out, but then stopped. Looking back at me he said, “You weren’t making that stuff up back there were you?”
“No,” I said.
“So how did you figure it all out?” he asked, staring at me again and making me feel uncomfortable. “How did you know how tall they were, the fact that one of them had arrived before the others, his brand of cigarettes and that the female had black hair which she had dyed blonde? You musta been guessing some of that.”
“I wasn’t guessing,” I told him. “What then? Are you some kind of psychic?” and he half laughed. “It doesn’t matter,” I told him, and climbed from the car. Putting his helmet onto his head and pulling the collar of his police coat up about his neck, he said, “So long Kiera Hudson. I’ll see you tomorrow night at seven.”
Then turning towards the Inn, just wanting to get out of the rain, I stopped. Seeing as I now knew where the Inn was, I should really have offered him a lift back to the police station. But as I turned back towards him, I was surprised to see that he had already gone.
Chapter Three
Carrying the little belongings that I’d brought with me, I went into the Inn. A crescent-shaped bar stood along the far wall. The Inn wasn’t very busy, and those that huddled around the small fire and the tables fell into a hushed silence and looked at me. As I crossed the floor to the bar, I could feel their eyes staring at me. It was so quiet that I could hear the wood snapping and crackling as it burnt in the fireplace. I looked across at it and noticed that someone had engraved a five-pointed star into the plaster above the fireplace. Then in the far corner, I noticed a figure. He sat alone at a table which was lit with a candle and he warmed a glass of whiskey in his hand. The male had a hood pulled so low over his head that it concealed his face. Although I couldn’t see his eyes, I knew he was watching me.
Trying not to make eye contact with those gathered in the Inn, I reached the bar. I had never felt so uncomfortable in my life, and I wondered why Sergeant Phillips had decided to rent me a room in such a godforsaken place. When I thought I couldn’t bear it any longer and was just about to pick up my case and run from the place, an elderly-looking woman appeared from a small office behind the bar. White lengths of wispy hair protruded from her head, and her face was haggard and lined with deep, ragged wrinkles. She looked like a corpse that had been warmed-up.
“Can I help you?” she asked, her voice sounding weak and broken.
“I have a room booked…” I started.
“Name?” the old woman asked, thumbing through a dusty-looking ledger behind the bar.
“Hudson,” I said. “Kiera Hudson.”
The woman sniffed, and taking a key from a series of hooks on the wall behind her, she placed it on the bar and said, “Room number two.”
Taking the key, I said “Thank -”
“Top of the stairs and turn right,” the old woman cut over me. “Breakfast is between six and seven, and dinner between eight and ten.”
Looking at my wristwatch, I could see it had just gone ten. “I don’t suppose there’s any chance of something to eat?” I asked her.
“Dinner is between eight and ten,” she repeated without looking up at me.
“I know, but it’s only just a couple of minutes past, so I was wondering -” I began.
“Between eight and ten,” the old woman said again, but this time she looked up at me. Her eyes were milky-coloured and clouded with cataracts.
Shrugging my shoulders, as if I didn’t really care, I picked up my case and as I did, I noticed something rather odd. All the way along the old oak beams that supported the bar, someone had tied reams of garlic bulbs. There were hundreds – no thousands of them. And as I looked up, I could see they hung from the ceiling, at the back of the Inn door and walls.
“What’s with the garlic?” I said, turning towards the old woman, but she had disappeared back into her tiny office. Turning my back on all those watchful eyes, I made my way up the stairs to my room. Holding onto my case, I fumbled with the key as I slipped it into the