Silence Breaking (Storm and Silence 4)

I tried to look at Mr Ambrose, tried to read his face - but I found I couldn’t. I could not look into those deep, dark, sea-coloured eyes, or I would lose myself in them. And even if I did…that would not help me decipher his words. His face would be a mask, unreadable as stone.

What was he talking about? Why had he done this to Captain Carter? He couldn’t possibly mean that because he had seen Captain Carter on one knee beside me, he had assumed…that he was feeling…that he had done all this because he was…

No.

That wasn’t possible.

I tried to look up again, but still found I could not meet his gaze. Instead, my eyes flitted across his desk, searching desperately for anything innocent to cling to.

And they found something.

At first sight, the slim black folder looked quite innocent. It was just a folded piece of cardboard, after all, not even in a very interesting colour. But then my eyes snagged on the letters printed on it: J.C. from L.L. Waste Disposal.

Strange, I wondered, staring at the letters. JC. What a funny coincidence. Those are the initials of Captain Carter. James Carter. What a funny coincidence indeed to find that on Mr Ambrose’s desk and-

My thoughts screeched to a halt.

Coincidence?

How likely was it that the words ‘coincidence’ and ‘Ambrose’ would appear in the same sentence?

Suddenly, something made click in my head, and I remembered. I remembered it all, and for the first time, I understood.

Slowly, very slowly, I raised my gaze to meet the arctic eyes of Mr Rikkard Ambrose.

‘No,’ I whispered. ‘Tell me you didn’t.’

‘I didn’t,’ he told me without the slightest hesitation. ‘Now, what exactly is it that you are referring to this time, Mr Linton?’

‘That file!’ I slammed my hand onto the desk. ‘I’ve seen others like it before!’

He cocked his head, as if he had no idea what I was talking about, the cheeky bastard! ‘Indeed?’

‘I saw one on your desk the day before Lieutenant Ellingham disappeared!’

‘Is that so?’

‘You remember Lieutenant Ellingham, don’t you Sir? My suitor?’

His face was perfectly impassive. It didn’t give away a thing, and had upped its refund demands to six hundred pounds sixty-seven shillings.

‘Now that you mention it, Mr Linton, I do seem to remember something of the kind.’

‘And then I saw one like it again!’

‘Indeed?’

‘Oh yes, indeed! The very day before Morty vanished from the face of the earth!’

‘Morty who?’

‘Morton Marmeduke Fitzgerald - my other suitor.’

‘My, my, Mr Linton. You do seem to be in high demand.’

‘Apparently.’ Breathing hard, I clenched my fists. One of them curled around the black folder on the desk. ‘Yet somehow, my suitors always seem to disappear into thin air at the very last moment.’

Mr Ambrose’s face had upped its refund demands to at least a thousand pounds, plus interest.