The Toast of the Town (Fox & Oakby Murder Mysteries Book III)

Imogen's Pillar of Strength

Feel free to listen to NoDoubt 'Just a Girl' as the soundtrack to this chapter ;)

***

Imogen silenced her phone, pressed it to her chest again, and held her breath. She hadn't been wrong, the noises were indeed getting closer. Someone was stealthily walking through the rooms of the Oakby Manor.

And then the door to the study opened with a tiny squeak, and Imogen sank her teeth into her bottom lip.

Imogen was never fond of horror films for this exact reason - she simply hated suspense. Unfortunately, there was no way to fast forward or turn off this scene. She was suddenly seized by the oddest, most illogical desire to peek through the crack between the curtains. There would be enough light streaming from the library into the Titan's home office for Imogen to be able to see at least the general form of the intruder.

At that moment the lights of an approaching car hit the window behind Imogen. She slowly turned her head and tried to glimpse outside, but her window was too high, and the car was now too close to the building for her to be able to see it.

The person in the room moved sharply, although still almost inaudibly - and the drape in front of Imogen wavered. She clutched her phone more tightly.

A hand in a glove sneaked between the curtains, widened the crack a bit, and the person on the other side shifted. Imogen realised they were trying to look at the car as well.

And then the person was gone.

Their hurried steps echoed, first, out of the room, then the heavy door of the library creaked, and Imogen heard a quiet short command, uttered somewhere near the grand staircase. Imogen released a shaky exhale and listened. The intruders seemed to be moving upstairs now, and she assumed they had climbing ropes in one of the windows on the first floor, just as they had had in the Holyoake cottage.

She could make a dash for it, she thought: through the library, into the hall, and then through a narrow ante room, to the entrance door. On the other hand, it was probably safer just to stay where she was and wait for the burglars to leave, or for the police to arrive.

She asked herself why Viola, if it were indeed her in the car, hadn't rung the doorbell or knocked. Wouldn't that spook the intruders and make them leave? 

The next few events happened so quickly that later Imogen wouldn't be able to tell their order exactly. Something loudly banged downstairs, someone rushed into the study, the curtain was jerked aside - and Imogen was dragged down from the sill, onto the floor, and into the centre of the room, a large strong hand crushing her upper arm.

Imogen instinctively floundered and struggled - and the person grasping her slapped her across her face. Imogen made a strangled pained noise. The man - and the person was definitely male - barked something at her. There was a swearing and some demand, but she was so shocked and somehow almost blinded by the pain in the side of her face, that she didn't understand a word.

He jerked her after him and as much as hauled her into the library and then through the second door, into the hall at the bottom of the staircase. All lights were off, and rectangles of moonlight lay on the Titan's famed parquet floor.

Another figure stepped out of the shadows and hissed something at Imogen's captor in a foreign language. Once again, Imogen felt too muddled to guess what it was.

"Hey!"

Imogen jerked her face up and stared at Viola Holyoake who stood on the top of the staircase. Her feet were set wide, in a confident power stance, and there was some long thin stick, firmly held in her outstretched right hand, at forty five degree angle to her leg.