Dead Cold Mysteries Box Set #3: Books 9-12 (A Dead Cold Box Set), Blake Banner [reading in the dark TXT] 📗

it wrong, but after a moment, the same figure moved quickly and silently past the kitchen steps and stopped in front of me. There was a soft rustle, then the clink of a key, then the shadow shifted, moved away and approached the side of the house. I heard the rattle of a lock, the soft squeak of a hinge and the pad of feet descending stone steps into an enclosed space. I smiled, got to my feet and crossed to the open door of the tool shed.

Just inside the door, I could make out the pale glow of worn, stone steps. I sat on the top step and pressed the flashlight mode on my phone. He spun in the glare and stared at me, squinting and shielding his eyes, but all he could see was the glare of light. He moved fast, seizing a pitchfork that was standing in the corner, and took two steps toward me before he heard the click of the Smith & Wesson as Dehan sat down beside me and cocked the hammer.

I said, “Robert Armstrong, I am making a citizen’s arrest. I arrest you for the murder of Charles Gordon Sr., and the attempted murder of Pamela Gordon. You do not have to say anything, and in fact we’d thank you if you didn’t. But if you don’t put that fork down in the next three seconds, I will give my pet rottweiler here permission to blow your balls off. Put it down, Armstrong. It’s over.”

He dropped the fork and raised his hands. I stood and made my way down the steps into the semi-subterranean room. It was like the broom cupboard inside the house, and in fact it ran on from it, but about four and a half or five feet lower in the ground. Behind me, Dehan flipped a switch and a bare bulb overhead came on, filling the long, narrow room with a sickly light. I switched my phone from flashlight to video and handed it to Dehan.

At the far end of the shed there was a collection of spades, shovels and other tools for gardening. On the floor, there were plastic and terracotta flowerpots, bags of compost, coils of hosepipe and a hundred other things a gardener might use. Running the length of the left wall, from the steps to the end, up to a height of about four feet, there were shelves, with everything from balls of string to spray bottles and tins of paint. Above that, the wall was bare brick, aside from a small, free standing bookcase affixed to the wall just above the shelves. It was about three feet square, almost reaching the ceiling. It was made of old, dark wood and held books on gardening.

I jerked my head at it. “Is that it?”

“Fuck yous.”

I reached over, unhooked the bookcase and set it on the floor. Behind it, there was just the bare, red brick wall. I studied it a minute, then began to see where the old cement had been chipped away and new cement applied in its place. It had not yet had time to dry completely. I looked along the shelf and saw the plastic tub where he had mixed it and the spatula he’d used to apply it. I bagged the spatula and pulled my Swiss Army knife from my pocket, then began to remove the wet cement from the bricks. It was a segment of four in total: one above, one below and two sandwiched between them. They were at head height, and as I eased them out of the wall, they revealed a hole, roughly the shape of a plus sign, in which the vertical line is short and fat. The hole, as I had expected, was in the back of the fireplace, directly behind the grate, and would, when the fire was burning, be concealed by the flames and the burning logs.

I turned to Dehan. “So you see, my dear Watson, the killer was never in the room. He took his shot from the tool shed.”

Armstrong was staring at me and at Dehan by turns. “How did you know? How could you possibly have known?” He jerked his head at Dehan. “You were on the phone when I came down. I heard you. How could you have known I was here?”

I smiled. “I didn’t, but I knew you would come here. I figured I’d worried you enough by saying I knew how it was done that you would come down and try to conceal the fresh cement and the tools you’d used to remove the bricks and cement them back in place. All I had to do was wait for you to show while you thought we were calling the cops.” I reached behind him and propelled him toward Dehan on the steps. “Let’s go, the game is over. You’re done killing people.”

We took him past the kitchen steps and back into the house. In the drawing room we put him on the sofa, tied his wrists and his ankles with his shoelaces and sat with him until four, trying the phone at regular intervals. Finally, as the molten edge of the sun began to creep over the rim of a wet and sparkling world, the landline began to buzz, telling us we could phone. Then I took the handset out onto the front steps and made two calls. One of them was to the local Scottish PD to request urgent assistance and to discuss a few details with them.

After that, I went back inside to wake up and assemble the household.

The first to appear were Brown and the two maids. They looked in astonishment at Armstrong and then hurried away to the kitchen to start making breakfast. I stopped Brown at the door.

“Perhaps,” I said, “You could give priority to a large pot of strong coffee and a couple of bacon sandwiches?”

“Oh, yes,