Page 21 of The Vampire and the Case of the Hellacious Hag

‘And you are?’ I asked.

‘Delvin Simonson,’ he grunted. ‘Alfgar’s cousin. And now I can’t burn him or sing his song.’ His voice warbled with emotion. ‘It’s not right. We should burnherand her damned den!’

‘We need to recover the heads first so that they may be laid to rest whole,’ the elderly dwarf said sagely. His back was bowed, his dark brown beard mottled with grey, and he was leaning on a gnarled stick. He was eyeing Fluffy with concern, as were his companions. Cat people, then.

‘And you are?’ I asked.

‘This is Baldred Simonson, our most honourable and venerated elder,’ Delvin explained a shade haughtily.

Baldred patted his hand gently. ‘I can introduce myself, son.’

‘Alfgar is your nephew?’ Sidnee asked.

‘Indeed.’ Baldred sighed and tugged his dark beard. ‘It is a sad day.’

‘We’re sorry to intrude on your grief,’ I offered.

‘And yet you do it all the same,’ Leif snapped.

‘Justice waits for no one,’ Gunnar said mildly. ‘The killer could be anyone, that’s why we must investigate. Now, is there any reason someone would want you to shut down?’

‘Yeah,’ Leif retorted. ‘The hag. She wants us out.’

I grimaced; Leif was a broken record and I didn’t think he was right. Matilda had wanted them to stay out of certain areas and she’d seemed more than happy to have some daily doughnuts. She hadn’t seemed in a hurry to get rid of the dwarves.

Gunnar sighed. ‘Anyone else?’

Leif glared at him. ‘We know who did this and we know why. She thinks she can intimidate us into leaving, and with some factions that will work.’

‘Some counsel leaving the mine,’ Baldred agreed. ‘The heads being stolen has stirred up much bad feeling over the last year.’

I frowned. ‘The heads being stolen is a recent thing?’ Matilda had quite a collection in her cave; if the dwarves were long lived, she couldn't have taken that many skulls in the last year.

Delvin nodded. ‘It is wrong! Three have passed and had their heads taken before the proper burning. And now this is four – and it is Alfgar, no less.’ He shook his head sadly as he turned to his father. ‘We cannot let his soul wander lost.’

Baldred patted his arm again. ‘All will be well. We will talk when we are alone.’ He looked pointedly at us.

I cleared my throat and tried to return to the matter in hand. ‘When I spoke to the hag, she mentioned there was an odd smell around the same time the inspector died. Have you noticed any gas? Has anyone else complained of strange smells?’

Leif’s jaw tightened; he obviously didn’t want to answer but Baldred jerked his head, telling him to do so. ‘There is no poisonous gas in this mine,’ he said finally.

I knew nothing about chromite mining, so I couldn’t argue. ‘But did anyone report a strange smell?’

‘Yes, a couple of miners did,’ Leif admitted. ‘We sent in a testing device but it showed nothing.’

Maybe it had been a coincidence, a weird pocket of something that smelled bad that had since dissipated. Evenso, I looked at Thomas, Liv and Calliope. ‘We’ll need a copy of that report.’

Leif threw up his hands in frustration. ‘Why are you wasting our time? It’s thehag.’

‘I’m sorry, Leif, but we have to investigate,’ Gunnar said. ‘We can't accuse anyone withoutevidence.As well as the report, we’ll need a list of all workers in this section at the time of death, as well as anyone else that had access to this area.’

Leif looked to Baldred who nodded, before replying huffily, ‘Fine. I’ll email you.’ He yanked on his long beard angrily.

Since Baldred was being agreeable, maybe I could make one more little push. ‘We need to examine the body. The small amount of blood by the missing head suggests it could have been removed immediately after death, but we can’t assume that decapitation was the cause of death. The pool of blood is too small and there’s no arterial spray. I need to examine the body.’

Delvin grunted, ‘Examine it, if you must, but Alfgar stays here under dwarf supervision.’

‘Could we take him to a better-lit place like the locker room?’

---