The Thomas Blume Series

Chapter 9

Chapter Nine

A quiet fear.

The little computer program I had pilfered didn’t help with a case that was almost ten years old, so the following day I took a trip to the library. The grand old structure near St James’s Square was an imposing stone edifice discolored by decades of diesel smoke and fumes.

Inside, I was met with a mix of old and new, as books climbed infinitely high upon carved wooden shelves boasting the knowledge of generations. Stacks of colored spines stretched into the darkened corners of deep mahogany fixtures and, as I walked through the rows and headed for public records, centuries of history surrounded me.

How many other clues were buried here? How many other unsolved crimes lay awaiting discovery?

It occurred to me that the London Library was a living entity, like an aged family member encapsulating the wisdom of the ages, but not at the expense of moving forward with progress. Though founded in the mid-eighteen-hundreds, the structure had never ceased to grow with knowledge and physical expansions. One of which lay in front. The famous glass tables of the second tier.

I avoided touching the surfaces, remembering a recent news article. Apparently, the combination of carved glass book-viewing tables and Victorian cast iron railings had the reputation of delivering browsers an unexpected static shock. It wasn’t dangerous so much a jolting and startling. Despite enthusiastic brainstorming, a remedy had not been developed since the section was installed in the 1920’s. It amused me that readers had been plagued with the same inconvenience for nearly a century and yet continued to endure it rather than renovate a piece of history.

The Brits love their traditions.

As I moved deeper into the stacks, the familiar scent of old literature greeted me. The smell of fresh ink and paper married with the not unpleasant mustiness of cellulose decay. It wasn’t a fragrance you’d want to bathe your home in, but in the library where it so intimately belonged, the scent was welcoming, almost sweet.

Although it felt good to be moving again, to be actively working on a case that didn’t include cheating spouses, in the back of my mind, reality was whispering.

The case isn’t even yours. You’re putting all this time and effort into something long dead and buried.

Maybe that was true, but as I finally reached the public records and began sifting through the thousands of document and files, I didn’t care. Not once had I experienced such a sense of motivation since arriving in London as a haggard and beaten man.

After thirty minutes and no results to show for it, I called in backup.

With a librarian’s assistance, I found the nearest computer bank connected to the database. In the wide-open space, I chose a table in the back corner. There were two workspaces on the table and I selected the furthest one out of instinct. It would allow me a broad view of the space, avoiding any surprise visitors. It wasn’t that I planned on doing anything devious or expected an unknown assassin to come out of the woodwork. It was just habit, a part of my cop training that never went away.

The chair was dark and heavy, making an awkward squawk as it rubbed over the floor. I looked up to see if I’d garnered attention. There were a few others nearby, but their heads remained down, engrossed in their own studies. Settled somewhat comfortably, I reached forward to awaken the machine and begin the next phase of the investigation.

I worked my mouse fast as I uncovered a little more in the public records than the internet had offered the day before. The process would have gone far more quickly if I had direct access to the police records, but I lacked an ‘in’ with the government. Gathering all of the intelligence wasn’t impossible though, it just took more time to dig through the archives. I scraped together a full timeline of the last known day of Jack Ellington’s life, from when he was seen walking on the way to school by a neighbor, to the last of his friends indicating seeing Jack, headed home, shortly after 6.00 in the evening.

With traffic signals, security devices and even ATM’s carrying cameras all across the UK. It was unlikely that Jack could have made it far from Brook Hill without being spotted somewhere, somehow. Whatever happened to him happened at, or near, the school.

With that ironed out, I also put together a list of names that seemed to be potential suspects. Teachers and school workers made up most of my notes. Many were already reported as having been questioned by police, but I wasn’t willing to rule anything out. Top of my list though was the name of the officer in charge of the investigation, the recently retired Chief Superintendent Henry Atkinson. I didn’t consider him a suspect, but he would definitely be a crucial, potentially critical source of information.

I moved to switch the library computer off when one last result caught my eye, holding me in place. My search had thrown up one final news story, this one from only a few days ago. It was unrelated to the Ellington case, or so it seemed, but the similarities troubled me enough to grab my attention. A missing schoolboy, Charlie Haines, about the same age as Jack at the time he went missing, had disappeared right after band practice. This time, from a quiet suburb just outside Bromley, less than three miles away from Brook Hill. With his mop of sandy hair, ruddy cheeks, and scruffy school uniform, the kid even looked like Jack Ellington. And, by extension, my boy, Tommy.

I dropped back into my seat and read more, as a sickly sense of familiarity washed over me.