Mystery: Quest for Justice: (Mystery, Suspense, Thriller, Suspense Thriller Mystery) (16 page)

Although everyone was still agitated, they continued to take photographs, because the boat was quickly moving away from the Cathedral.

"Let's just try to forget about this," said Chloe, laughing ever so slightly.

I could not help being suspicious of everyone on that boat, but when I left the boat, I decided to forget about it. After all, there were dangerous people in the big, bad world.

After having wandered around the city a little, we visited a fancy restaurant for some dinner. I was keen to try the French food, although I was going to give the snails a miss.

Dinner was nice, but I was still saddened to see the destroyed relationship between Alan and Shona. Because they were speaking quietly and were sitting at a separate table from the rest of the group, I could not make out what they were saying, but it was obvious they were arguing about what had happened the night before. In contrast, Stephanie and Brendan were loving every minute of it. It was a traditional romantic meal in Paris: they were sharing spaghetti, and they got hold of one piece, slurped it together, and reached the end, which resulted in a kiss. Personally, I thought that was overdramatic, but they were on vacation in Paris and they were young lovers, so I accepted it. Stephanie and Brendan were laughing and joking too, and then they took photos using their mobile phones, standing against the window, which showed the Eiffel Tower in the background. Then I looked at the Wilsons: I did not know how to describe them exactly in my head. They just did not speak. They looked in opposite directions, as if they had been told some devastating news or something. Occasionally, each of them would take a sip of their soup, or a bite of their
baguette
. Finally, I looked at the Miltons. Again, it was nice to see romance, both young and old. The Miltons were happy together, and had been all their life. They were eating the French food that I had found disgusting. They then got up and looked out the window, watching life go by in one of the most stunning capitals of the world.

When everyone was finished with their dinner, Chloe got up and said to everyone, "if everyone is ready to proceed, we shall, and the next stop is the Eiffel Tower!"

Again, there were cheers and clapping, as we all got up to go for what was possibly the most amazing experience of our lives.

All of the senses inside me were tingling as we approached the Eiffel Tower. This was the moment I’d been waiting for. Ever since I was a young girl, I had wanted to visit the Eiffel Tower, and now that I was here, standing right next to the thing, my dream had come true. It made me forget about the horrible event that had occurred at home; all of my anger and self-hatred had gone. I now felt more confident in myself, and looked forward to enjoying life again, putting that brief period of depression behind me.

Chloe got all of the tickets for us, and it was announced that we would have to take the stairs up to the second floor, because the lifts were far too busy and the lines were too long. Although there were several groans behind me, I would have preferred to walk it anyway it was part of the experience. However, I turned round and realized the Miltons would have to walk up with us.

"I'll help escort you up," I offered, realizing that they must be in their eighties.

"Why, thank you, young lady!" said Doreen Milton.

"I can do that," said Chloe, grabbing Frank Milton by the arm.

"I can come with you, anyway," I argued. "I would prefer to walk slowly anyway."

"Well, if you insist," said Chloe, looking somewhat disappointed.

The others dashed up the tower (including my parents, who left me behind). I just waited with the Miltons and Chloe. On the way up, I looked through the iron bars, and I kept looking down. It was a huge drop, and it gradually increased as we walked up each flight of stairs. I loved every minute of it, though. I was on the Eiffel Tower! I kept touching the bars, just so I could touch the Eiffel Tower. I then noticed that the tower had an unusual structure to it – from where I was standing, it seemed that each bar went off in the opposite direction to the one next to it. I could see right through some of the gaps at times, right to the other side. It was fantastic.

"Are you alright?" Chloe said to Doreen, who was beginning to slow down more and more.

"Perhaps we could have a five-minute break on the first floor?" replied Doreen, rather out of breath.

"Of course," said Chloe, giving a huge grin.

"So have you sorted out that business with the gun?" asked Frank.

"We're just going to forget about that," said Chloe, moving her hand in such a way that it resembled her shoving something out of the way, like a person.

We got to the first floor.

"You can go and catch up with the others if you like," said Chloe. "They're not that far ahead – I can see them from here."

Reluctantly, I agreed to catch up with the others, although I was not too quick to do so. By the time I got to the second floor I was completely exhausted, which was worrying for a woman my age. I was devastated when I saw there was a long line for refreshments.

"Here you are, honey," my mother said, saving the day by handing me a bottle of water. I was so grateful for that.

I went over to the ledge, where I stood next to Stephanie and Brendan.

"It's lovely, isn't it?" said Stephanie.

"It's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen," was my reply, and it truly was. I walked around the second floor, taking a few photos.

After having finished taking photos, I went back to the line for refreshments, to see if it had gone down – I was quite hungry. Unfortunately, it was still busy. I decided to explore the tower a little more. I saw that Veronica was not with Christopher (although that was not a surprise). He was on his own, where no-one else was
, taking photos. Veronica was also on her own, but on a different side of the tower.

All of a sudden, I heard Stephanie scream.

"Oh my God!" she cried.

Brendan, Alan and Shona surrounded her, confused by her hysterical behavior.

"What's the matter?" said Alan.

"I dropped my ice cream over the ledge!" she cried. "And now it's going to land on someone’s head!"

"Oh my God!" cried Shona.

"A person down at the bottom is going to get the fright of their life!"

Stephanie then proceeded to break down. I thought it was a bit too dramatic, but then again, I had seen Stephanie being dramatic before.

Suddenly, I had another fright when I heard a loud bang!

It came from the other side of the tower. When we all got there, we were astounded to see that Christopher Dewell had been shot in the head!

"He's dead!" screamed Veronica.

I knew that it was true. Now everyone, including Chloe and the Miltons, was surrounding Christopher's dead body. Just then, another shot was heard, but this time, it came from the other side of the tower. We all ran over there, and we saw that no-one was there.

"I can't believe this has happened!" screamed Chloe.

Doreen Milton fainted. Stephanie continued to cry, this time collapsing on the floor and shaking on the ground like a baby. Veronica just stood there, looking over a ledge of the tower. I could not make out what she was feeling, but one thing was for certain: the person who killed Christopher was someone staying in the same hotel I was staying in, because every other person on that floor at the time of the shooting, every other person who surrounded Christopher's dead body, was Asian, so they would not know him at all, and therefore, the person who killed Christopher had to be someone I had met the day before. I knew that my time had come to solve another baffling mystery.

As we were descending the tower, Chloe announced that she was taking everyone back to the hotel immediately. While we were waiting for the bus to pull up, something happened that astounded even me – Veronica cried hysterically! She collapsed on to the floor and started to sob, holding her head in her hands and shouting, "I can't believe this has happened! Why did you take the man I love!"

There were police cars everywhere, trying to establish what had happened. However, I felt it was my duty to do this investigation for a number of reasons. Firstly, the suspects would feel more comfortable talking to me since I had already met them and conversed with them. Secondly, I felt that I’d had a head start because I felt like I knew a lot about each of them already, and I had witnessed the events of that day. This murder had been planned, so I was going to think back to see how everyone had been behaving the morning of that day. However, there was one other reason – I felt that I needed to solve this murder in order to redeem myself from the previous investigation. If I solved this murder, I would feel much more confident again about going back to work, so I made it my own personal goal to solve this murder, as always.

And so, I decided to begin the investigation once we arrived back at the hotel.

On the way there, everyone on the bus was talking about the murder and who could have done it, knowing fine well that the person who did it was on board the bus. I just sat there, thinking. Perhaps this person intended to murder two different people, and only hit Christopher? At this moment in time, that seemed like the main possibility.

We arrived back at the hotel, which was as stunning as ever. It was as if we had returned and nothing exciting had happened that day. Firstly, I decided to interview the Sandersons, since they were closest to me, and for some reason I was quite interested in talking to them anyway.

"Hello," I said, shyly approaching them both.

"Are you investigating the murder?" said Shona.

That was rather interesting to me, but I forgot about what she said and moved on.

"Yes, I am investigating the murder, while I wait for my French colleagues to arrive, so I want to ask you just a couple of questions for now about the murder that happened today," I replied.

"Are you a good detective?" asked Alan.

Again, I thought that was a rather unusual thing to say.

"I'll be the one asking the questions, if you don't mind, Alan," I replied.

He apologized, and I started asking the questions.

"So, where exactly were you when the first shot was heard?"

Shona decided to answer that question.

"Both of us were standing together, seeing to Stephanie. She was in such a state, poor thing!"

"Yes, I was there, too."

"So, that proves we did not do it!"

"Not exactly!" I said.

"How?" said Shona, looking confused. "You saw us when the shot was heard!"

"I saw you when the first shot was heard," I replied, "but not the second shot. I'm not accusing you of anything just yet, but I am trying to keep my options open. Either one of you could have pulled a gun out and fired the gun at somebody else while we were distracted by the sight of Christopher. It looks like this could be a conspiracy, but I am not sure yet."

Both Alan and Shona seemed quite disappointed that they were not given alibis.

"So what was the point in asking us that question when you already knew the answer?" said Alan.

"I just wanted to see your reaction," was my reply. "There is another thing I would like to speak to you about."

"I think I know where this is going..." said Alan.

"Yes," I replied. "Well, last night, I did indeed hear a woman kissing Christopher, and I overheard you two arguing about it, so I am assuming that it was you."
      

Shona looked very ashamed of herself.

"It was only a fling," she said.

I felt rather upset for them. Ten years of marriage had been thrown away. I decided to end the chat there and move on to Stephanie and Brendan.

Like the Sandersons, I asked them where they were at the time of the first shot, and Stephanie replied, "well, you saw me. I was on the other side of the tower. I was crying on the ledge because I dropped an ice cream over the top."

Brendan said, "I was seeing to Stephanie. You saw me, didn't you?"

"Yes," I replied.

"Then why are you asking us these questions?"

"I wanted to see your reaction," was my reply, for the second time.

I knew that I was finished there, because Brendan and Stephanie had no apparent motive to murder.

After having interviewed those four suspects, I came to some sort of conclusion. Although I knew everything that was going to be said, that interview helped me – those four suspects looked rather calm and collected. That was quite strange, although it was not impossible for a murderer to act in that way.

I decided to focus on the first shot for now. Although I had seen Alan, Brendan and Shona just before the shot was fired, it did not exclude them from the investigation, because they could actually have fired the first shot, knowing the structure of the Eiffel Tower. The only person who could not possibly have fired the first shot was Stephanie, because I saw her hands while the shot was fired, so it could not have been her. I decided that it was probably not Alan, Brendan or Shona, because they were still behind me, talking, and the shot seemed to come from a distance, which would exclude each of them. That left me with four possible shooters: Chloe, Veronica, Frank or Doreen, and those were the four people who I was going to interview now. Now, I was getting to the detective work.

Veronica seemed to be calm now, so I decided to interview her next. When I saw her, she seemed to be lost in the surroundings – she was sitting in the red seating area outside, sipping a glass of ‘Death in the Afternoon’, which made me slightly confused and worried. She had said that she did not like that drink the night before, so it made me even more interested in talking to her –– she was quite insane, I found.

"Hello, Veronica," I said, slowly approaching her like a mouse approaching a lion.

"Come to interview me, to play detective then, have you?" she said, not even looking at me when she said that.

"Yes," I replied. "You're alright with that, aren't you?"