going anywhere with either of you.’
‘Might want to rethink that, Alleyne,’ said Speck, laughing. He pulled out a small silver handgun and held it to Martin’s head. ‘The cavalry’s here now. Best get back to following orders, yeah?’