The Midnight Caller

3. The Chief Constable

It was four in the morning when Gabriel set to seek out the former Chief Constable the next day.

Gabriel had never been an early-riser. Quite the opposite, in fact. He liked to spend his days lounging in bed and nights poring over case files with an occasional visit to his cramped kitchen for a quick late-night snack. He always thought himself akin to a rodent of some sort, scouring the cabinets for stale, softened biscuits wholly unfit for human consumption.

Gabriel let out a yawn as his new assistant skipped beside him without a trace of sleepiness. He felt a pang of jealousy. He had spent most of the previous night waiting for his midnight caller, and listening to Devin's grievances about his female friends for the rest of it. Gabriel couldn't deny that he sometimes felt an urgent need to dispose of his friend, perhaps by employing the methods of Mr Reeds, but the fact that he was supposed to be on the right side of the law posed an unfortunate obstacle in his way.

"What are you thinking about, Mr Bedford? You're awfully distracted today," he heard his unnecessarily cheery assistant speak. He refrained from answering that he had been thinking about committing murder (he vaguely remembered she came from the ranks) and chose the course of ignoring her.

Charlotte, however, wasn't one to be dissuaded. "It was incredible- how you traced Mr Reed and got the Chief Constable's address from him. I hadn't even imagined Mr Reed might be linked to it." Gabriel's pride swelled a little at the praise. But he seemed to have severely underestimated his assistant's ability to talk and make others talk. "How did you know?"

He sighed. "It was clear from the very beginning that Johnson never died," he said.

"It was?" she asked doubtfully. He looked at her reproachfully.

"It was," he stated firmly. "At any rate, it was naturally suspicious that the fire seemed to have done next to no damage to the rest of the building but conveniently killed the Chief Constable besides burning the neighbour's apartment, who coincidentally happened to be out. That gave rise to two possibilities- either he had played a lone hand, which would have been a pain, no doubt, or he had the help of the good Mr Reed, which would have made everything infinitely easier. As a matter of fact, I'm inclined to believe he must have helped the Chief Constable escape."

"But it seems so unnecessary," she protested.

"Does it?" he mused. "Have you looked at the death of his colleague before him? And the one after? The officials linked with the case were clearly being hunted down for some reason-"

"Revenge?" she suggested. Gabriel was thoroughly annoyed at being interrupted.

"Hardly," he said drily. "I suspect they were being silenced," he added slowly. "Johnson predicted this and went into hiding, faking his death to make it look like an accident. It seems to have worked, since he's clearly alive and the rest...are not."

"You think they were murdered?" Charlotte seemed startled at the suggestion. Gabriel sighed. Why else had she thought they were sniffing around dead officials?

"I am positive they were," he asserted.

"I see." she went quiet. Gabriel hoped it would be the end of the conversation, but Charlotte's curiosity was far from satisfied. "But I do think the assumption about Mr Reed was a bit of a stretch."

"Not at all," Gabriel was amazed at her ability to completely ignore the obvious. "Why else would he move away right after with no way to trace him? Had we not had access to the records, we wouldn't have found him at all."

"But why would you think one of the officials wasn't dead?" she persisted. "You seemed so fixated on the idea to begin with, although you didn't even know who it was."