Amanda Cadabra and The Hidden Depths by Holly Bell (good book recommendations TXT) 📗

the first words in the book … excitement … jogging up and down … in a rucksack. Coming out at night, by the campfire, receiving words, a pen, gliding quietly over the lines … Suspicion … unease … Back into the rucksack. Rucksack to pocket, pocket to rucksack. Hands touching, checking always: yes, still here, still safe … Now unease growing to alarm … fear … terror. Night … out of the rucksack … campfire … moving away from it. A whispered wish and then falling ... falling, falling, crack, bounce … lying still … hot sun …

Amanda inhaled sharply, letting go of the book and opened her eyes. The inspector was regarding her with concern.

‘Are you all right, Miss Cadabra?’

She spoke quietly, her eyes still glazed ‘She bought it. Samantha. It was a present for Storridge. — I think she was genuinely fond of him, you know. — It was in his luggage, he took it on the trip. Things were fine but then he got suspicious, then very much afraid and then I — the book — was falling. Must have been down a mountain or a cliff.’

‘That’s how Samantha knew there was a journal. She gave it to Storridge. So when the body was found and the book wasn’t on it, she must have wondered. Miss Cadabra, would you be able to continue?’

Amanda swallowed and nodded. She closed her eyes and touched the book on her lap.

Voices … Not English … Spanish? … Faces, young faces, surprised, intrigued. Being picked up ... pages turned. Into a pocket … into the light ... one of the Spanish speakers and now a man … who also speaks Spanish but then … amongst it all ‘thank you.’ Unmistakeably English.

Pages turning … apathy … darkness … then into the light up and … onto a shelf. … Now into a box … a journey … a familiar face: Simon Lawley … picked up, inspected … Back into the box … another face … another flick through ... darkness … Another face … Jonathan … yet another fleeting perusal. Back onto another shelf … in the stacks.

Amanda opened her eyes again. ‘It got passed from person to person, but I don’t know who they were except for Simon and Jonathan.’

‘Let’s see if this will help,’ offered Trelawney. He reached down into his bag, took out his laptop, opened it, tapped away for a few minutes, then put the machine on the table. He turned the screen towards Amanda, showing several photos of men.

She leaned forward and pointed. ‘That was the man who opened the book from its wrappings.’

‘That’s Ainsley Storridge.’

‘Then it must have been some Ecuadorian hikers who picked it up, and gave it to … that man, second from the left, middle row.’

‘Peregrin Shaw.’

‘Then it was in a box, and the next face was, yes, Simon Lawley, and the next was … him. Bottom row, first on the right.’

‘Lynford Warder.’

‘And the next was Jonathan and then it went into the stacks,’ Amanda finished off.

‘Excellent. So, Samantha wasn’t just idly dating, she was following the chain of the book.’

‘She either struck lucky with Shaw or she was on the lookout for anyone who had visited Ecuador within the right time-frame.’

‘Can you carry on, Miss Cadabra? Have some tea first.’

Amanda took a few sips.

‘Ready.’ She closed her eyes and was back again on the shelf in the stacks … Picked up, flicked through. A face framed in the long dark wavy hair … Samantha … moving around the stacks … Onto a shelf … back off … moving … a soft chuckle and then … being wrapped in an outer coat of thick glossy printed paper ... back onto a shelf …

Voices … Samantha’s and a man’s too distant to identify … Whispers … murmurs … taunting … laughing … cajoling … Now the tones were changing: threatening … anger … fear … footsteps … running … More footsteps coming this way… breathless … The girl right there … a man … A great tome whooshing through the air … a gasp and sound of body falling … Anguish … and then the tipping … tipping, falling … the book jacket flying off … crushed …

Silence. Then footsteps … Light … I know those feet … hurrying … a face … I know that face … it’s …

‘It’s mine,’ murmured Amanda, opening her eyes, shuddering. ‘I think I know what happened.’

‘Yes?’

‘There must be a loose jacket among the books. Samantha put the journal in the paper cover of another book and put it on the shelf in plain sight. Then a man came, but they must have been talking in another aisle, because I couldn’t see them or hear them, only whispers. Then it sounded like Samantha was laughing, like she thought it was a game. Her words, ‘in here somewhere,’ then a few moments later ‘you will pay’. But then it all went pear-shaped. It got heated, angry, and then there was running. I think she was running from him, only he caught up with her and hit her with a big book. Maybe he didn’t mean to kill her. Once he saw she was dead, he covered his tracks by pulling the shelves down.’

‘Did you catch any sight of him?’ asked Trelawney.

‘No, he was too far off to the side. I could only see Samantha,’ Amanda replied apologetically.

‘That’s all right. So … after he’d done the business with the shelves, he must have hidden down here, waiting for a chance to get out of the library.’

‘But then I came down. I recognised myself. To get Mrs Entwhistle’s book,’ explained Amanda.

‘And he was trapped. But he did leave eventually and unseen. Unfortunately the neighbours opposite or near the library, were either out or at the party.’

Amanda shook her head sorrowfully. ‘How dreadful to think of a book as a murder weapon.’

‘The most innocent of objects can be used to harm if applied with sufficient force in the right place.’

‘Especially if the