Adam typed a message on Danny’s now charged burner. He kept it short and sweet and when he was happy, pressed send. Instantly, an alert appeared on Trevor’s phone, telling him that a message had been received.
Part one of the plan was in place.
As he set the phone down on the table, a strange longing took him. Sure, he loved his modern smartphone with the world at his fingertips, but there was something brilliant about a phone that you could still play Snake on and only needed to be charged once a week.
While Adam was taking care with that side of the plan, Colin dealt with the other. When he was finished, he nodded at his friend.
‘Twenty minutes or so,’ he said.
Adam let out a long sigh. He was jittery, and his foot was tapping a rhythm on the carpet with such ferocity that it sounded like a death metal blast beat. Colin knew how he felt. The plan was in place, the adrenaline was flowing and all they could do was wait.
Time ticked by slowly. After ten minutes that felt like a lifetime, Adam stood.
‘I can’t stand it anymore,’ he said. ‘By the time we put phase one into motion, phase two will be ready.’
‘Five more minutes,’ Colin answered. ‘We don’t want to rush in and be out of our depth.’
‘Three minutes,’ Adam countered, and Colin ceded defeat with a quick nod.
Colin looked at the time on his watch. If this evenings’ entertainment was following last night’s timescale, the music would be stopping in about ten minutes and the bar would be emptying out. If they were to be successful, they needed to get in and out of the bar as if partaking in a military operation.
They walked down the stairs, noticing more people in the foyer than anticipated. Perhaps the band were finishing early. Adam swore under his breath and picked up the pace, crossing the wooden floor in double time.
To their relief, the function room was still crowded. The band were storming through a rousing rendition of Dancing Queen and everyone on the dancefloor was showing their appreciation by singing along loudly.
Colin spotted their target in the middle of a dance circle with his back to them. He felt Adam tap him on the arm. He looked at where his friend was pointing – at one of the tables near the back of the room. The lights from the band’s rig lit up the table at random intervals, allowing Colin to see a fashionable jacket draped over the back of a chair.
‘Is that his?’ he asked.
Adam confirmed it was.
Colin took a deep breath. If he was seen by the owner of the jacket, the plan would burst into flames. Before his courage could desert him, he took a step in the direction of the jacket, picking up the pace as he crossed the carpeted floor.
When he reached the table, he thrust Trevor’s mobile phone into a pocket of the velvety jacket and moved away from it as quickly as he could, as if it were about to blow up.
He retraced his steps back to the edge of the dancefloor, keeping out of the light as best he could. He cast covert glances at the owner of the jacket and was pretty sure he hadn’t been spotted. As he and Adam slipped out of the door, the band announced that they only had one song left.
So far, things were going to plan.
Adam checked his watch again. Twenty minutes had passed and nothing had happened. He wondered if the ambitious plan had been thwarted.
‘What do we do?’ he said.
Colin shrugged.
‘Nothing’s changed,’ he said. ‘He’ll be here.’
Though his words were firm, his tone was not. Adam could hear the doubt in his voice, but, having no plan B, they did all they could do – wait.
Colin looked out of the large window of the marquee. It framed the full moon that hung in the inky, cloudless sky, illuminating the sprawling lawn outside.
It was like something from a fairy tale and he would’ve normally savoured such a picturesque scene, were it not for the fact they were waiting for a killer to appear in their midst.
Suddenly, a shadow appeared on the grass outside, growing longer by the second. A minute later, the fabric doors at the rear of the marquee flapped open and there he stood, bathed in the warm light of the moon.
‘You two?’ he said, noticing Adam and Colin at the front of the domed tent. ‘You’re the blackmailers?’
‘Not really,’ said Adam. ‘Sorry, Mike, but we needed to make you think that to get you to come here. You see, we’ve figured out that it was you who killed Danny.’
‘Very clever,’ said Mike, holding up his father’s burner phone. ‘You used dead Danny’s phone to send another blackmailing message to my father and put it in my pocket, knowing I’d see it and rise to it. Well, A+ for creativity.’
Adam snorted. The shy, retiring Michael Campbell of a few years ago would never have used such a corny line. But it seemed it wasn’t only his appearance that had undergone a makeover.
‘How did you figure out it was me then?’ he asked.
Adam wished that they weren’t so far away from each other. It made sense to stay away, of course; he was a murderer after all, but Adam’s throat was beginning to hurt from having spoken so much today. And now he was expected to communicate from such a distance. He considered ringing the burner in Mike’s hand, but thought it a bit over the top. Colin would never let him live it down.
‘Well,’ he said. ‘we don’t know everything, so we’re hoping you can help us fill in a few blanks.’
Mike said nothing, so Adam continued.
‘We knew Danny was blackmailing somebody on account of him having met with someone who gave him an envelope full of cash. We just didn’t know who had given it to him. Luckily, a kindly lady at the petrol station down the road let us look at her CCTV footage. We saw your dad’s car park up not long after Danny took receipt of the money.’
He cleared his throat, longing for a soothing mouthful of Lemsip.
‘We knew your dad couldn’t have killed him because we saw him drive away, though we suspect he’s involved in some way. But another car came past a while later. Your car, I assume.’
Mike nodded.
‘You see, when I saw you at the party, you weren’t drunk at all. You made a scene to make it look like you were drunk. How could someone who was falling over themself drive a car? It was clever, I’ll give you that.’
‘I was hoping to remain unseen,’ Mike said. ‘When you bumped into me, I had to come up with something on the spot.’
‘It was convincing,’ admitted Adam. ‘And it definitely threw us off the scent.’
‘So, what put you back on it?’
‘Colin found the tablet package you left in Danny’s bin. Everyone knows he is allergic, so would have had no reason to have them. That’s when we knew it was definitely murder. Then, we broke into your room and found his room key that you stole from Ross’s jacket and Danny’s hipflask. We just don’t know how you actually got him to take the tablets.’
‘Very clever,’ Mike said, taking a seat in the back row. ‘Shall I tell you my side of things?’
He took a steadying breath.
‘After I got back from the stag do, dad was miserable. I didn’t know why, but he was angry with everyone, even Emily. That’s when I knew things were bad. Then, one day, I saw him with this old Nokia. He left it lying about and I saw the messages, I knew what Danny was up to.’
‘Does your dad know that you know?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘He has no idea. He would’ve kept paying to keep Sam’s disgusting secret from his darling daughter Emily forevermore.’
‘So, you took matters into your own hands?’
‘I was hoping to remain unseen last night. When you saw me, I was looking for Danny to have a chat to try to persuade him to ease off. I saw Sam and him have a fight and watched him storm off. I was going to follow him then, but I needed him in a more receptive mood, so I waited. Later, I saw Sam come back from Danny’s room and give Ross a key. I assumed it was for his room so I stole it when Ross was dancing.’
‘And you paid Danny a visit?’
‘I did. I went to his room. He was on his way out and, when he saw me, started to brag about controlling dad like a puppet. He wouldn’t listen to what I had to say, so I walked around the corner and waited for him to leave. When I knew he was gone, I went back and popped some dissolving tablets into the hipflask. And then I waited for him to come back. As soon as he came in, I punched him, got him on the bed and held his mouth open while I poured a cocktail of whiskey and paracetamol down his throat. He tried to resist, but it didn’t take long for his airways to close up and he died pretty quickly.’
Colin was astonished at how casual Mike had told his story – like he was telling them about a nice bike ride he’d been on.
‘How did you know he was allergic?’ he asked.
Mike snorted.
‘Because he wouldn’t stop going on about it on the stag do. He made it seem as if suffering through a hangover without painkillers was the same as being crucified. So, I pocketed that information to be used at a later date.’
‘But why?’ Colin asked, rage seeping into his words.
‘Why?’ Mike asked as he pushed himself to standing. ‘Because him and Sam were the reason school was hell for me. They were the reason everyone else thought it was OK to pick on me or throw my lunch on the roof or…’
He trails off for a minute, before composing himself.
‘And then, to find out Sam McMullan is marrying into my family was the last straw. Everyone knew Danny was a dick, but no one knew how awful Sam could be. I knew I had to find a way to get the wedding cancelled.’
‘Why not just tell your sister about Sam kissing the girl on his stag?’
‘Because I didn’t want to hurt her, directly. Yes, I know she’s dad’s favourite and all, but we’re close. She didn’t deserve such blunt honesty.’
‘So, you killed a man instead, in the hope that that would force the wedding to be called off?’
‘Honestly,’ he said. ‘I didn’t mean to kill him. I thought maybe he’d have a massive reaction, and we’d call the ambulance, and he’d be fine but Sam wouldn’t have been able to go through with the wedding or something. But, hearing him brag about taking money from my family and watching him swan around like he owned the place, well… it changed my mind. The world is a better place without Daniel Costello.’
With his spiel finished, silence filled the marquee.
‘So, what next?’ Mike asked.
‘What’s next is that you are under arrest for the murder of Daniel Costello,’ said a gruff voice from the door.
Adam and Colin watched as the small team of police officers slid from their hiding places and swarmed Mike, taking him to the ground before slipping cuffs over his wrists. One of the officers read him his rights as he was dragged into a standing position by the others.
Mike cast a pleading glance back at Adam and Colin as he was led out of the marquee towards the waiting unmarked police car at the end of the gardens.
Adam and Colin collapsed into their seats; the fatigue of a long, punishing day washing over them. Adam took the hipflask from his pocket and unscrewed the lid before taking a huge slug. He passed it to his friend.
‘I’ll tell you what,’ Colin said, between mouthfuls. ‘The old folk at work are going to love hearing about this.’