Page 18

Amelia sat alone in a specially assigned conference room on the third floor of the Hertfordshire Constabulary Headquarters. Although it was already late into the evening—nearly ten o’clock by her reckoning—she felt more awake than she had all day. A deep sense of purpose, tinged with urgency, kept her at her computer, eyes flicking across rows of digital spreadsheets. The station around her was mostly quiet at this hour. A few night-shift officers strolled the corridors or busied themselves at desks, but the constant bustle of daytime inquiries had long subsided.

The space she occupied had been turned into a war room dedicated to unraveling the perplexing “Monarch Club Killings.” The usual police desk clutter filled the corners: boxes of evidence waiting for cataloging, folders stuffed with forensic photos, and multiple flip charts scrawled with leads. But the primary focus was pinned neatly on the walls.

A large whiteboard stretched along the left side of the room, illuminated by harsh overhead fluorescents. On it, Amelia had taped photographs of Sir Richard Doyle and Geoffrey Wardlow. Each portrait had bright red sticky notes listing what the team knew about their backgrounds and last movements. Sir Richard’s note pointed to the Monarch Club’s opulent study, the site of his grisly stabbing. Wardlow’s note highlighted his quiet townhouse on the outskirts of London—also the scene of a mysterious, violent end. Above the photos hung a timeline of recent days: discovery of Sir Richard’s body, the subsequent forensics, Wardlow’s murder, and the mounting suspicion that a single killer was striking people connected to something going on at the club.

On another wall hung a large corkboard. There, pinned with color-coded tacks, were news clippings and small printed photos of The Monarch Club's imposing entrance. A few images showed the interior—rich wood paneling, velvet curtains, a grand staircase winding up to private rooms. Next to them, she'd stuck a map of Mayfair, highlighting the club's location and places where possible witnesses had spotted members coming or going. Bright lines of twine connected these pinned items, forming a rough web of who and what they needed to investigate.

A single desk lamp glowed on a side table. Amelia often found the overhead lights too harsh for late-night work, so she’d angled the lamp to throw a softer sphere of illumination across her computer screen. She sipped from a cardboard cup of coffee, grimacing at the bitterness. It tasted burnt and slightly stale, the unfortunate hallmark of station coffee that had been left on the burner too long.

Yet she barely noticed its flavor, entirely focused on the spreadsheets open before her. On the monitor, columns of names, bank statements, and highlighted amounts scrolled by in an Excel file. She was currently deep in Sir Richard Doyle’s financial history, courtesy of the niece’s permission. Amelia thought it fitting that the niece was now going to be the inheritor of the entire estate. Alongside the file, she’d also pulled up older notes on Geoffrey Wardlow’s debts. Her plan was to compare them side by side, scanning for any suspicious overlap. Her hunch was that money—and the discreet but powerful draw of gambling—united these two murder victims. After all, each of them had been found with a poker chip in or near their body. That was more than mere coincidence.

Despite her concentration, she remained attuned to footsteps in the hallway. Now and then, a shadow would pass the frosted glass window set into the door, but no one knocked—until she heard the distinctive shuffle of someone with a heavier tread. She glanced up as the door opened, and Rob stepped into the room. The day had clearly worn on him; his tie hung loose around his collar, and a slight slump in his shoulders betrayed the long hours they all were putting in.

“Hey, Chief,” Amelia said, saving her file with a click. “Thought you’d gone home for the night.”

He shook his head, shutting the door quietly behind him. “Finn just rang me,” he replied, crossing the room to join her at the long table. “He said he’s getting prepared for that midnight meet-up with Lady Pembroke over at The Monarch.”

Amelia leaned back in her chair, allowing herself a moment’s relief. “If anyone can handle this, it's Finn.”

She adjusted her posture, pushing away thoughts of potential danger. “And we’ll handle it, too, Chief. So much is riding on getting answers. And if the killer is part of what's going on there tonight, Finn might be the only one who can find out who they are.”

Rob nodded. “So what’re you working on now?” he asked, gesturing at her laptop screen. “Looks like bank statements?”

“Yes,” Amelia said, clicking on a separate tab. “Earlier, we found a suspicious pattern in Geoffrey Wardlow’s debts—he cleared two hundred thousand pounds in one day, back in March of 2003. That’s huge. Now I’m checking Sir Richard Doyle’s financials to see if there’s anything matching that unusual spike or drop.”

Leaning forward, Rob scanned the screen from across the table. The overhead fluorescent hummed as it cast a bright glare on the rows of data, but Amelia had grown used to it. “So you think the motive is just money, plain and simple?” he asked.

She shook her head. “Not exactly plain and simple. The presence of poker chips suggests the killer is making a statement about gambling. But yes, I do think money is central—maybe a personal vendetta. Someone lost big, or someone won big, and grudges formed.”

Rob’s brow furrowed thoughtfully. “Or it could be a symbolic warning, telling others not to take unnecessary risks or cross some invisible line. You know how criminal circles like to instill fear. Could be a demonstration kill—‘Look what happened to them when they didn’t follow the rules.’”

Amelia nodded, adjusting the scroll bar on her spreadsheet so she could examine Sir Richard’s transactions from years past. “It's possible... So, you’re thinking a possible warning to others within an organized crime ring? That means the killer might be higher up the chain than we assumed. The Monarch’s membership includes plenty of shady businessmen. We’d be naive to imagine none of them had dealings with money laundering or illegal gambling. Maybe one of them is behind these murders.”

Rob let out a low whistle. “The deeper we dig, the more it feels like we might uncover something massive—some illegal network operating straight out of one of the country's most prestigious private clubs.”

Before she could respond, Amelia’s eyes narrowed at a fresh figure on the screen. Her heart gave a small leap. “I knew it,” she said under her breath, a note of satisfaction creeping in.

Rob straightened in his seat. “What have you found?”

She highlighted a specific entry in the spreadsheet. “Geoffrey Wardlow had that two hundred thousand pound debt magically disappear on March 11th, 2003. He’d racked it up through various ups and downs, presumably from gambling. Then puff —all of it gone overnight.”

Rob nodded, “I recall you mentioning that.”

Amelia tapped the keyboard to bring up another window. This one displayed a set of bank transactions belonging to Sir Richard Doyle. “Now look at Sir Richard’s records. Two days after Wardlow’s big windfall, on March 13th, 2003, Sir Richard also cleared a significant debt—over ninety thousand pounds. Paid off in full, abruptly.”

Rob leaned in, reading the amounts. “So both men, within two days of each other, spontaneously paid off large debts?”

“That’s right.” Amelia pointed at the sequence of transactions on screen. “It’s too much to be coincidence. Sir Richard was also known to frequent card tables, though officially the Monarch Club forbids gambling. Privately, though, we know there are high-stakes games from what the waiter, Frederick, told us. Put that together with Wardlow’s gambling habits, and you’ve got two men who might have walked away from an extraordinary poker table with pockets full of money on the same night.”

Rob rubbed his jaw. “So maybe they both scored big in the same game. If it was hush-hush, it wouldn’t appear in any official record except as a sudden deposit or a ‘mysterious payoff.’ And that game took place right before March 11th, presumably. Could even have been on the 10th or 9th.”

Amelia steepled her fingers, her mind racing. “Yes. The thing is, we haven’t seen any other instance in their records matching that time frame—no other sudden influx for both men at the same time. So this event stands out as special. If it were just normal gambling, you’d expect fluctuation. But these numbers are huge, and they came in a single lump sum.”

“That means it was more than a typical night at the tables. Maybe it was a legendary high-stakes game,” Rob theorized. “One that only certain privileged players were invited to.”

Amelia thought of how Finn had spoken about a rumored secret card room behind an ornate library door at The Monarch. “Finn might find more clues about it. If the killer was also a participant, maybe they lost big, or got cheated. That could spawn a grudge that lasted years.”

Rob let out a long breath. “Exactly. A big loss can lead to big resentment.”

A slight beeping noise from the corridor made Amelia glance at the clock on the wall. Nearly half past ten. She realized that Finn would likely arrive at the club in about an hour or so, giving himself time to blend in before midnight. The notion of him walking into that environment, where a killer might still roam the halls, made her chest tighten. She sat straighter, determined to keep her professional cool.

Rob set the pen down. “We should check if any other Monarch Club regulars had a similar spike or paid off a big chunk around the same date, right?”

Amelia turned to her laptop again, opening a new search field. “I’ll reach out to a contact at the Financial Crimes division. See if we can discreetly request records of a few more key members—James Rutherford, Lady Pembroke, others from the membership list. We won’t name them as suspects yet, just see if any pattern emerges around March 2003.”

She typed rapidly, drafting an email. The computer’s fan whirred as it processed multiple windows of data. The hush of the station enveloped them again. A phone rang two offices down, followed by muffled voices, reminding Amelia how quiet her own space was.

Amelia allowed a small flicker of optimism. “Finn’s good at coaxing secrets out of people without them realizing. He’ll ask the right questions, make it sound casual. If that game was as monumental as these numbers suggest, it wouldn’t have disappeared from memory. We should let him know about this as a lead.”

“Agreed,” Rob said. “And once we verify the who and how, we can piece together who might hold a grudge for two decades. The motive might revolve around more than money—maybe there was betrayal, blackmail, or an accusation of cheating.”

Amelia tapped her pen on the keyboard, feeling the swirl of possibilities. “Still, the two murders we’ve seen so far are so personal, so violent. It’s not just a bullet to the head or a poisoning—it’s multiple stab wounds, a twisted wrist motion in the cuts, and a poker chip stuffed in or near the mouth. That kind of brutality suggests a personal vendetta.”

Rob gave a grave nod. “That or someone wanting to instill maximum terror in their victims.”

A brief silence settled over them. Amelia’s eyes flicked to the photos pinned on the board: Sir Richard, austere in his club portrait, and Geoffrey Wardlow, smiling in a typical corporate head shot. The addition of bright red texts reading “MURDER VICTIM” in bold letters made a jarring contrast. They’d both ended their lives in gruesome circumstances for reasons not yet fully understood.

At last, she stood from her chair, stretching the stiffness from her shoulders. “I’m going to keep digging for a bit, see if any other major players at The Monarch had suspicious financial transactions around March 2003. You’ll likely head home soon?”

"Probably, yeah. I'll coordinate with the night desk, see if we can get a small team prepped in case Finn needs backup on short notice," Rob said. Then he paused, studying her face. "What about you, Winters? Are you going to be okay staying here alone? I know this Wendell Reed escaping business is a worry."

She managed a smile that tried to convey more calm than she felt. “I’ll be fine. I prefer to keep busy. And if Wendell Reed is out there somewhere with a grudge, I doubt he’ll come waltzing into HQ to get me.”

Rob’s expression shadowed briefly at the mention of Wendell Reed, the escaped killer who had once nearly strangled Amelia. “Right. I wouldn’t put anything past him, but the station is secure.”

"I know." She paused, pursing her lips. "Let's just say I'd like to solve these Monarch murders before that psycho tries anything. One crisis at a time, right?"

He patted her shoulder, then moved to the door. “Keep me posted. If you find any more patterns, I want to know. Good luck, Winters.”

“Good night, Chief.”

Once he left, Amelia resumed her seat, staring at the overlapping timelines on the whiteboard. She grabbed her coffee but felt her head spin a little. She needed to take a break, perhaps even call it a night. Amelia shut the laptop, her reflection briefly visible in the dark screen—a mix of tired eyes and grim determination. She paused, looking at the board one more time, specifically at the date reference: March 11th, 2003. That single line of text seemed to shimmer with importance. She could practically hear Finn’s voice speculating about clandestine card rooms, how these men might have bragged about the day they scored big. A near-literal jackpot that spelled their doom years later.

At last, she turned off the desk lamp, letting the overhead fluorescents remain as her guiding light. She collected her half-empty coffee cup, intending to toss it on her way out, then spoke in a low tone to no one:

“I hope you know what you're doing, Finn.”