New Scotland Yard, Westminster, London
Thursday, the 4th July
4:50 p.m.
*

"What did you do after you found the body in the pool?" asked the second detective that had been strangely quiet for a while. Though he could have saved Keith the trouble of asking that.

"We of course tried to get him out," Keith retorted with an eye roll. "We suspected he was dead, but we needed to be sure, so I went in and fished him out."

The first detective eyes narrowed and Keith wondered what he was suspecting again. "But he was already dead," he said sounding nearly too casually. 

Keith only nodded as the detective took another note. Making him wonder how much the guy had already written down in his notebook. 

"And you didn't know him?"

"I had never seen the guy before, which relieved me as much as it upset me to be honest."

His eyes were narrowed again. "Because you had no idea what was going on?"

"Exactly nor what we were supposed to do now. Charlie and I decided to go back to the living room and speak with the others first before doing something else. I mean at that point we didn't have any clue what was going on, for all we knew the man could have just got lost in the storm and ended up in the pool on accident..."

"So you left the body next to the pool and went back in?"

Keith nodded. 

*

Cotchford farm, Hartfield, East Sussex.
Tuesday, the 2nd July
9.30 p.m
*

The living room was brightly illuminated, though the atmosphere still was rather gloomy. Anna and Janet were still sitting were Charlie and Keith had left them, but now at least Mick was sitting next to them too. Frank was checking out the food and for a moment Keith nearly thought everything would finally work out, despite that he and Charlie had just found a dead body and he was wet to the bones. To be fair Charlie was as wet as him without having been in the pool, which wasn't really a comfort... A towel instead would have been nice. Keith was shivering, hopefully only because of the cold and not because of any worrisome thoughts in the back of his head, he might have.

He tried to tell himself that it could have only been an accident, there was no reason to suspect anything else. Still Keith couldn't shake the unwell feeling off, it was too odd to be luck or whatever you called it in this case, but why should a dead stranger mean anything to them? It might sound harsh, but if somebody really wanted to scare them wouldn't be killing one of them be far more effective than somebody they didn't know? Though Keith was sure this could only be an accident, the others needed to hear about it... Just as he was about to open his mouth, Mick interrupted him.

"Charlie? Didn't you go with Keylock?" 

"I-I lost him..." The drummer mumbled and was slightly shaking. Keith couldn't blame him, he certainly needed a drink after this too to calm down.  

"And Miss Jones still hasn't appeared as well? Fucking great," The singer complained. "How difficult can it be to find a girl. The house is not that big-"

"Shut up!" Keith interrupted him. Under different circumstances he might have been more tolerant of the singer, but he just couldn't stand him for the moment. "We can always look for them later! We-" He stopped, he had no idea how he was supposed to tell the others... And decided it probably was the best to be as direct as possible. "We found a fucking dead body in the pool."

Both Janet and Anna could be heard gasping.

"No..."mumbled Mick. "Who?"

"We don't know... Maybe he got lost in the storm and I don't know... Fuck." Keith said and lid a cigarette with shaky hands. "This is so fucked up..."

"We need to do something..." Charlie nearly whispered. 

Nobody said anything though, Charlie was right but what were they supposed to do? They couldn't call help nor the police. Keith nearly snorted at the irony that he wanted the police to be here. Apparently they did have some other uses beside annoying him.... He shock his head, there was enough time to laugh about this whole affair after it was over. There had to be a possibility to do something, he thought, they couldn't leave because of the weather and the telephone wasn't working. It seemed pointless, but there had to be a different way beside that they had to wait for the driver to return... There was only one person that could have known about a different option though and she was currently missing.

"We need to find Miss Jones," Keith declared to several confused pairs of eyes. "She might know how we can call help or leave... She's our only chance if we don't want to wait until midnight."

"I'm not leaving this room... I'll wait here," Anna immediately said, which was followed from a nod from Janet and a 'me too'. Keith hadn't really counted on the girls to help him anyway, but beside them there were 3 other people in the room that very well could help him search the house. At least the lights were back on, so it shouldn't be too hard this time around. 

"We should split up again. Two of us could look one the ground floor and the other two could go upstairs..." Frank said. Keith couldn't remember that he spoke so little in the past, but maybe his silence was only linked to the location they were currently at, a sign of guilt perhaps? Keith had been suspicious of Frank since he had heard about Brian's death, but Tom had made sure there wasn't any trace left and so it was hard to tell anymore, who really was to blame. The cat should have just stayed out of it and everyone's life would have been a lot easier. 

"I go with Charlie this time!" Mick exclaimed loudly and made Keith momentarily wonder how old the singer thought he was... 5? He sighed, it didn't matter anyway, he just wanted to find Miss Jones and get the fuck away from here, even if that meant he had to team up with Frank.

"Fine..." he mumbled. "But you look upstairs."

On the ground floor weren't that many rooms left they needed to check, but the singer deserved a bit of punishment after stealing Charlie as a partner from him. Grumbling he accepted and for a second time this evening they split up and wandered through Brian's old house. 

The interior had changed a lot. There were still traces of Brian, but overall the house felt different, for which Keith was thankful. He probably had been reminded about the multi-instrumentalist enough today to last a whole life time. He seriously could only hope they would find Miss Jones and got away.

Frank and Keith searched the rooms in silence, neither of them had anything to say to the other and though the silence had something awkward and ominous about it, it sill was better than some other noises Keith had heard today. Miss Jones scream was still fresh on his mind and he seriously hoped nobody had killed or even injured her. The kitchen and living room were empty- they didn't find any trace at all, which was to be expected, considering Miss Jones had gone upstairs to check on Mr Lewis- who he nearly had forgotten all about, as had everyone else apparently as well it seemed. Where was he, Keith wondered as suddenly a dreadful idea appeared in his mind. He couldn't be the man, they had found in the swimming pool, could he?

Keith trembled. Of course it was only a possibility, but the more he thought about it, the more likely it sounded. There was only one thing he couldn't understand, how had he ended up in the pool? If Mr. Lewis had indeed found something out about Brian's death, why had they found him in the pool and not in his room? Except if somebody had staged this and had wanted them to find him there for whatever reason... It sounded like something out of a shitty crime novel and just couldn't be true, he told himself, but the unwell feeling in his stomach stayed as he and Frank went back to the living room.

Janet and Anna were drinking a bit of wine and though both still seemed on edge, they looked a bit calmer now. Alcohol definitely had his uses, Keith thought and purred himself a new glass too. He deserved it, even if there still was a nagging voice at the back of his head, repeating one single question over and over.  Do you really want to be drunk if there is a murderer on the loose?

The wine tasted bitter. 

"So you didn't find-"

Anew a scream interrupted Janet and the anxiety was back in both girls eyes. This time Keith had no problem identifying the person though, he had heard the voice far too often in his life. 

It was Mick.

Thank you for reading, voting and commenting!<3<3<3

P.S. I'm trying to update this story a bit more often, (at least I try too) because there are about 5 chapters left (which mostly already exist as drafts) and I'd like to finish it, because well I'm writing a new story and I'd like to focus more on that. It's called 'No expectations' and reads, votes and comments would mean a lot. xxx