“That may be true,” said Grey. “But the law is against you. As a developer, I know the council bylaws back to front and inside out, and you can’t have a bonfire within the village boundary without a council permit.”
“That’s right. Here’s ours.” Mrs. Ellis whipped a folded sheaf of papers from her carpetbag and held it up for everyone to see.
“Exactly. And I assume the council didn’t give you permission for this little effigy.” Grey indicated the struggling vicar. “I see at least three council members in the audience. Even if you walk away from this without jail time, they’ll have no choice but to issue you with a fine.”
“I don’t care,” Dorothy yelled.
“You’ll care because as well as that fine, you’ll be forbidden from using council buildings like the community hall. This means the DIABLO committee will have to find somewhere else for their weekly prayer circle. Now put down the gun or train it on me, because you’ll only get one chance to shoot before Heathcliff Earnshaw decks you, and the absolute last thing you want to do is ruin my wife’s festival or her beautiful face.”
I stared at him. Even as corrupted as he’d become by Dracula’s power, there was some part of him that still remembered who he was as a human – that he loved his wife. It reminded me of Fiona trying to stop herself from entering the bookshop.
Or maybe this was just Grey’s way of manipulating us all.
“Dorothy, the gun.” Grey held out his hand. Dorothy’s arm trembled as she held out the weapon. She looked like she was trying to control her movements, but her arm moved of its own volition, holding the gun out toward Grey, barrel pointed to the earth.
“Heeeyah!” Wilson sprung from behind the lychgate and tackled Dorothy, swatting the gun onto the grass. Grey went for it, but Hayes barged him with his shoulder and got there first. He ejected the chamber and dropped the gun into the pocket of his trench coat.
“That’s it,” he barked. “I want everyone to go home.”
“But the bonfire!” Mrs. Ellis cried.
“We’ll have it another day—” Hayes stepped in front of the remaining DIABLO members, who were all attempting to sneak away behind the church. “Not you lot. You’re all coming to the station with us. The rest of you, go home.”
The green started to clear out, but Morrie was still stuck behind the crowd over by the cider stall. I gripped Heathcliff’s hand. “I want to talk to Grey before he disappears.”
He nodded. We stepped through the lychgate and around the villagers who rushed to help the Reverend Mosley down from the stake. Oscar and Heathcliff helped me navigate around the crumbling stones as we headed toward Grey.
A lone mouse skittered across the top of a gravestone, probably heading toward the green to see if anyone had dropped a piece of battered haddock. Grey swiped out his hand and grabbed it, stuffing the rodent into his mouth. The tail hung out the side like a piece of spaghetti.
CRUNCH.
I cringed. “Ew.”
Grey slurped up the tail like a piece of spaghetti. “Delicious. You should try it.”
“I was coming over here to thank you for de-escalating the situation and demonstrating you still have an ounce of humanity left, but then you went and ruined it. If you’re hungry, why don’t you stop by the bakery – Oliver catches a ton of mice in his traps every day and we’re all sick of Grimalkin bringing them back to the shop and pretending she caught them.”
“No thanks. They’re no good if they’re already dead,” Grey smacked his lips together and doffed his hat at us. “If you’ll excuse me, ladies, my master needs me.”
They’re no good if they’re already dead…
As I watched Grey shuffle away, the penny dropped. I knew what had been niggling me about Jenna’s murder.
I wanted to smack myself. I couldn’t believe I didn’t see it before.
I turned to Heathcliff. “I can’t believe how wrong we’ve been. I know what happened to Jenna Mclarey.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
“It wasn’t Dracula who killed Jenna,” I announced to Jo as soon as she came downstairs.
“You’re telling me this is an ordinary, everyday, non-supernatural murder,” Jo moaned.
“It’s right here in the book.” I hit play on my audiobook of Bram Stoker’sDracula,playing the section where Renfield eats insects. “The blood has to be fresh. Dracula wouldn’t drink blood if his victim was already dead.”
“Then explain the fang marks on her neck…holy fuckballs, thenails.” Jo slapped her forehead.
“What?”
