The Key (5 page)

“
Well, not exactly. My brother
Vince
owns it, but I’m the manager and
I
do the hiring and firing
,
”
he
replied as he
puffed
out his chest and held out his hand
to shake hers
. “
Scott
Halliday
. P
leased to meet you,” he continued
,
squeezing her hand with
a handshake that made her fingers turn white.

“
I’m Carly.
Carly Moore
.
I’ve never worked in a bar before but I’
d
be happy to give
it a try. When do I start?”
she replied a bit sheepishly.

Carly knew that the words had come from her own mouth, but she’d opened her mouth before engaging her brain. For one split second she panicked.
Oh no,
now
what have I done. I’ve
only got a
week
off work.
Let’s hope I make headway fast
.

Composing herself mentally, she took stock of the situation. The last time she’d met
Scott
he was a drunken mes
s. Now, he appeared to be sober.
Albeit a bit
weird
too
.

It seemed rather devious, but if Carly was going to get
Scott
to open up, then she’d have to get close to him
.
A
nd pretty quick
ly
.
Flirting would look a bit suspicious
, she thought,
and I couldn’t pull it off anyway. He makes my skin creep!

“You can start tonight if you like. I’ll show you around the place,
then
I’ll show you the ropes
. Y
ou’ll soon get the hang of it.”

Gesturing with his hand,
Scott
invited Carly to the other side of the bar and led her through
a doorway, up a stairway
, and onto a hallway which housed three doors.

Leading her into the first door,
Scott
introduced her to
the staff
room
. Th
is was a
small kitchen
containing
a table and four chairs, a small stove, and the usual basic drink
-
making facilities.
Scott
pointed out a door to the staff toilets, before leading her back onto the hallway.

“This is where I call home,” he
winced
as he opened door number two. As they entered
,
Carly
saw
a large
battered sofa
that looked about as comfortable as a bed of nails,
a
portable
TV
with an obvious tuning problem
, and an old record player
that appeared to have teleported from the 1940’s.

“This is where
I
come to chill
.
Any
time you can’t find
me;
this is where I’ll be.
Well, that just about sums up the grand tour. I’d better get you back downstairs and show you
what you’ll be doing.
”

Within a couple of hours of arriving
,
Carly had been shown around the pub, shown what to do, and had her ears talked off by the
incessantly
chatty
Scott
. It didn’t take much to work out that the place was
n’t
doing a roaring trade, which wasn’t uncommon in today’s economic climate. However, it was a pretty depressing place to come for a drink, and she couldn’t help feel that takings might improve if the place looked a little brighter.

Knowing
that time was of the essence, Carly decided to
try to steer the
subject
towards
Vincent.
After all, he was the reason she was here.

“So,
will your brother be likely to call in? I mean I know you’re the boss, but if he shows up I expect he’ll be surprised to find me working here.”

“Don’t worry about Vince. He’s not likely to show up around here. Like I said before, he just leaves me to it. I
make any changes
. A
nd I choose the staff.
Let’s just say, he owes me.
I’ve done plenty for him over the years and
my reward is that I get to do whatever I like to this place.
He lives
over in Mansion Hollow. Anyway, he always says he’s got more important places to be than
th
is
boring old backwater town
that
he grew up in.”

“So, he doesn’t think much of his home town? I guess you must be different to him then?”

These words brought an instant
change
to
Scott
’s facial expression, and
Carly
wondered if she’d pushed it too far.

“You bet I
’
m different to him.
What you see is what you get
with me
.”

Scott
’s reaction told her it was time to slow down. She didn’t want to get him angry.

“I’ll go and wash some glasses; before the rush
,
”
Carly pronounced as she turned, trying to hide the incongruent look on her face.

Before the rush
, Carly
laughed
,
I bet this place hasn’t seen ‘a rush’ in thirty years or more.
But
I wonder what he meant about him doing plenty
for Vincent, and that bit about -
he owes me
- and what you see is what you get.

For a fleeting moment Carly wondered if she had made a mistake in coming here; but she was here now, so she may as well get on with it.

As the evening wore on, the
odd
customer
came and went, and apart from a few
strange-looking
characters that seemed to be
Scott
’s drinking buddies, most of the clientele came and left alone.

This was a pub where
sad
people came to drown their sorrows before going home to an empty house
.
A
lmost without exception,
though,
each customer gave Carly a ‘tip’ and offered to buy
Scott
a drink.

By late evening
Scott
was beginning to wobble slightly on his feet, and the once chatty host became much quieter in himself. The
abundance of compli
mentary
drinks had
obviously taken their toll
, and he was clearly drunk
now
.

As the last customer left,
Scott
made a garbled statement. “Lock the doors.
Had enough.
That’s it for tonight
.
”

It wasn’t yet official closing time, but what did Carly care!

Scott remained slumped against the bar as Carly cleared the tables and washed up the empty glasses herself. When she’d finished, she tapped him on his shoulder, “C’mon I’ll give you a hand up the stairs before I go.”

Carly needed to repeat her offer another three times.

“
Errrr
, y
ou’re so kind Carly,”
Scott
mumbled
as she helped him
to his feet and headed very unsteadily towards the stairs.
“I wish I were five years younger,
and then
I’d ask you to stay
the night
. It gets so lonely here sometimes.”

Five years younger. He’s got to be joking. More like fifteen
or twenty
, she thought
.

Eventually they reached Scott’s room
and
Carly started to pick up the pace
.
If he falls there’s no way I can pick him up
.
Carly made a
mad
dash for the sofa
which reminded her of the awkwardness of three-legged races from her school sports days
. They didn’t
fully
make it, but at least
the top half of
Scott hit the safety of the sofa.

He didn’t even stir.

Lifting his heavy legs up onto the sofa, Carly removed his shoes
which immediately released
the pungent odor of sweaty feet. His big toe poked through a large hole in
his
left sock.

Although
Scott
was snoring like a
well-contented
pig
by now
, Carly
decided to try to find
something
to cover him up with
.
Guessing that the third door she’d seen earlier in the day might be
Scott
’s bedroom, she made her way there to get him a blanket.

Feeling
uneasy
about being in his bedroom, Carly
entered the room and
walked nervously over to the closet door and opened it. She spotted
a
ceiling cord
hanging down in the closet
and pulled it
. The darkness remained
.
As she felt her way around, Carly noticed that t
he shelves
on one side
were
crammed
high with all sorts of
stuff, and on the other
side was
a
messy
selection of old
clothing dangling from a hanging rail.

A
large woolen blanket on the top shelf
looked perfect
for
the job
,
so
Carly
rose up onto her tiptoes and gave it a quick tug.
There was a crash that Carly didn’t expect to hear. She
paused to see if she could still hear
Scott
snoring; and hearing that he was, gave a sigh of relief.

Looking down
to
the floor
,
Carly
saw
a
silver-grey
S
amsonite
aluminum
attaché case.
One catch had come open but the other was still shut.
In the dim light she could
just about
make out that there
were
two embossed
initials on the case
.
V.H.

V.H.
Mmmm
.
I wonder if that stands for Vincent
Halliday?

She knew she shouldn’t do it
,
but she couldn’t resist it.

With feelings of excitement and trepidation all rolled into one,
Carly popped the other catch on the case and opened the lid.
“
Good grief
” she yelped.
Her heart started to beat faster and faster.
Although she was on a mission to
determine if
Vincent Halliday was a murderer, she was still flabbergasted to see the proof
of it
in front of her eyes.

In the case was a selection of large envelopes. The top envelope had Vincent’s name and
address on it. Then there was a
selection
of
different
trinkets
, including r
ibbons, hair clips, a ring,
and
a bracelet
. There was also
a gold locket. Not just a gold locket, but
THE
gold locket.

Carly took some long, slow deep breaths, but her heart wouldn’t stop pounding. She could clearly see the engraving on the reverse of the locket. It
most
definitely said
‘Tracey’ on it.

Think Carly
. T
hink. What’s the best way to handle
this?
Try and wake
Scott
? But what if he already knows and was covering for
Vince
? No
,
that’s crazy. What if I tell him and he tries to handle it himself; Vincent’s already killed, so what’s to stop him killing the both of us too?