Murder in the Museum

Chapter Twenty-Four

As they walked towards the car park, the rain pounded down. Carole envied Sheila’s hood, and wished she’d brought an umbrella or some kind of hat, as her hair was flattened down against her head. The rain splashed up so much on hitting the ground that Carole’s tights and shoes were instantly drenched.

‘A good example of the Pathetic Fallacy,’ Sheila shouted over the din.

‘I’m sorry?’

‘When inanimate objects reflect people’s emotions. Literary device Esmond used to use quite a lot. Him and the Romantic Poets. So you have this rain and wind echoing the storminess of the Emergency Trustees’ Meeting.’

‘You were the one who made it stormy,’ Carole couldn’t help saying.

‘Unavoidable, I’m afraid. Where the survival of Bracketts is concerned, any means are acceptable.’

The moment of sympathy Carole had felt when Sheila talked about her dead son was once again replaced by irritation. The woman was nothing less than a bully; all she cared about was getting her own way.

Suddenly the path around them was flooded with light. Long slanting lines of rain became solid in the beam. Carole looked up for the flash in the sky, but the light continued.

‘Security lamps,’ Sheila explained. ‘Triggered by anyone walking towards the car park.’ Then her attention was distracted. ‘What the hell . . .?’

Carole followed her eyeline. They were walking along the wall of the kitchen garden, whose gates, locked since the day of the skeleton’s discovery, now hung open on their hinges.

‘What’s been going on?’ asked Sheila angrily, as she stepped forward into the the space designated for the Bracketts Museum.

Carole saw no lightning flash, but there was a sharp crack of what she took to be thunder. In front of her Sheila Cartwright shuddered and stood rigid for a moment. Then slowly, she toppled forward, face-down, on to the ground.

Carole Seddon moved quickly towards her. From the tall body on the ground came a guttural gurgling.

The white beam of the security lamp caught on the ridges of brown mud by the woman’s head.

And also on the red blood that was spilling from her hidden face.